Game 5 Preview: What can the Clippers do to slow down OKC's big guns?

The Clippers saved their season on Sunday with a maniacal fourth quarter rally, evening their second-round series at two games apiece with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Things were looking rather dire early on as the Thunder were doing whatever they wanted offensively while simultaneously stifling the Clippers' offense completely.

OKC jumped out to a 27-7 lead early in the first quarter, and things were looking rather grim for the home team. Not only were the Clippers missing shots, but they were missing BADLY. It's not even really that the Clippers were doing a terrible job guarding Kevin Durant. He was just making everything.

Fortunately, a couple of major adjustments in the fourth quarter turned the tide in L.A.'s favor. The biggest adjustment was defending Durant with Chris Paul, which would seem to be a terrible idea on the surface. KD is about a foot taller than Paul, and giving a player like Durant an unimpeded look at the rim is probably not the way to go about slowing him down.

However, we saw in OKC's first-round series against the Grizzlies that 6'4" Tony Allen gave Durant fits on the offensive end. Allen was quick enough to avoid and dodge screens, never allowing Durant much room to breathe. Paul isn't as big as Allen is, but he plays with a similar tenacity. Fighting through/over screens and doing everything you can to stick on Durant's hip is the key to a least making things a bit difficult on him.

One of Durant's few weaknesses is passing out of pressure, and the Clippers were able to successfully bring a few double-teams his way that led to turnovers and opportunities in transition the other way. Obviously, the key to beating the Thunder is trying to stifle both Durant and Russell Westbrook and letting their other players try and beat you. Unfortunately, double-teaming both of them isn't really an option.

We've seen Westbrook dominate the Clippers in this series, particularly whenever he has the defensive sieve known as Darren Collison "defending" him. Collison was obviously a massive key to the Clipper comeback in game four, but his defense also nearly got the Clippers killed. Whenever Collison is on the floor, he simply cannot be tasked with guarding Westbrook. He needs to be hidden on guys like Thabo Sefolosha. There's a major size discrepancy there in Sefolosha's favor, but he's not an offensive-minded player at all. If you're the Clippers, you want guys like Sefolosha taking as many shots as possible, because those aren't shots being taken by Durant or Westbrook.

I also don't think it's reasonable to expect Paul to be able to defend Durant for an entire game. Chasing a guy like that around the court takes tons of energy, and that's energy you'd prefer Paul to be able to expend offensively. The problem is, obviously, that the Clippers don't really have any better options. Matt Barnes is a decent enough defender, but it's clear at this point that he isn't really capable of doing a job himself. It has to be a group effort.

Sending double-teams more often is probably the key here, as mentioned above. Serge Ibaka has become a very steady midrange shooter, but at this point it's probably the lesser of three evils. You want Durant or Westbrook having wide-open lanes to the rim, or do you want Ibaka hoisting from 15 feet? Pretty easy call.

This is now a best-of-three series with the Thunder having home-court advantage. However, considering the way these playoffs have gone, and with these teams already having split their respective two-game homestands, it's tough to call home court much of an "advantage". It's probably going to come down to the play of the four All-Stars in this series.

Photo Credit - Verse Photography/Wikimedia Commons

If you're the Clippers, you can't reasonably expect Darren Collison to score 18 points and come up with several huge buckets again. As has been the case all along, you're going to go as far as Paul and Griffin carry you. Guys like Jordan, Redick and Crawford will chip-in here-and-there, but let's not forget how Sunday's monstrous comeback began: with simple pick-and-roll plays between Paul and Griffin that resulted in three easy baskets for CP3.

Scott Brooks' team has never had much imagination offensively, so, if you're the Clippers, the tactical advantage is yours. Throwing a different look at the Thunder is what gets them off-kilter, and adjustments aren't really their forte, as we've seen. Back in Oklahoma City tonight, it's pretty safe to expect a healthy dosage of Durant and Westbrook.

Look at game one, for example. Chris Paul nailed eight three-pointers in that game, including five in the opening frame. Who expected that? Before the Thunder were able to make any sort of strategic adjustment whatsoever, the Clippers already had a massive lead. The Clippers didn't throw that kind of curveball OKC's way again until midway through Sunday's fourth quarter, and we saw what happened there.

What can the Clippers do differently tonight? Dump it down to Jordan in the post and let him try and score over the shorter Kendrick Perkins? Run Redick off of countless Ray Allen-esque screens and try to get him going right away? Attempt the Chris Paul bombs-away attack again? Los Angeles has plenty of firepower, it's just a matter of assertion.

Oklahoma City can key-in on what they assume to be the Clippers' bread-and-butter, but the key is to hit them from the blind side.