The Thunder Made Edwards RETHINK His Life Choices...

Описание: In a ruthless display of defensive suffocation, OKC left Edwards rethinking his life choices…
Let’s see how they were able to lockdown both ANT and Randle for a 2nd consecutive game, but we gotta start from the beginning. The Thunder came prepared and eager in game 5 to finish the job as quickly as possible. Chet Holmgren opened the game strong on the offensive end, but the real recipe for success for OKC was their smothering defense on ANT and Randle, so they put their plan in motion. Look at Dort picking up Edwards from way out here, and then Hartenstein comes in to double him on halfcourt! Ant gets rid of the ball, and Chet does a great job by staying inside just enough for Isaiah to recover and then gets to McDaniels with ease, who penetrates and sees 2 towers in front him, so he passes in the corner but Williams is there to contest the shot and force the miss. ANT was locked in the Dort chamber right from the start. He couldn’t see any daylight whatsoever, and the Thunder were happy to play 4 on 4 with Conley as the primary ballhandler. Lu was face-guarding Edwards every time down the court. His only focus was to not let him touch the ball. And as I said, the old Mike was a total non-factor in this series. With Randle, they had a different approach. They would let him get the ball, but once he’s about to get in a position to score, the help defender would swoop in to disrupt his intention. Although ANT was able to sneak inside a couple of times and finish through traffic, that was it. This right here is the 3rd and last field goal made for the entire 1st quarter. For the entire team. The Wolves shot just 3 of 20 from the field. Wait, what? That’s right. They had 2 separate 5 minute droughts without a single bucket in a 12 minute stretch. That’s abysmal. OKC allowed them just 9 points in the opening period, marking the fewest for Minnesota in their playoff history. On the other end, the MVP had his team on cruise control because… The Thunderstorm was in full swing, and SGA was acting like Zeus. He scored or assisted on 24 of OKC’s 26 points in the 1st quarter. Cason Wallace beats the buzzer to send the crowd into a frenzy. But what followed in the 2nd quarter was a complete annihilation.
Caruso fires up the crowd even more by doing some pushups after the hard foul by Reid. And they continued to harass Randle on the defensive end. Defense to offense, this thing could be over any minute now. And while Edwards was still sweating in the Dort chamber…
The Thunder were firing on all cylinders. I really don’t know how ANT was able to find his way between multiple defenders to hit Randle in the corner, but it didn’t matter. Nothing was falling for them. The Wolves duo with another disastrous 1st half of 17 points combined on 6 of 17 from the field. That’s around 35% which is not that awful cuz we’ve seen worse. But the limited number of shots and ball touches is what makes the game unbearable for them. The usage rate is down significantly for both guys compared to the previous 2 rounds. From 29 to 25% for Edwards, and from 27 to 22% for Randle. And the turnovers kept piling up. Get this. The Thunder forced Minnesota into committing a season high - 14 turnovers in the 1st half, opposed to just 12 field goals they were able to make in that span. That’s just ridiculous. All of that led to a dominant 33 point advantage for OKC at the break. Unbelievable. Throughout the series, the Wolves committed 27 more turnovers than the Thunder, which led to them being outscored by 25 points on fast breaks. This wasn’t a contest at any point. At full strength, OKC left no doubt who the better team was, ambushing the Wolves with relentless intensity and storming their way to the NBA Finals. And the fans gave their starters a proper ovation before getting subbed out of the game. It’s a celebration in the arena as the crowd starts singing a famous chorus.