The OKC Thunder entered Friday night’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers as the underdog and rightfully so – the Clippers are rolling. Like most of their games this season, the Clippers’ offensive onslaught was on full display Friday night, overwhelming the Thunder en route to a 120-106 win.
For the first two quarters, the Clippers were untouchable. Every shot put up by Kawhi Leonard and Co. seemed to fall, allowing the Clippers to turn a 9-6 advantage early in the opening frame into a 36-18 lead as time expired in the quarter.
That lead continued to grow.
The Clippers surged ahead by as many as 27 points before the Thunder slowly started chipping away at the lead in the second quarter to pull within 17 points at halftime. The OKC Thunder mounted a comeback in the third and fourth quarters, pulling as close as 10 points late in the fourth, but it was too little, too late for OKC.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had a big night, dropping 30 points on the Clippers on 11-of-20 shooting. He also picked up eight assists and came away with two steals. Right behind him on the stat sheet was Luguentz Dort who continued his impressive rise to stardom with a 19-point performance on 7-of-13 shooting. Dort continued his hot 3-point shooting, knocking down three of his seven attempts. George Hill had 12 points, Mike Muscala had11 and Hamidou Diallo finished with 10.
There were positives and negatives on both sides of the ball for the OKC Thunder, but one glaring issue was free-throw shooting where the Thunder shot just 13 free throws to the Clippers 25, and that’s where we begin with TI’s 3 takeaways on the Thunder’s 120-106 loss to the Clippers.
The OKC Thunder struggle to get to the stripe
The Clippers are the best free-throw shooting team in the NBA, and it’s not really even that close. The OKC Thunder are one of the worst.
During Friday’s game against the OKC Thunder, the Clippers hit 24 of their 25 free throws. The Clippers average 20.6 free throws per game, just slightly ahead of the Thunder who shoot 20.5 free throws per game. Both teams rank in the top-10 of teams who foul the least in the NBA.
The issue for the OKC Thunder is two-fold. The Thunder struggle to draw fouls, but when they do get to the line, they also have trouble converting those free-throw attempts.
The Thunder make just 72.1 percent of all the free throws they shoot, putting them in the bottom five in the NBA. Close games rely on free-throw shooting. Getting to the line and failing to convert puts your team at an obvious disadvantage.
The Thunder are a young team. With experience comes opportunity. As the players develop, this issue could resolve itself. For now, it’s just one of the glaring weaknesses of this team.