Thunder in the News: Where do we even begin

Thunder in the News is here to live another day. Even when the OKC Thunder lose to the now-two win Sacramento Kings.

Hopefully 95% of you chose sleep over staying up to watch the Thunder. If you did, congratulations for missing out on a historically embarrassing loss for OKC Nation. If you didn’t, we’re forever bonded.

Obviously I’m trying to make light of the situation. That’s because I have to. You’ve heard the cliches. “It’s early in the season.” “The best teams don’t always gel when they first come together.” I’m not sure if this team will ever gel. But I’m not going to let the tenth game of the season ruin the irrational optimism I’ve built this season up to be. Not yet anyways.

So that loss actually happened

I planned my Tuesday around staying up until 12:30 in the morning watching Thunder basketball, then prolonging sleep for another 4 hours in order to get out some in-depth analysis from this game. Then OKC decided to play a very distinct 48 minutes, one that does not require much analysis. I do have a few quick thoughts:

1. Here’s a hot take you won’t hear anywhere else: the offense struggled because the offense solely played isolation basketball. Even when they had open shots there was no rhythm, hence the 33.7% shooting percentage for the team and 27.8% for Russ, PG and Melo.
2. The Thunder scored 25 points in the first quarter because Steven Adams had 10 of his 14 points in the frame. When he’s not getting easy opportunities down low it means there’s no ball movement in the OKC offense. That’s what we saw tonight.
3. How does Alex Abrines get 5 minutes and Andre Roberson gets 29 minutes against a team like the Kings? That’s only one of the many questions Billy will have to answer to.
4. When the defense plays with effort the defense is a brick wall. When they don’t teams like the Kings can score 84 points in three quarters.

That’s all I really wanted to say. Now we’ll turn to Jeremy Lambert as he provides the recap and player grades in a way only he knows how.

"The “S” stands for “See me after class.”"

The defense also has some answering to do

While this Brett Dawson piece was written before the Kings game, it still brings up a few really good points. The Thunder’s defense is already top five in the league. That’s a combination of good coaching and a natural defensively talented roster. Fixing these three problems can turn OKC from great into spectacular – it’s the only way they are going to contend.

"At times, though, point guards are seeking out the switch for the chance to be isolated one-on-one against Adams on the perimeter. That allowed Boston’s Kyrie Irving and Portland’s Damian Lillard to get a head of steam on key plays late in the past two games."

Try and end it with a slight positive

Conspiracy theory: Sam Presti ultimately cut Semaj Christon because he knew Eric Bledsoe was going to tweet “I don’t wanna be here,” propelling the Suns to trade him to the Bucks for a package that included Greg Monroe. He knew Phoenix would promptly buy him out (TBD) and Monroe would want to fill the Thunder’s big man void (also TBD).

I’m all in on this. Almost makes me forget about what happened last night.

RELATED STORY: Not time to panic just yet Thunder Nation