In a game of tortoise and the hare, it was hard to decide which team came out of the gates more slowly.
Both the Thunder and Jazz exuded low energy from the opening tip-off. It quickly became apparent last night’s contest would differ from the teams’ three prior match-ups.
The typical drowse of a Monday workday compounded with the need for the players’ body clocks to adjust to daylight savings time clearly took a toll on their performance. Furthermore, Oklahoma City was surely exhausted from having already spent three games on the road 66 games into the season.
Last night’s game was a different kind of contest from what we’re used to seeing between these two evenly-matched teams. Even the home crowd took refuge in its own silence as the first half rolled along with nary a single chant from the thousands in attendance.
The first half ended with the Thunder leading the Jazz with a score of 50-37. Fortunately, the race to victory picked up in the second half. Oklahoma City found their identity as the tortoise by logging consistent, 25-ish points every quarter, slowly but surely establishing double-digit leads only to have the Jazz race ahead to nearly catch up.
This happened multiple times until OKC created an insurmountable 14 point lead with only a minute and a half remaining in regulation.