NBA Playoffs 2017: 5 things we learned from the Rockets beating the Thunder

By Luke Norris | Apr 26, 2017

Apr 25, 2017; Houston, TX, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook (0) dribbles against Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) in the first quarter in game five of the first round of the 2017 NBA Playoffs at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY Sports /

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Apr 25, 2017; Houston, TX, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder forward Andre Roberson (21) looks at the clock late in the fourth quarter in game five against the Houston Rockets of the first round of the 2017 NBA Playoffs at Toyota Center. Houston Rockets won 105 to 99 .Mandatory Credit: Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY Sports /

3. The Thunder were too inconsistent

With James Harden and company, you usually know what to expect. Harden is going to get his, the bench is going to come up big and they’re going to shoot…a lot. But throughout this series, you just never knew what Thunder team was going to show up. You knew what you’re going to get from Russell Westbrook. That’s a given. He’s going to be somewhere around a triple-double and teams just have to deal with that. The problem is that you just never know what to expect from everybody else. Are they going to play aggressively? Are they going to just stand around and watch Westbrook? Inconsistency was the biggest problem for Oklahoma City these past five games and it cost them a shot at moving on.

They would get out to a blistering start at the beginning of just about every game in this series but could never maintain. Taj Gibson would get hot and would then just disappear. The only full game he really played was Game 4. Steven Adams was a big key coming in for the Thunder but he also had just one really solid game. Victor Oladipo got hot in spurts but overall, he was a non-factor and Doug McDermott never got the chance to get going. Enes Kanter didn’t get the type of minutes that he got in the regular season and didn’t contribute much when he was in there. The only two players that stood out besides Westbrook were Andre Roberson, who was a nice surprise on the offensive end outside of the free throw situation.

And it wasn’t just the individual players who had problems with consistency, it was the team as a whole. So often in this series, Oklahoma City looked like a team that could run Houston out of the building but then they would just back off and let Houston right back into it. They played the full 48 minutes one time in five games and that was Game 3, the game they won. The last four games were close throughout and if they could have maintained any sort of consistency, they’d still be playing this season.

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