Houston Rockets vs Oklahoma City Thunder Primer: Harden vs Westbrook

Oklahoma City’s X-Factor

It seems silly to think that this series will come down to anyone else other than the two lead guards, but the opposite is more likely to be true. Both superstars will undoubtedly get theirs, and someone is going to need to step up from each team to pick up the slack.

On Oklahoma City, that player is Taj Gibson. Since being gift-wrapped and sent over by the Bulls, Gibson has fit in seamlessly with OKC. In 208 minutes, the starting lineup with Taj in it has a net rating of 11.8, which would be second in the league and is the best of any Thunder five-man grouping to play over 100 minutes.

The same lineup with Domantas Sabonis in it, whom Gibson replaced as a starter, had only a 3.5 net rating, albeit with a much larger sample size.

Of the four games against the Rockets, Taj only played in the last one – a 137-125 blitzing in which the Rockets went 20-39 from deep and shot 63.3 percent overall. Gibson was 6-7 from the field for a dozen points, but only played 17 minutes thanks to a Houston lineup that went small because it was missing Ryan Anderson.

If the Thunder can figure out a way to keep their newly acquired big man on the court more, they’ll have a better chance of playing their style and staying in the series.