OKC Thunder routed by desperate Grizzlies- 3 takeaways

The OKC Thunder suffered their worst loss since February to a desperate Grizzlies squad. Three takeaways offer insights.

As the Disney bubble continues to present ‘seeded’ games the 22 participants have reached the halfway point of their closing schedule. The OKC Thunder has covered the gamut splitting their four games via a close win, heartbreaking overtime loss, a statement win, and a blowout loss.

The latter came courtesy of an unlikely opponent – the Memphis Grizzlies who had lost all previous four games. Perhaps it’s not that surprising as the Grizzlies were playing desperate. If they had lost to the Thunder, then the Blazers would’ve swapped places with them into the eighth seed.

By virtue of the win, the Grizzlies retain the eighth seed although they’ll be in tough to keep it with Damian Lillard having ‘that look’ of determination in his eyes.

As far as the match between the Grizz and Thunder, the rookie Ja Morant and his squad deserve credit for not giving up after falling behind by double digits early. As TI touched on in our post-game grades, after losing the opening quarter 37-25 Memphis went on to win every other quarter each by double-digits.

Diving in deeper let’s look at three takeaways the OKC Thunder can garner from the loss.

Losing battle on the glass and in the paint:

Entering the match Billy Donovan made a point of citing rebounding as well as scoring and defense of the paint as keys for the Thunder.

They lost all three areas — badly. Although both teams pulled down 12 offensive boards they lost the defensive board battle 24-46.  Notably, eight of the 12 offensive boards were gathered by guards and a wing.

Chris Paul and Luguentz Dort both pulled down two while Hamidou Diallo grabbed four offensive boards.

As for the paint battle, the Grizzlies smoked the Thunder outscoring them 56-36.

Memphis also won the fast break scoring effort 12 to four.