Grades: Thunder win fourth straight game to keep fourth seed

While it wasn’t pretty, we have to celebrate a fourth straight victory for the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The OKC Thunder want to be good. There are aspirations of home-court advantage in the first round and of keeping Paul George.

The Atlanta Hawks want to be bad. Most of their players tonight were G-Leaguers. To say that there was a noticeable number of empty seats at this game would be an understatement.

With Steven Adams missing the game with a hip contusion, with Dakari Johnson starting in his place, and with the team on short rest, the Thunder had two clear imperatives: get Paul George the ball and play defense.

For the first quarter, they succeeded. Paul George scored the first 8 points, totaling 12 in the first 12 minutes. There was excellent defensive effort from everyone to start, and unusually good effort from Russell Westbrook. Russ does have a somewhat contentious past with Dennis Schröder, so that was probably to be expected.

It worked for a while, but the Hawks outplayed the bench slightly to start the second, as Schröder was able to take advantage of the reserves due to some interesting rotations by Mike Budenholzer. Needless to say (but I’m gonna say it anyway), with the Thunder on their third game in four nights, on the road, and without their defensive anchor, this was not the start they were hoping for.

This would be the point in the narrative where one of the Thunder’s All-Stars took a stand and put a stop to this nonsense, had one of them decided to do so. They did not decide to do so. The offense stagnated and the passing stopped. I’m not sure Carmelo Anthony played during the second quarter.

Oh, he did? If you say so. Still, the offense was not the issue.

The Thunder managed to give up 38 points in the second quarter. It’s the most points Atlanta has scored in a quarter since November 15 against the Kings, per me flipping angrily through Atlanta’s box scores at halftime. By the way, they scored 36 during the fourth quarter against the Thunder on December 22.

The OKC Thunder trailed the Atlanta BayHawks 54-66 at halftime.

The Thunder came out in the second half with Jerami Grant in the place of perennial G-Leaguer, Dakari Johnson. But, most importantly, they came out with some genuine effort. Not surprisingly, both helped.

Due to the aforementioned lack of attendance, Thunder players could be heard clearly on the broadcast encouraging pushing pace (Go! Go! Go!). Effort and urgency are often the missing parts for this team, but we experienced some in the second half.

Carried by their effort and momentum, OKC won the third quarter 36-22. The momentum, however, was quashed when Paul George, the only elite defender still in a Thunder uniform for this game, landed hard on his hip and left for the locker room. It’s the same hip which Steven Adams has had contused – what a very unhappy coincidence.

The bench managed to let the lead drop only from eight to six until Westbrook re-entered the game. This should have been a game wherein the bench was able to extend the lead, considering that the Hawks’ bench consisted of mostly non-NBA players. The recent victory over the Spurs aside, the bench has been disappointing of late, and we can expect to see the rotation shrink come playoff time.

The absence of George and Adams was felt severely to start the fourth, as their lead was pushed to the breaking point. It did, in fact, break. The Hawks tied the score at 103, forcing a timeout from Billy Donovan. That’s about the time the OKC Thunder remembered which team was supposed to be good.

A three by Jerami Grant, a couple of Russ’s trademark hustle plays, and then an and-one by Grant assisted by Russ, and the Thunder lead became insurmountable. It happened so fast. It happened so fast, in fact, that it makes one wonder why it took so long for it to happen.

In any case, it did happen. And it’s a good thing, too, because the Minnesota Timberwolves upset the Washington Wizards on the road tonight, and the Western Conference standings are chaos. If you’re not aware of that craziness, here’s Tamberlyn Richardson’s breakdown of the madness.

Now onto the report card.