OKC Thunder ends season on a high note and lights up social media

Official Playoff seeds:

Thunderous Intentions took to Twitter to poll our audience on who you would rather see OKC Thunder meet in the first round. The results had Houston as the desired opponent, with Portland then Denver.

The last day of the regular season came with still much left to be decided. There weren’t many full rosters left in rotation and stomachs were queasy for OKC fans come tip-off given a drop to No. 8 seed was still possible.

Even without Paul George on the court, OKC Thunder locked in the sixth seed while shattering franchise records with 39 assists and 23 made from behind the arc. Westbrook continued his triple-double stretch to tie Magic Johnson with 138, second-most in history. Even Dennis Schroder got in on the action, breaking his career-high with eight made 3-balls in the game.

From there, fate was still out of OKC’s hands. The first round opponent was still undetermined, depending on results of the Portland and Denver games. A look at Portland in the first round was being wiped away with every one of the 87 points that Sacramento scored in the FIRST HALF (not a typo, that is a real NBA game stat).

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Portland was seeming to throw up the white flag but took the lead with 7:05 remaining in the final game of their season at 118-117. After what seemed to be a self-inflected defeat, the Portland Trail Blazers decided to pull it out for a 136-131 win over the Sacramento Kings.

The last deciding score was in the hands of the Denver Nuggets. A loss to Utah would create a three-way tie between Denver, Houston, and Portland resulting in Denver in the 3-seed to face OKC.

Neither team could achieve the Lawler’s law, but when the clock struck zeros Denver was the highest scorer at 99-95. With the win, Denver locked in the No. 2 seed and allowed Portland to send the Rockets airborne into the fourth seed.

And on the 82nd gameday, the basketball gods said: “it is finished“.

OKC Thunder will officially face the Portland Trail Blazers at least four more times this season. Whew. What an interesting night in the NBA.

Check out Tamberlyn Richardson’s seeding article for TI here which highlights all 16 playoff teams and the first round series matchups.