The OKC Thunder tipped off the season in Oakland against the Warriors on ring night hoping to play spoiler ultimately falling in a closely contested match. Here’s the post game grades.
The OKC Thunder were two and a half men down in Golden State tonight. Russell Westbrook and Andre Roberson missed tonight’s contest, as expected. However, Steven Adams who has been dealing with lower back stiffness since Sunday was not himself tonight. Paul George had an incredibly slow start to tonight’s game, and still the Thunder stayed within an arms reach all night.
The biggest lead for the explosive and suffocating Warriors offense was just fourteen. On the flip side, the Thunder’s biggest lead was three.
On the glass, the OKC Thunder got dominated. The Warriors hauled in 57 rebounds, to the Thunder’s 46 and it was not as close as the final stats indicate.
Steve Kerr did an incredible coaching job tonight. Capitalizing on Adams’ bad back the Warriors sent two big men to the floor every time Adams was out there. That allowed Golden State to have their way down low with a usually elite big man.
Just as we all predicted, both teams had a terrible night from three point land. The Warriors hit the trey ball at a 26 percent rate. While the Thunder shoot the ball from deep at a lowly 27 percent. From the Field, that number did not get much better for the OKC Thunder (36 Percent) and the Warriors saw their shooting percentage improve to 44 percent from the floor.
It was a back and forth game with four lead changes. This is encouraging for the Thunder despite the loss given the context of tonight’s game.