Oklahoma City – The Thunder hosted the Warriors tonight who came in with a 3-0 record and looked to keep their record blemish free.
It wasn’t going to be an easy task because they have been playing excellent basketball and the Thunder haven’t. From the start of the game you couldn’t tell which team was which though.
The Thunder came out with a lot of energy and desperation for their first win. It looked like a team that had a game plan and perfectly executed it. Sadly, the plan didn’t last for the 2nd half because it was truly a tale of 2 halves.
The Thunder couldn’t keep up their intensity and energy and fell to the Warriors 106-98.
Here are the 3 things that went wrong.
1) Consistency
Like mentioned above, the Thunder looked like they had a game plan and executed it really well in the 1st half. They didn’t Play The Same Way In The 2nd Half As They Did In The 1stThey had 34 in the 1st quarter, were moving the ball really well, the players were moving really well on offense, and they were playing some excellent defense. That, for some reason changed in the 2nd half. They had 13 assists in the 1st half and only 6 in the following half. The Warriors did step up their defense but the Thunder also didn’t move the ball as much and didn’t have the same player movement. They also let up on their defense in the 2nd half. The guys weren’t as locked in and guys kept getting lost which led to plenty of open shots for the Warriors who shot 56.7% from the floor and 42.1% from 3 in the 2nd half after shooting 39.1% from the floor and 28.6% from 3 in the opening half.
2) PACE PACE PACE
I’ve said this a couple of times now and it continues to be a problem. They played with better pace in the 1st half but didn’t keep that up. Even with the sped up pace in the 1st half they failed to push the ball enough to really get points in the fast break. Before coming into tonight’s game they were 4th worst at fast break points and after only getting 4 tonight they might fall to the worst. Being at the bottom of the league in fast break points with this roster is a travesty. That will open up their game so much and will help get them wins. The one positive in that is that they don’t give up many fast break points. Only gave up 4 tonight but once they unlock their fast break game they’ll get one step to unlocking their full potential as a team.
3) Start Of The 4th.
For the second game in a row, I feel like the start of the 4th is where the Thunder really lost the game. Tonight wasn’t like Sunday where they gave up a big run to get down double digits because they didn’t really give up a big run but they couldn’t really score. The Warriors were up 5 at the start of the quarter and it took the Thunder almost 3 mins to score in the quarter. The one glaring similarity between tonight and last game is Shai was on the bench for both. When he sat at the beginning of the 4th last game they were down 8 with momentum and when he came back in they were down 18. Tonight it looked like they were going to play him at the beginning of the 4th because they sat him with 1:16 left in the 3rd and a 1 point lead. He came back at the 9:50 mark in the 4th with them down 7. It might not seem like much but those few minutes were key because the Thunder don’t have a secondary scorer who can take on that role of getting a bucket when the offense is struggling. Had SGA been on the court to start the 4th they might have won the game.
They were led by Shai who had 3o points on 11-19 (4-5 from 3) to go with 4 rebounds. Jeremiah Robinson Earl who got his first start of the season added 12 points and 5 rebounds while Lu Dort contributed 11 points and 4 rebounds.
Thunder look to get their first win on the second night of a back to back Wednesday night against the Lakers who will also be on the second night of a back to back.
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