The OKC Thunder lose another close game moving to 1-4 as Damian Lillard’s Blazers step up in the clutch. Player grades provide insight into the match.
A busy night in the NBA featured lots of firsts for the season including a fight, a crazy shoot out and plenty of impressive individual performances. Unfortunately, the narrative for the OKC Thunder was a wash, rinse repeat as the club played yet another close game and once again ended up on the losing side.
With Steven Adams out due to a knee contusion, there was ample reason to believe the advantage would fall to the Blazers. That wasn’t the case however, as OKC stayed invested defensively and competed right to the final buzzer.
The irony is while the Thunder are 1-4 this season they could just as easily be 4-1 and aside from the Wizards (although the Rockets might disagree after tonight) the losses came versus elite clubs.
That’s becoming a constant for this iteration of the OKC Thunder as the team is maintaining their defense-first identity. The problem lies in the offense and in particular a stretch in every loss where the team can’t buy a bucket for three to five minutes and that ends up being the difference in the outcome.
Portland jumped on the Thunder early to take a 24-17 first-quarter lead. OKC shot an anemic 27.8 percent in the frame although it’s hard to credit the Blazers defense. Rather, it was more of the Thunder being their own worst enemy. By the half, Portland was still leading but the Thunder had cut the deficit to five points (49-44). The typical dry spell the Thunder commit in losses occurred in the first half this time.
In the second half, OKC won the third quarter by six points and took a one-point lead into the final frame. Although there wasn’t a wave goodbye on this night Damian Lillard managed to affect the final score with a quick barrage of 3-point baskets. Chris Paul tried to will his squad to a win but Rodney Hood‘s 3-point shot with 30.7 seconds remaining to put the Blazers up by five was the final dagger.
Let’s take a look at the player grades from the match.