Houston Rockets Defeat OKC Thunder in Game 7

Posted on by Sagar Biswas

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets faced off in a down-to-the-wire Game 7 last night. Player legacies and coaching jobs hung in the balance. In a game where it seemed like neither team could take control, James Harden saved the day and the Rockets are heading to the second round.

What We Know:

  • There were so many storylines heading into this game. There was the Russell Westbrook-Chris Paul trade looming over the series, where Houston basically begged OKC to take Paul of there hands last summer. It seemed like Houston was getting the better player in Westbrook, but Paul proved that he’s still an elite player in this series. He dissected the Houston defense and was able to force the pivotal Game 7 with a decisive OKC win in Game 6, where he was the best player on the court.
  • Both Russell Westbrook and James Harden had their playoff legacies on the line, and Houston coach Mike D’Antoni was coaching for his job. Harden and Westbrook have developed bad reputations in the playoffs over the years. Harden is a player who can win MVP in the regular season but has always shrunk and come up short on the biggest stages of the NBA playoffs. Westbrook hasn’t won a first round playoff series since 2016 when he played with Kevin Durant, and much of the blame rests on his shoulders because of his playstyle and decision making. Also, there was speculation that Mike D’Antoni could lose his job if the Rockets lost Game 7. D’Antoni is a well-respected coach and a pioneer of modern NBA offense, but his teams have always failed in the playoffs and he’s never made an NBA Finals.
  • A nice little wrinkle in last night’s Game 7 was that Scott Foster was the lead referee. Both the Houston Rockets and Chris Paul have historically notable gripes with Foster and place a lot of the blame for their playoff losses on his officiating. The Rockets had lost the previous seven games that Foster had officiated for them and Chris Paul-led teams had lost the previous nine straight. According to ESPN’s Marc Spears, Chris Paul even said that Foster “made a point” to tell him that he officiated the Spurs-Hornets Game 7 in 2008, where Paul’s Hornets lost.
  • The actual game itself lived up to the drama and hype and both teams got help from unexpected places. I don’t think anyone expected Robert Covington and Luguentz Dort to be the leading scorers. Covington provided steady offense for the Rockets when they desperately needed it with six threes made. For the Thunder, Lu Dort had his breakout party. He is a notoriously bad shooter and the Rockets have sagged off him for the entire series. The main reason he’s been able to get playing time is because of his admirable defense on James Harden. But last night, he exploded for 30 points while hitting six three-pointers. That’s the most points in a Game 7 by any player 21-years-old or younger – more than LeBron James or Kobe Bryant.
  • By the end of the game, it didn’t seem like either team wanted to win the game. The offense was just that ugly. Russell Westbrook made up for his horrendous Game 6 by providing an offensive boost early in the fourth quarter, but couldn’t buy a shot in the final minutes of the game. There was one sequence in the final minute of the game where it looked like both teams just wanted to flop and draw a foul instead of actually holding onto the ball and scoring.

  • The last possessions of the game were perhaps the most chaotic. OKC was down 103-102 with the ball in Chris Paul’s hands – where you want it to be in a close game. Some scrappy Houston defense forced the ball to get passed to Lu Dort for an open three. Up to this point, James Harden had been awful and Dort was on fire. Harden only had 7 points in the game on terrible shooting efficiency, but he made the game-saving block on Dort and dodged the ball when Dort tried to throw it off of him out of bounds. He made the superstar play at the end of the game when his team needed him. On the other end, Robert Covington got fouled and made one of two free throws to extend the lead.
  • With OKC back in possession, an away-from-the-play foul was called sending Danilo Gallinari to the line, where he missed the crucial free throw. The Thunder still had one more chance to win the game or send it to OT, but they couldn’t even inbound the ball successfully to get off a final shot. Houston won 104-102, finally breaking their Scott Foster losing streak.

With their Game 7 victory, the Houston Rockets will advance to the second round of the playoffs to face the Los Angeles Lakers. Game 1 will be on Friday.

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