Despite their two best big men being out, the OKC Thunder took care of the Washington Wizards – Grades tells the story.
Steven Adams sat out his second game and Nerlens Noel was a late scratching leaving the OKC Thunder thin at the center position. Fortunately, they were still able to have a big body in the middle thanks to Mike Muscala.
This meant that the Washington Wizards were always going to have the advantage on the boards. The OKC Thunder focused on team rebounding with five players collecting six or more rebounds for the game, this was crucial to limiting second-chance points.
The game was over after the first quarter thanks to the hot shooting of the OKC Thunder from deep. The Wizards had very little experience on the court. They are focusing on youth and they just were outmatched against the Thunder experience.
Again the Thunder has shown that they have the ability to put a poor performance behind them as they led the entirety of the game. This will be crucial moving forward into the playoffs as it is going to make this squad very hard to beat in a seven-game series.
The other crucial part of the win is the Thunder is on the first leg of a back to back. Tomorrow they play against one of the hottest teams in the bubble, the Phoenix Suns, and would have faced the possibility of a three-game skid had they not taken care of business.
On to grades