Five takeaways from the Thunder’s blowout loss in Houston

3. Jerami Grant’s lack of playing time has me confused

I talked about this in a recent Views but this must be addressed again. Sure I could point to the fact that Grant’s positive +/- was the only one of the day for OKC. But that’s a somewhat rigged statistic. Instead we’re going to look at cold-hard basketball, specifically the play that made Mike Van Gundy say that Jerami Grant made a “rare defensive highlight for OKC.”

In only 16 minutes of playing time, Grant recorded two of Oklahoma City’s three blocks on the day. The trio of Steven Adams, Taj Gibson and Enes Kanter combined for zero in 64 minutes.

The Thunder had no rim protection because their bigs weren’t athletic enough to cover both the three-point line and the paint. Gibson would have been the perfect small-ball center to pair up with Grant but Billy Donovan elected to stay big against Houston. In fact, according to NBA Stats the pair didn’t record a minute together.

Related Story: Jerami Grant can be a spark off the Thunder bench

So here’s my theory. As of now the Thunder and Rockets are lined up to play each other in the playoffs. Why would Billy D play his secret weapon in a meaningless regular season game? He did something similar with the Stache Bros and the Spurs if you remember correctly.

Grant’s minutes have declined even though he’s improved over the course of the season. When he comes in he makes an immediate impact, yet his minutes have been sparse. My only guess at this point is coach is employing a little gamesmanship.