OKC Thunder former members play key role in loss to Pacers – Player grades
The OKC Thunder failed to build upon their recent fortune as they fall to the Indiana Pacers and a slew of former teammates for the second time this season. Player grades break it down.
It wasn’t the beat down the Pacers leveled on the OKC Thunder in the clubs’ first meeting but the result was the same. Rather, this match was one of the most closely contested this season in terms of each quarter with neither team ever holding a lead larger than seven points.
What was common is OKC was there in the end once more and several different Thunder players stepped up down the stretch.
107. 100. 100. 149. Final
For the second consecutive game, OKC came out with a focused effort in the first and third quarters abandoning their bad habits of letting those frames define the game.
After the first quarter, the Thunder held a slim three-point edge. Steven Adams was a frequent target of Chris Paul and that’s a great sign for OKC as the Big Kiwi is finally looking like that knee injury is behind him.
The second quarter was a back and forth affair featuring current OKC Thunder players and past as Domantas Sabonis, Doug McDermott and Jeremy Lamb all factored for the Pacers. By the end of the frame which the Pacers won the Thunder still held a one-point edge going into the half.
The third quarter was a reminder for the Phoenix Suns they gave TJ Warren away for far too little and to Sam Presti, his selection of Domantas Sabonis was on the mark (more on this tomorrow in a separate article). The Pacers once again took the frame by two points to pull ahead by one entering the final frame.
The Pacers held off each charge by the Thunder in the fourth quarter until — yup — clutch time hit with Chris Paul kicking into his clutch time mode and cut into the Pacers lead which had just recently swelled to six.
But back to back buckets by CP3 narrowed the gap to two points then at 2:44 a tip shot by Steven Adams put OKC ahead. However, within 15 seconds the Pacers stole the lead back and despite concerted efforts from our clutch time crew, the Pacers were able to hold off the surge to capture their second win versus the home team.
With that let’s dive into the player grades.