Playing the Blazers for the second time this season the OKC Thunder delivered a statement win by capitalizing on their identity. TI serves up three takeaways from the important victory.
Entering the Tuesday night match versus the Portland Trail Blazers the OKC Thunder were in a virtual lock for third place. The problem at hand was Portland arrived boasting a three game win streak and having won seven of their last nine games. Conversely, the once vaunted OKC defense wasn’t exactly sizzling since the New Year. Worse, OKC was in somewhat of a slump having lost five of their last eight games.
Both teams played Monday so the rest advantage leaned in favor of the OKC Thunder who tipped off the Martin Luther King Jr. NBA slate of games while the Blazers played late in Utah.
Still, if there was a team to be antsy about facing it was the Blazers who’ve owned the Thunder in recent years. The good news — OKC had the recent memory of victory in their pockets having finally beat the Blazers at the Moda Center after struggling in their venue the past few seasons.
With a competitive win in Philadelphia and an oust of the Knicks in the Mecca under their belts, the Thunder hit the court Tuesday with a mission in mind. It was clear from the tip the Thunder were focused and for much of the game looked fresher and bouncier in spite of this being their third game in four days.
The initial frame was a typical Blazers – Thunder match as the teams each made runs. OKC jumped on Portland from the tip building an 11-4 lead. Portland went on a 12-7 run to finish the quarter leaving the teams knotted at 25 after one.
The second quarter is where OKC took control building a seven point edge. Although the Blazers made repeated runs including a hot third quarter by CJ McCollum it just never felt like this game was in question.
Every time the Blazers would cut the deficit either Westbrook or George would instigate a run to re-pad the Thunder lead. The final score wasn’t indicative of how soon this game was decided but it was clear mid fourth quarter the Blazers were not coming back.
Russell Westbrook on Evan Turner doing his “rock the baby” celebration, said he didn’t notice but “he can rock right back to Portland.” pic.twitter.com/orbRh6PPFK
— Erik Horne (@ErikkHorne) January 23, 2019
It might not be as heady as the win over the Warriors or as gutsy as some of the wins this season. But trust me, this was arguably the most complete two-way effort of the season against stellar competition. It also gives the Thunder no worse than a draw against the Blazers should they need to resort to tiebreakers at season end although OKC could shift that scenario with another win in either the two remaining games the clubs will play.
With that let’s examine three key takeaways from the match.