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My Breakdown Pacers-Thunder Game 6:
After watching the Thunder for like 10 full games now, I super agree with the Simmons/Lowe breakdown of last night's game:
If the refs allow Thunder to put a lot of hand pressure on the other team early in the game (ie, extending intense face-guarding all the way out to halfcourt to just swipe and hound every play) then they are nearly impossible to beat. It would take a perfect game by you from 3, and thunder are missing theirs.
In Game 6, refs made some early foul calls on this extended pressuring, then the Thunder backed off, and it became a really even matchup. (one of thunder's key abilities disabled, and it ripples through a lot of aspects of the game).
I prefer to refs to let the teams play physical as a general rule; on the other hand, I do feel the Thunder are allowed to get away with hand checking and swiping way more than the opposing teams bc this is the genuine "identity" of so many of their players - Dort, Caruso, and Shai esp. I acknowledge that this is partially bc I am still hurting as a Wolves fan, so I can't assert this too strongly.
I don't know where I fall on what would be the fair thing here.
In any case, everybody talks about the Shai foul merchant factor, but I think this one is way more important. I'll be watching closely what tone refs set in beginning of Game 7 in OKC. 6 replies
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