The OKC Thunder have lost two straight games after beating the Milwaukee Bucks and with loss after loss the bright hopes that were imagined earlier in the season are further away.
As the buzzer sounded in Portland, Russell Westbrook walked off the floor immediately, Paul George talked to Evan Turner and Carmelo Anthony was already gone due to a Flagrant 2 foul called with 4:26 left in the third quarter. The OKC Thunder had just suffered a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, their second in three days.
All three players joined together to play on the Oklahoma City Thunder but each player was in a different place at the end of the game. One angered by defeat, one on to the next game, and another socializing with the enemy after a tough loss.
In a meltdown game against the Boston Celtics at home, the Big Three relied too much on one-on-one ball down the stretch. The Thunder were up 18 at halftime and still ended up losing. Also, what made the game sting even more was the fact that it was their first loss against the Eastern Conference.
In the Blazers game, the Thunder continued their losing streak against the Western Conference. They have not won a game against the West in this early season and they have not faced the San Antonio Spurs, the Houston Rockets or the Golden State Warriors. The hype that the Thunder had going into the season is fairly deflated at this point.
You could say Anthony’s head-scratching flagrant foul call and Westbrook’s uncharacteristic three missed free throws had something to do with the loss, but there were still chances during the course of the game to win. With 10:21 left to go in the third quarter the Thunder were down 50-52. At 4:26 when Anthony left the game it was 68-57. By the end of the third quarter it was 78-67 Blazers.
Crew chief Rodney Mott explained the call on Anthony:
"“We deemed that the contact was excessive and that it was not a natural basketball move where he seeks out [Jusuf] Nurkic, hits him in the face with an elbow and goes back to the basket,” Mott said."
Teams are getting in the Thunder’s face and shots are not getting up clean. The Thunder aren’t getting enough passes in before they shoot. They need to move the ball in order to get open shots. Carmelo can score anywhere on the floor, that is true, and Paul George is also a talented scorer. Westbrook has an endless motor.
Moving the ball with these three players on the court will surely make the defense make mistakes on the court. With Carmelo’s ability to shoot and play with his back to the basket, that will lead to double-teams coming his way. George’s ability to drive to the hole will cause the defense to crash down and will leave shooters wide open. When Westbrook has the ball he will draw a double-team when he drives and he can find cutters and lob opportunities.
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The team needs to find a rhythm and it has proven capable of finding a rhythm when it turns defense into offense. The Thunder are third in the league with 15.1 fast break points a game. If they can speed the other team up and get transition points, then that will get them into a rhythm.
In both of these recent losses, the Thunder did not score more than 100 points, but they have not played in a game where they have given up less than 100 points and still lost. Defense is the key.
The Thunder are second in defensive rating, fifth in blocks and first in steals. If they can chain together defensive stop after defensive stop, then they will be able to hold teams under 100.
The Thunder are just getting outplayed right now. In the game against the Boston Celtics, Al Horford and Kyrie Irving both scored over 20 points. For the Thunder, only Paul George scored over 20. In the game against the Trail Blazers, the Thunder had Westbrook and Paul George go over 20 but the Blazers had three players go over 20, including a 36-point game from Damian Lillard.
Maybe this team isn’t complete and there needs to be a piece added (a sixth man would be nice). Maybe this team does not have the chemistry playing with each other yet. Maybe they are just not a good team and the hype was all for naught.
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With that being said, the season is still early and eventually with more games together, the shots will start to fall and the team will figure out what to do with the players that they have. The season is not lost yet as the Thunder are 4-5. It can only get better.