Oklahoma City – The Oklahoma City Thunder were back in Chesapeake Energy Arena tonight for the first since the season was halted on March 11th against the Jazz after center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. Since they ended the season in Chesapeake against the Jazz it’s fitting they open the season up in the arena with them.
This was a new look arena and new look team. They have a new court and there were no fans in the arena to start the season. They also lost key guys like Chris Paul, Danilo Gallinari, Dennis Schroeder, and fan favorite Steven Adams.
Although they did lose those key players they have plenty of guys willing and able to step up this year and one of those guys is Lu Dort. He’s only played 39 NBA games but is already one of the leagues best on ball defenders. He takes the challenge of guarding the other team’s best wing player and never fails. That included tonight. Dort guarded Jazz Allstar Donovan Mitchell and if you look at the box score and see that Mitchell had 20p 5a with the game winner you’d think he had a decent game but that wasn’t the case.
He shot 8-23 and Dort made his night extremely difficult. He also provided a good chunk of the offense for the Thunder. Shooting 9-11 from the floor with 5-7 from 3. He was the only player that started hot and didn’t cool off.
The offense was there to begin with, but it cooled down really quickly. Luckily, the defense was there the whole night. The Jazz did end up shooting 50% from the floor but that number is really misleading. The Thunder defense was much better than that and held their 2 leading scorers from last year, Donovan Mitchell and Bojan Bogdonovic to 16-40 (40%) from the floor. Still, it wasn’t enough.
The Jazz 3rd quarter is what won them the game scoring 35 on 12-20 (60%) from the floor. Thunder also scored an efficient 35 but the Jazz had all the momentum into the 4th scoring 26 points on 52.6% from the floor. If it wasn’t for George Hill’s 3rd quarter the Jazz would have gone into the 4th with a 10+ point lead instead of a 3 point deficit. This is the second game in a row where Hill came out hot in the 3rd and he needs to do that throughout the whole game for the Thunder to be successful.
Thunder were led by Lu Dort who had 26 points and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who had 23 points, 7 assists, and 3 rebounds. George Hill added 14 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists while Horford had 14 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists.
All in all, even though it was a loss, the Thunder should be proud of their performance. Lu Dort has showed once again that he is capable of being an All NBA defender that can hit much needed shots for a team. He’s also shown that he is one of the NBA’s biggest bargains. He’s making a little over $1.5 mil this season and has team options for the next two seasons at $1.7 mil and $1.9 mil. That’s a steal at that price for a player of that caliber. If he were on the open market he’d make much much more than the $5.2 million he’s owed over the next 3 seasons.
Another bright spot is what we saw from SGA. The Thunder needed a calming force down the stretch and SGA became that. He made all the right decisions down the stretch whether it’s getting to the basket or making the right pass. He missed the last shot to win the game but the fact that he wants to take it knowing he could miss is a good sign from a young player that’s becoming the leader of a team and face of a franchise.
What we seen from the Thunder in the first two games is probably what we’ll see throughout the season. A team that plays hard and will probably come up short a lot. And to be honest, that’s kind of a good thing to happen for a young team like this.
The Thunder are back at it tomorrow night against the Magic.
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