OKC Thunder win in San Antonio for first time since 2014 – grades
The OKC Thunder got their revenge on the San Antonio Spurs winning for the first time at the AT&T Center since 2014. Player grades offer some insight.
Traveling to play matches in San Antonio hasn’t exactly been a positive experience for the OKC Thunder who hadn’t won on the Spurs court since Christmas Day of 2014. Then factor in the last time OKC played in San Antonio this season it resulted in an 112-121 loss.
Entering the game the Thunder sat in seventh while the Spurs had moved up to the eighth seed. Although OKC had a slight pad of 3.5 fewer losses and four extra wins by virtue of the victory OKC has increased that padding to 4.5 in the win/loss column and five additional wins.
109. 149. 103. 29. Final
The teams played to a 27 point draw in the first quarter then as is an all too commonality for the Thunder they gave up one quarter to the opposition. In this match, it was the second frame where the Spurs wrestled away control with a 28-19 frame.
The Thunder took over in the third quarter (28-21) via a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dominant frame to cut the lead to two entering the fourth.
With the game up for grabs, the Thunder lowered the boom in the fourth as Chris Paul (Mr. Clutch) led the way scoring 10 if his 16 points.
In the initial four minutes of the fourth, the score fluctuated back and forth repeatedly but Chris Paul’s pull-up shot at 9:33 put the Thunder up by a single point and the Thunder never trailed the match again.
.With that, let’s dive into the specifics with the player grades for the match.