Quarter by Quarter observations

First Quarter

 The Thunder are getting loose with the ball, first Westbrook leaves his feet and tries to make a pass, now Durant tries to throw a cross court pass which Wade picks off. This Heat team loves to pick off passes so you have to take care of the ball and make sure your passing lanes are clear, right now the Thunder are not doing that.

Wade took advantage of the screen to beat Thabo to the baseline, Next trip down Krstic did a much better job denying the baseline and Wade had to pass out. Thabo is all over the place helping on defense.  It is amazing how much he can help off Wade and still get back into position to challenge on Wade.

The Thunder are still having issues with transition defense, it was really noticeable against Houston and the Heat just took advantage of it. I don't know how you lose Wade in transition but Thabo got caught under the Heat basket and no one picked up Wade.

The Durantula had a nice first quarter 5-7 from the field 4-4 from the line and 5 rebounds. Also having a nice first quarter Thabo Sefolosha 3 rebounds 2 assists and held Wade to 2-7 from the field.

Score to end the Quarter 25-17 Thunder

Second Quarter

Jeff Green drives the lane and gets the ball to Etan Thomas under the basket, Green made a good decision there to dish the ball as the defense collapsed.

The Thunder are playing good team defense so far in the quarter, with Wade on the bench it has been a struggle for the Heat to get quality shots. They have tried to get the ball down low to Jermaine O'Neal but Etan Thomas has been right there to contest the shot. Between Nick Collison and Etan Thomas there is a lot of versatility down low for the Thunder right now, both are really power forwards that are used as centers so they can and have guarded both positions so switching on defense is not a real issue.

Wade is struggling from the line right now Miami actually has missed more free throws than they have made. The Heat are 5-11 from charity with Wade (1-4) and Chalmers (1-3) being the main culprits.

Ibaka comes in for Krstic and immediately fouls O'Neal on the inbounds.

Westbrook gets whistled for the charge foul on Chalmers flop and then O'Neal grabs and pushes him. Westbrook did get a body on Chalmers but it wasn't a hard foul by any stretch of the imagination but I guess O'Neal felt the need to be a jerk and try to intimidate Westbrook since he is currently on the losing side. Then Westbrook and O'Neal both get technical fouls, I can only hope this comes back to bite Jermaine O'Neal in the butt cause that was a pretty thuggish loser move.

Score to finish the half 45-42 Thunder

Half 

If the Thunder want to win they will need to keep up the hot shooting, for the half they shot almost 48% from the field. Wade was largely held in check the first quarter but starting driving the ball in the second to get to the line and after a slow start has hit his last seven free throws. After leading most of the game in rebounds the Heat got active on the glass in the last half of the second quarter, they now lead the Thunder 23-21 total and 7-3 on offense. To win the Thunder need to make an adjustment on defense to prevent Wade from getting into the lane and getting fouled and need to get active on the glass. After playing the first 18 minutes of the game with great intensity the Thunder fell off quite a bit both on offense and defense the last 6 minutes or so of the second quarter. Another interesting game, can the Thunder hold on to a lead on the road against a quality opponent.

Third Quarter

 The Thunder have come out with some good intensity so far. They forced the Heat into two really bad air balls. Then Thabo gets the steal and dunk if they could get some shots to fall they could build a lead. The active hands of the Thunder are bothering the Heat and forcing turnovers.

Westbrook gets the ball back after a frantic series of shots and rebounds and what does he do. He takes the ball out and settles the team down. That is a great sign for the maturation of Westbrook the point guard, he could feel the situation getting out of control and rather than try to hoist a shot or drive to the basket he backs it out and settles down the team to get a good shot. I was worried that after the Jermaine O'Neal incident Westbrook might get out of control but he has played under control and got good looks for his team.

Someone needs to tell Westbrook that Wade is a shot blocker. He has in short order gotten two blocks on Westbrook's pull up jumpers after he drives past him.

The Thunder are getting active on the glass for the quarter they have out rebounded the Heat 10-5 so far and are building a lead off the second chances and defensive stops.

Carlos Arroyo < Russell Westbrook, on offense he can't get away from him on defense he can't stop him. Chalmers has been very good against Westbrook but when he leaves and Arroyo comes in it's a huge mismatch in Westbrook's favor, and we are seeing the Thunder take advantage of it, Westbrook already has 9 points just in this quarter.

Score to finish the Quarter 74-59 Thunder

Fourth Quarter

With Durant, Westbrook, and Krstic off the floor and Jeff Green struggling again tonight with his shot the Thunder are struggling to find shots against this heat defense. Ollie, Collison, Green, Harden, and Thomas is not exactly an offensive power house lineup, and they don't seem to be trying to get the ball to Harden who is the person other than Green I would think they would try to get shots for.

Collison has made a lot of great plays this quarter. First the charge he took from Chalmers to get a possession back for the Thunder, at the time Miami was on a run looking to cut into the Thunder's lead but Collison steps in and breaks up the rhythm the Heat had going. He has hit shot after shot, he is 4-5 right now and I don't think he has missed a shot when the Thunder really needed it.  And finally with about 1:45 left the Heat have cut the lead to 8 and are looking good while the Thunder have missed back to back shots. On a broken play Westbrook finds Collison under the basket where he  gets Wade up into the air before putting up the shot to get the bucket and the foul which puts the Thunder up 11 and breaks the Heat.

Score to finish the Game 100-87 Thunder

The Good and The Bad individually 

The Good

Kevin Durant

A pretty good night 32 points and 9 rebounds, he also had 5 assists and 4 turnovers. KD hit key shots and got a lot of deflections that generally just made the Heat offense work harder to move the ball than they wanted. 9-9 from the free throw line is what we have come to expect from KD but that doesn't make it any less impressive.

Russell Westbrook

Okay so Russell is officially a point guard, for real, until his next bad game. Westbrook was great tonight 9-13 shooting 7 assists but only 1 rebound. But hey if only 1 rebound is what it takes to get 9-13 and 7 we can find some rebounds from other people. This is the reason people say I love Chris Paul but we already have a point guard. Major kudos to Westbrook for not letting the Jermaine O'Neal assclownery get into his head and derail what turned into a great game.

Nick Collison/Nenad Krstic/Etan Thomas

What can you say both were very efficient from the floor; Nick 4-5, Nenad 5-7, and Etan 2-3. They all played good defense on Jermaine O'Neal and Udonis Haslem. Nenad was only 2 rebounds away from the double double. Collison hit several clutch shots down the stretch and had some great defensive plays to keep the Thunder in the game.

Thabo Sefolosha

Thabo almost got a double double too. He had 9 rebounds and 82 where is Wade points. Wade went 6-19 from the field and 9-12 from the line for a total of 22 points. Wait what how can he get 82 where is Wade points when Wade lit him up for 22? Simple, after the half Wade went 3-9 for 7 points 1 rebound 1 assist and 2 turnovers one of which Sefolosha stole and dunked. So Wade did most of his damage in the first half and down the stretch when the Heat needed him he couldn't find a way to get the points they needed due in large part to the defense of Sefolosha.

The Bad

Jeff Green is having a rough stretch of games.  5-13 at the Clippers, 8-19 at San Antonio,  3-7 against the Clippers at home, and 4-14 tonight he is 4-18 from three over that four game stretch. Hopefully this game against Orlando can snap him out of his funk because the Thunder will likely need him. Thabo is great on defense but his shooting is very streaky, another 1-6 night means that in the past 5 games he is 7-31 from the field the only game he had more than one make was against San Antonio when he went 3-6 he is also 0-12 from three so maybe he needs to drop that shot for a while.

Photos from ESPN

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