OKC Thunder vs Portland Trail Blazers: Whose bench mob will feast?

OKC Thunder bench:

Our bench rides or dies at the hands of Dennis Schroder. When he’s hot it is contagious, when he’s not it’s contagious. When they use ball movement to get the open look in the corner, its a beautiful possession, but when the team forces a shot it just gets messy.

Here’s where my worry is: OKC Thunder is second to last in the league on bench minutes per game. This tells me our bench may not be completely prepared for a seven-game series with anyone if they don’t have the consistent experience of rotation on the court. They’re only averaging 15.7 minutes on the season. That’s just over one quarter.

With Paul George’s health questionable as of now, we may be in a predicament if our bench can’t assimilate. We also rank second to last in bench points per game, averaging 30 points. On a normal schedule, sure those 30 points would work. But with seven games in thirteen days, the bench will have to contribute far more.

With all that negativity aside, I have full faith in our bench when they’re playing to their potential and Donovan is giving them the best chance with his rotations. Like I said before, against the Bucks our bench did an outstanding job and that was a great way to end the season and prepare for this series.