For years now, the Oklahoma City Thunder have been one of the best teams in the league, but they have never quite been good enough.
They were too young when they lost to the Miami Heat in the finals back in 2012. Then, after trading James Harden, they lacked a No. 3 scorer behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook for years. Then, they lacked outside shooting. And kept lacking outside shooting. And are still lacking outside shooting.
The Thunder ranked just 23rd in the league in three-point percentage this season, and their inability to drain it from downtown was evident in Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers, as they went 5-of-33 from deep in a 104-99 loss.
Of course, you can actually look at the positive side of things and say that as poorly as Oklahoma City shot the ball on Saturday, it still had a shot of winning the game and only lost by five.
But then you would have to assume that the Thunder would shoot better for the remainder of the series, and we don't know if that is going to happen.
Will OKC have another game where it misses 28 of its 33 three-point attempts? Probably not, but it's no sure thing, and the Thunder might have a game where the shoot 7-of-30 from distance. Or 6-of-26. Or some other hideous number.
The fact of the matter is that this is not a good perimeter shooting team, and it just happens to be playing a Blazers squad that has a couple of snipers in Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum in its backcourt, with the two of them combining for eight triples (Portland shot 11-of-25 as a team) in Game 1.
This is really bad news for a Thunder squad that is actually better than the Blazers on paper and should win this series based on talent alone. Heck, I picked Oklahoma City in six.
The problem is, the game is not played on paper, and sometimes, the more talented team does not win. The Thunder know this better than anyone else, as they fell to the far-less talented Utah Jazz in six games last spring.
Throw in the fact that Paul George apparently has a bum shoulder, which may have contributed to his 4-of-15 effort from beyond the arc on Saturday, and OKC may be in a whole lot of trouble here.
The thing with Oklahoma City is, it may not be able to outshoot Portland, but it can beat the Blazers inside. But what happened in Game 1? Enes Kanter—the former Thunder center—tattooed OKC for 20 points and 18 rebounds, getting the better of his good friend Steven Adams.
So, not only did the Blazers severely outshoot the Thunder, but they also beat them up inside. If Oklahoma City wants to tie this series up on Tuesday evening, that absolutely, categorically cannot happen.
The Thunder may have to come to grips with the fact that the Blazers are going to shoot better than them from the perimeter. It's just how the two clubs are built. While Oklahoma City is centered around the athleticism of George and Russell Westbrook, Portland is predicated on its guard play, which features a couple of smooth shooters in Lillard and McCollum.
Unfortunately, OKC does not really have anyone to ease George and Westbrook's burdens other than Jerami Grant, who shot 39.2 percent from deep this season but misfired on all three of his long-range attempts in Game 1. Markieff Morris can space the floor as a threat, but he is hardly a knockdown shooter. Dennis Schroder (who went 0-of-7 from three on Saturday) has never had a smooth touch. Nerlens Noel is just a dunker.
It's not just that the Thunder don't have a whole lot of depth. It's that they don't have anyone off the bench who can come in and knock down shots. Almost every other team in the playoffs has that. Oklahoma City doesn't, and that is on Sam Presti and the rest of the front office.
This is a Thunder team that, when firing on all cylinders, is very tough. After all, the duo of George and Westbrook is nothing to sneeze at, and Adams is one of the best centers in the NBA. However, because of their lack of floor spacing and their horrendous depth, they are almost like the West's version of the Philadelphia 76ers, relying far too heavily on its stars to carry them to victory.
Other ballclubs can absorb having one of their top players compromised in their first-round series, but for the Thunder, George's shoulder may end up doing them in, and the problem would not even be George's health, but Oklahoma City's roster as a whole.
I picked the Thunder to win this series and I am sticking with them, but I don't feel all that great about it.
It will take a consistently focused effort without a whole lot of mistakes on both ends of the floor for Oklahoma City to move on without any perimeter shooting, and I'm not all that confident that OKC can do that four times in the next six games.
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