Oklahoma City Thunder third quarter woes continue in loss to Pacers
It was a tale of two halves Monday night as the Oklahoma City Thunder dropped a close game to the Indiana Pacers.
The Oklahoma City Thunder came into this game with two impressive home wins against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday and Portland Trailblazers on Sunday night. Again without Enes Kanter the Thunder were working themselves into a rhythm and finding things that worked for them. The one constant in those two wins—poise. The Thunder were behind in both of those games and behind the scorching genius of Russell Westbrook , OKC came away with two pivotal wins.
The Indiana Pacers came into the game on a six game winning streak, finding themselves on an trending upward in the standings. With the Oklahoma City Thunder playing the second game of a back to back, energy was going to be the only way to keep the surging Pacers at bay and extend their own streak to three games.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | T | |
| Pacers | 20 | 21 | 32 | 20 | 93 |
| Thunder | 25 | 27 | 18 | 20 | 90 |
Strong Start:
Against Indiana, the Thunder came out with unexpected energy. The first half of the game saw OKC active and engaged on both ends. Defense was leading to offense – there was a lot of defense for Oklahoma City. The Thunder scored 12 points off of ten Indiana turnovers. The hands of the Thunder were everywhere, namely on the ball. They forced six turnovers and recorded seven blocks.
The offense was working for the team as well as they were able to conjure up 32 points in the paint and limit their three point attempts to 11.
The calling card for the Thunder in the first half was their defense. Period. Posting an 84.5 defensive rating in that half, they worked themselves to a 15 point – holding Indiana to 41 points.
At 8:32 of 2Q Kevin Seraphin made a layup
— Daniel R. (@Daniel_Th0mas) February 7, 2017
1:55 left in 2Q GRIII 3-point make
Pacers went nearly 7 minutes in between makes from the field
Second Half Issues:
The second half was not as pretty for the team, specifically the third quarter. Turnovers led to easy Pacer buckets. Indiana decided to return the Thunder a favor and clamp down in the third frame. A 12-2 scoring advantage in the third cut the lead to 2.
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The quarter as a whole looked disjointed as Oklahoma City struggled to find an offensive footing contributing to seven turnovers. The defense also fell apart attributing to Indiana posting 32 points, with a true shooting of 61.6%.
The Oklahoma City Thunder shot less than 30% from the field as they could only muster up 18 points in the quarter. Paul George went 3-4 from the field with two steals as he aided in steadying his team after a less than ideal first half.
After a valiant fourth quarter effort and the chance to tie on a three point attempt, it was of no use. The Thunder lost a close one 90-93 and fall to 30-23.
Team Notes:
Alex Abrines returned to action after missing 3 games with back spasms. He played seven minutes total going 2-4 from behind the arc. His two makes in the second quarter helped push the Thunder in the right direction. After that, wasn’t much to write home about.
Andre Roberson has had two fantastic dunks in the past two games. Tonight’s on Myles Turner was especially effervescent.
https://twitter.com/okcthunder/status/828784339609645057
Cameron Payne was not very effective tonight. The loss was not him, needless to say, but he is going to have find a groove here soon. The Payne Thunder fans got a glimpse of last year in limited minutes shot the ball relatively well and had great passing instincts. Missing 34 games with the Jones fracture has put Payne in an uncomfortable position but blaming him for the lapses the second unit goes through would be erroneous analysis.
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This isn’t a typical bad loss for the Thunder. They clearly came out with a concerted effort to put this away quickly, however the flatness of that third quarter showed that they were fatigued. Having to rear back up after halftime seems like a challenge this season for this team, not to mention having played a tight game the night before. As with any loss this season, it’s not a reason to panic for fans. 30-23 is pretty major achievement. In other words, relax.
Next up: Home against the Cleveland Cavaliers and don’t forget to join us Saturday during our live in game blog when the Warriors come to town.