By Michael Doutey

The Oklahoma City Thunder falls to the Houston Rockets 122-112 in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night. The Thunder got off to a nice start, leading by nine midway through the first quarter. Carmelo Anthony had a tremendous start and Russell Westbrook had his pop shot falling. But the Thunder really struggled after that. The game wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. The Rockets did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. The Thunder struggled on offense for large parts of the game and the Rockets forced OKC to scramble all night on defense. It was a disheartened effort from the Thunder in this one and the Rockets exposed OKC. Here are tonight’s five observations.

1. OKC Torched from 3

The Rockets did whatever they wanted on offense. They ran circles around the Thunder and the Rockets lit up the Thunder from behind the arc. Houston shot 51.5 percent (17-33) from three. The Rockets had their fair share of tough shots over decent defense, but the majority of the three’s the Rockets generated were by dribble penetration, kicking the ball back out to the perimeter and then guys making the extra pass to wide open shooters. Chris Paul was on fire, shooting 5-6 from deep. Trevor Ariza shot 3-5. PJ Tucker went 2-5. Eric Gordon was 3-6. Even Luc Mbah a Moute hit his only three. James Harden was just 1-3 from three. The only Rocket player who struggled from three was Gerald Green, who was 2-7. OKC made 12 threes, which was pretty good for them, but they were outscored 51-36 (15 points) from the three point line alone.

2. Assists to Turnovers An Issue for OKC

The Thunder aren’t a good three point shooting team. So when playing a team that scores a high volume of three’s, possessions are vital to keep. The Thunder seemed to not value possessions tonight. OKC turned the ball over 19 times, including 7 times in the first quarter, 6 times in the second and just 6 times in the second half. OKC didn’t always make the most of their clean possessions anyways, only dishing out 18 assists as a team. An 18-19 assist-to-turnover ratio is really, really bad. OKC had no flow on offense in the first half and for most of the game. It seemed like OKC wanted to make it an iso battle or a game of one-on-one with four other guys watching. Russell Westbrook really struggled with game management, turning the ball over 9 times by himself. If your point guard is going to struggle with turnovers that much, you’re going to have a long night. OKC did manage to turnover Houston 22 times, but OKC wasn’t able to capitalize on it.

3. Russell Westbrook’s Funk Continues 

Russ has been bad Russ since coming back from his ankle injury. He’s been completely out of whack, which is messing with every aspect of this team. Russ scored 32 points, but that is complete fools gold. First of all, he shot 15-27 from the floor. Secondly, most of that came in the fourth quarter when the game was mostly decided. It was a bad night from Russ all around. His defense was lacking, which is no shocker to anyone who has paid attention this season. He was forcings passes, leading to nine turnovers which we have already touched on. But he only had seven assists. It felt like the offense he was running was looking for his shot, looking to iso Melo or Paul George. If none of that worked he jacked a bad shot, including four awful three’s. Bug surprise, he missed all of those. As Russ’ funk continues, so do the Thunder. OKC goes as Russ goes and until he plays better, OKC will struggle.

4. Paul George’s Struggles Continue

PG’s struggle is tied to Westbrook’s struggle. I’m certain of that. PG scored 17 points on 7-16 shooting. PG is fine when he gets downhill and attacks the basket. But he likes his three point shot. But his jumper is way off, mostly because Russell is way off. When Russ is off, he results to iso basketball. That means the flow of the offense is out of sync and that messes with PG. But OKC needs more from both players. George has really struggled with his long ball and that continued tonight. He was 2-8 from distance. His off shooting has affected his defense, I think. He has had more lapses lately. I think frustration is setting in. OKC needs PG to figure things out as OKC makes the stretch run to the playoffs.

5. Corey Brewer a Bright Spot

There was next to nothing that the Thunder could take positively from this game. I could go on and on about other aspects of the game that were truly awful, but I want to leave you with a little ray of sunshine before we part. Brewer played in his second game with OKC, having a practice and a couple film sessions under his belt. Brewer’s effort has been a bright spot. He’s a guy who has a ton of energy. I thought he got after it on defense. He even produced on the offensive side of the ball, scoring 10 points on 4-10 shooting. He went 2-6 from three, a few too many for me, but he was aggressive and didn’t think twice about any moves that he made. He was a minus-20 in his 23 minutes on the floor, though. So that was a downer, but I think it was a good night from him. Like I said in my last post, I’m going to give him a week or so before I give my thoughts on him as a fit in OKC, but for tonight, he was the lone bright spot.

OKC falls to 37-29 on the season and will next be in action Thursday night when they host the Suns. Tip is set for 7 p.m. inside the Peake.