April 20, 2018

Thunder's Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony went 0-for-14 in Game 2 fourth quarter

The Utah Jazz returned to Chesapeake Energy Arena and took care of the Thunder in Game 2, coming back from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to even the series at 1-1. Donovan Mitchell, who was questionable for the game due to a foot injury, ended up starting, and he came up big for Utah, pouring in 28 points.To get more basketball news, you can visit shine news official website.

More impressive: Mitchell outscored the Thunder’s «Big Three» by a 13-2 margin in the final quarter.

Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony simply could not buy a bucket in the fourth quarter, as they combined to go 0-for-14 from the field. Two free throws by Westbrook were the only points they put up in the frame. Understandably, that wasn’t good enough. You just aren’t going to win many games — especially playoff games — when your three best scorers shoot that poorly down the stretch.

To be fair, some of those shots were heaves in the final minute as the Thunder tried in vain to make a miraculous comeback, but most of the credit here goes to Utah’s defense. Ricky Rubio, especially, was impactful.

Watch as he holds his ground against Westbrook in the post, forcing the reigning MVP into a tough fadeaway. For the game, the Thunder Big Three combined to shoot 19 of 58 from the field, which is good for 32.7 percent. OKC is going to need better performances from Westbrook and George in particular if they want to steal a game in Utah and take back homecourt.

But if the Jazz are able to play defense like they did down the stretch of Game 2, that’s going to be a tough task. Midway through the third quarter, Korver made another significant play in transition. With lightning-fast Indiana star Victor Oladipo pushing the ball, Korver came out of nowhere to get his hand on a pass to Darren Collison. He then dove to the floor to recover the loose ball, allowing the Cavs to call a timeout. The Pacers had scored the last six points of the game, but the Korver-forced turnover put a stop to their momentum:Korver’s most timely play, however, came in crunch time. With about 90 seconds left in the game and Cleveland leading by six points, the swingman switched a pick-and-roll and found himself matched up with Indiana’s Myles Turner. The center immediately went to the block, hoping to exploit the mismatch, and sure enough, a pass came his way. Turner tried to go to work, but Korver refused to give up any ground, forcing him into an attempted stepback jumper that he couldn’t even get off. As soon as Turner exposed the ball, Korver swiped downwards and forced a turnover:

Posted by: shinenewstop at 04:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 475 words, total size 3 kb.




What colour is a green orange?




14kb generated in CPU 0.0078, elapsed 0.0661 seconds.
35 queries taking 0.0606 seconds, 77 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.