The OKC Thunder ran out of gas down the stretch uncharacteristically failing to close in the clutch versus the Nuggets.
In their second of eight ‘seeded’ games in the Disney bubble, the OKC Thunder wasn’t able to capitalize on their typical strengths.
The Nuggets took full advantage of the constant stoppages in play and an extremely erratic whistle that didn’t allow OKC an opportunity to figure out what was acceptable. That led to Shai Gilgeous Alexander picking up his fifth foul at 6:51 of the third-quarter. Without Schroder that put undue pressure on Chris Paul.
There was hope for a win particularly since it would’ve given the Thunder the tiebreak over the Nuggets, instead Denver owns that advantage. More importantly, the club was desirous of the ‘W’ since the Nuggets and Thunder can’t finish the season tied.
As TI noted in our article, the foursome grouped in the three through six berths all played 64 pre-hiatus games except the Nuggets with 65 and who also had three additional wins.
To finish ahead of Denver the Thunder would need to make up those three wins plus get one more than Denver. In essence, OKC needed to win four more games than Denver out of the eight seeded matches. Like I said, a tall order.
OKC Thunder vs. Denver Nuggets – Grades
In addition, they have to do no worse than tie Houston or Utah (since OKC owns those tiebreaks).
In spite of the slow pace, seventy trips to the stripe, and about as frustrating a game to watch as we’ve had to this season the Thunder held the lead at times and had the ball in their hands at clutch time with a shot to win.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t OKC’s day, and the opportunity to gain some ground on the middle pack slipped through their fingers.