OKC Thunder Player Grades: No LeBron, no problem — for the Lakers!

OKC Thunder Best Reserve:

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As much as the Thunder defense or lack of it is at fault for the loss Billy Donovan also needs to take responsibility for his substitutions. Patterson (as I forewarned) is back to being a perimeter sniper hitting three of his four attempts and also got fouled on a fifth.

Inexplicably, Donovan took out Patterson who was offering help on defense and could have been paired with Adams. In fact, if OKC wanted to offset some of the Lakers size they easily could’ve played George at the two with Grant at the three and Patterson at the four. Instead, Donovan being a creature of habit removed Patterson electing to go with his starting five.

And, for what it’s worth – Patterson only got four shots so he nailed 75 percent of his opportunities.

Also, it was nice to see Nerlens Noel back on the court after that terrible injury he suffered thanks to Andrew Wiggins elbow.

Best Opponent:

Sure, I could’ve gone with Kyle Kuzma and his game high 32 points but the truth is it was the reserves who brought the Lakers back in this match. Moreover, Zubac was the one player who was seemingly everywhere on this night. His screen (although I maintain he was still moving) on Dennis Schroder leveled the German and he never looked right the rest of the night.

Repeatedly he grabbed boards and made Steven Adams night much more difficult. And, whenever Adams helped on Ingram or Kuzma it was Zubac who consistently was left wide open for the easy score. He finished with a career high 26 points on 12 of 14 from the field, 12 rebounds (6 offensive) an assist and a game high plus +35.

Final Thoughts

Where to start —- this loss points to a number of issues the team is suffering from. First, let’s just acknowledge every team will go through funks in the season and the OKC Thunder are clearly in one of those down periods. The problem with that is the club can ill afford to remain mired in this slump with so many teams hot on their heels to move up the ladder.

When the Thunder are at their best they are creating offense off their defense. The problem is they’ve regressed in this regard. Almost at the same point, a few players like Ferguson started hitting shots the team stopped moving the ball. This has led to laziness on the defensive end and more isolation ball, particularly from George and Westbrook.

Moving forward, the OKC Thunder simply have to focus on defense — THAT is their identity. A few players hitting shots doesn’t change that dynamic.

Opportunities, where the team can play a squad without their superstar, are few and far between so the Thunder needs to capitalize on them. This marks the fourth loss in five games and as noted the big issue isn’t shooting it’s the absence of the defense they were using to keep teams in check.

For the full box score visit ESPN.com. The Topic: Thunder crew have the postgame analysis and check back tomorrow for the key takeaways from the loss.