OKC Thunder lay an egg in Game 5: player grades

Harden is the NBA scoring champ so he’s going to have his moments. Where the Thunder and Dort went wrong was allowing Dort to keep shooting from deep. He was 0 of 8 from behind the arc on wide-open 3-pointers in the first half and took 12 shots — far too many.

When he took his first rest break the Thunder coaches must’ve talked to him about cutting and driving as his other four shots came in the paint where he went 2 of 4.

By night’s end, he had taken 16 shots and finished with more points (six) than each of Gallo and SGA. Still, the Thunder coaches have some work to do with Dort and the team regarding the offense to make the proper tweaks prior to Game 6.

Overall, Dort will have nights when he connects and I wouldn’t bet against him developing that perimeter shot this offseason and improve his ballhandling. For the moment there isn’t time to fix everything.

Something to cling to, however, is this is the same kid who prepped for games on his own because he couldn’t practice with the team since it would count toward his 45 days of two-way varsity availability.

Plus, we have to remember he’s a rookie defending James Harden and he’s won more of the battles than he’s lost to date.

Regardless, this is a young man who has demonstrated the ability to learn quickly and is prideful. He’ll spend time on the practice court getting up shots and with the coaches to figure out how to best deal with the offense.

Donovan should work on some playsets where his teammates are driving and cutting or he drives into the heart of the paint and either dunks or kicks the ball out to the perimeter when the Rockets defense rotates to him.

Something seems amiss with Gallo who isn’t having his typical effect and was seemingly out of rhythm for the second game running.

Yet, this performance was an outlier for Gallo who failed to produce double-digit scoring for only the third time this season. The other two occasions included the last seeding game when he only graced the court for 8:52. He finished with his lowest point accumulation this season scoring a single point which came at the free-throw line as he missed all five shots adding six rebounds and a steal.

He also uncharacteristically turned the ball over four times.

It’s going to be very difficult for the Thunder to win games if Gallo isn’t scoring and he needs to get more than five shot attempts.

By the half, Steven Adams had eight points and 11 rebounds. Countless occasions he was facing three or four Rockets players alone in the paint and still got the rebound. By night’s end, he had produced a double-double of 12 points and 14 rebounds on 6 of 8 shooting.

This isn’t an ideal matchup for the Big Kiwi but at least if Donovan is going to have him out on the court the Thunder has to make the Rockets pay by going inside more and letting him get as Shaq would say his BBQ chicken.

On a night when no one could score he was one of the few Thunder players who could hit shots and perhaps the team should’ve gone to him more.