OKC Thunder vs Blazers: 3 Takeaways – Bazley and Diallo produce career nights
The Blazers were the last opponent in the scrimmages with two OKC Thunder youngsters stepping up to make a statement.
The final OKC Thunder scrimmage game of their schedule featured the Portland Trail Blazers. Head coach Billy Donovan has consistently stated these matches were more about building conditioning and isolating on opponent strengths to work on key sets within the team system.
Boston offered a chance to take on versatile, interchangeable talented wings while the 76ers served up arguably the largest starting lineup the Thunder will face. The Blazers were meant to be an opportunity to face an All-Star backcourt and a returning healthy and lengthy frontcourt.
That situation changed when the Blazers elected to rest Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. The former as he deals with swelling on the bottom of his foot. Portland is 3.5 games back of the Memphis Grizzlies for the coveted eighth seed and in a virtual tie with the Kings and Pelicans for ninth. Clearly, Terry Stotts felt his crew could benefit from resting their stars as their focus will be beating out the four other squads vying for the play-in tournament.
OKC Thunder vs. Blazers – 3 takeaways
On the OKC Thunder side of the equation, Donovan smartly elected to rest Chris Paul given the circumstances. Nerlens Noel was also out on a one-day quarantine punishment for failing to get his daily COVID-19 test completed.
The other Thunder player missing was Terrance Ferguson who is dealing with a leg contusion which could explain his lackluster showing through the initial two scrimmages.
Abdel Nader returned from the concussion protocol program and looked none the worse for his absence.
Despite so many core players missing the contest offered an opportunity for the Thunder to look at specific items like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander running the point.
With Dennis Schroder awaiting news on his wife going into labor, this was a good opportunity to test SGA out in that regard. Donovan also didn’t play his starters heavy minutes electing to go with his reserves in the second half who was more than happy to give their coach something to think about when it comes to minute distribution in the upcoming seeding games.
With that, let’s look at three takeaways from the match.