Chris Paul Frustrated By His Play in the First Two Games of the Playoffs

Thunder guard and veteran, Chris Paul, has taken most of the blame for the Thunder’s struggles in the first-round of the playoffs.

In game two, Paul was -36 and only scored on 40% of his attempts.

Paul was angry that the Thunder were unable to close out game two against the Rockets and was frustrated in the fact that he could not help the team win in ways he had hoped.

“That run they went on in the beginning of the fourth quarter, that can’t happen. Gotta be better. I gotta be better. That’s the tough thing, to know how hard we fought, guys worked hard. We put ourselves in position to win that game, and I gotta be better for us.”

Paul understands that in the Orlando bubble, the Thunder will not be heading home to play two games at home so he is trying to rally the young team and himself to play better a “game at a time”

“In a regular world, not COVID, not a bubble, we’d be going back home for two games,” Paul said. “We gotta take it one game at a time, learn from this game, and hell, I gotta show up. That simple.”

Paul felt that the Thunder were more prepared for game two after a blow out loss in game one, but was still frustrated that the Thunder could not close game two out.

“We communicated a lot better coming into this game, knew what our plan was, knew what we wanted to do. But I mean, no moral victories”

Paul took the blame for the loss in game two saying that the rest of the team played well, but he was the reason for their downfall.

“My guys worked as hard we could, fought really hard and we put ourselves in position and I let this one get away from us”

It is uncharacteristic for Paul to perform badly in the clutch. Paul led the league in clutch scoring and was a key reason that the Thunder won many of their tight games this season.

The Thunder will look to bounce back and win game three on Saturday in hopes to make the series 2-1 in favor of the Rockets.