Steven Adams long bomb cripples Wolves as OKC Thunder net OT win – 3 takeaways

Fans witnessed a wild game as the OKC Thunder net an overtime victory thanks to a series of crazy clutch time events. Three takeaways offer the goods on the entertaining match.

If you believe in karma then the OKC Thunder was due this win. After all, there are still scars on the backs of the Thunder jerseys from the late game Andrew Wiggins half court 3-point shot that gave the Wolves an improbable buzzer beating victory two seasons ago.

It’s not like everything went the way of the home side they simply overcame all the obstacles for the improbable comeback victory.

A crazy sequence of events:

It almost felt like the game was getting ripped away from the Thunder regardless of how hard they were competing. After surrendering a 10 point lead OKC entered their 13th game where the decision would be decided at the horn — or so we thought.

Karl-Anthony Towns gave the Wolves a 121-119 point lead with 33.8 seconds remaining on the clock. When Dennis Schroder missed scoring on a driving layup it appeared the game was lost.

Notice the substitutions and how each played a role in this crazy sequence of events…

• Shabazz Napier and Luguentz Dort are subbed in with 17.7 seconds on the clock. This is followed by a bad Josh Okogie inbound pass that sails past Napier leading to Dort jumping on top of it and calling time out.
• With 14 seconds on the clock, Jordan Bell is subbed in for the Wolves.
• In the following possession, it looked like Karl-Anthony Towns fouled Chris Paul on his follow through but no foul was called.  Bell grabbed the rebound and Steven Adams immediately fouled him but the refs ignored the initially foul prompting Adams to literally grab and pull on Bell’s arm while screaming at the ref to acknowledge the foul.
• Bell goes to the line and misses BOTH free throws, but unfortunately, as the Thunder try to set themselves up for the rebound and quick outlet, it allows Josh Okogie to outhustle the smaller Chris Paul for the rebound and the refs give him a timeout instead of calling the immediate foul the Thunder tried to get. THIS is important because if the refs had called the foul the next step in the crazy sequence never happens.
• On the inbound play, the Wolves find a way to get KAT the ball who is immediately fouled with the Wolves up 121-119. He heads to the line with 1.1 seconds on the clock and MISSES the first free throw.
• Danilo Gallinari is subbed in as is Jordan Bell who gets immediately whistled for a delay of game because his shirt isn’t tucked in.

• Now, the call is unusual at this stage in the game but initially, we’re thinking this is payback by the refs for the other calls they hadn’t made. As it turns out that voice you hear in the background shout “Delay of game!” is Chris Paul who points out Bell’s shirt is untucked.

• Because the Wolves already had a delay of game call this leads to a technical free throw by Gallo which he makes and moves the score within a point (121-120 Wolves).

At this point all KAT has to do is miss the free throw because there are only 1.1 seconds on the clock, the Wolves have the lead and the Thunder have no timeouts. Instead, KAT makes the free throw which allows the Thunder to inbound the ball and what an inbound it was.

What should be noted here is how quickly the Thunder responded to the made free throw by Towns. Steven Adams quickly grabs the ball, heads out of bounds and fires away a bomb close to the full length of the court to his intended wide receiver, er – teammate Dennis Schroder who pushes past Jeff Teague to drop in the basket as time expires tying the game and sending the game into overtime.

https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1203157055499956224

At this point, ALL the momentum is on the Thunder’s side and they go on to finish the game completely dominating the Wolves in the extra frame. No doubt, the Wolves were reeling from their meltdown in the late stages but again this payback win was two years in the making and it sure felt good to erase that prior memory from the bank.