OKC Thunder player grades -Poor start leads to another loss vs Clippers

The second game of the back to back series vs the LA Clippers almost had a sense of deja vu as the OKC Thunder once again fell down by double digits early.

The Clippers quickly established dominance on the scoreboard and the Thunder spent seemingly the next three quarters just trying to play catch up.

This game was a tale of two teams as the Clippers, now tied for top in the west are looking towards a possible championship tilt, whereas the Thunder are clearly in the midst of a modest rebuild, and it showed tonight.

The Clippers’ veteran presence was very noticeable as the young Thunder team struggled to make defensive coverages for most of the night. The saving grace was LA had clearly used up all their red hot shooting in game one as they went a putrid fourteen of forty-six from deep.

OKC worked a lot harder to grab rebounds tonight which showed on the stat sheet with Oklahoma winning the rebound count fifty-one to forty-six. Offensive rebounds continued to haunt OKC though as the Clippers got several easy buckets on putbacks.

OKC thunders player grades highlight the inability to slow down Kawai.

Similar to game one the Thunder comeback was a grind for most of the second and third quarter. They would make small dents into the lead only for Kawai to come down and nail five quick points to push it back out.

Once the fourth quarter hit. George Hill decided to take matters into his own hands and hit three straight 3-pointers to bring the deficit to single digits.

Once again the cyborg that is Kawhi Leonard decided he had had enough and put the game away with his deadly mid-range shots.

The Thunder fought very hard all night but when you come up against a team as stacked with talent as the LA Clippers, sometimes it just isn’t enough.

With all that said let’s dive into the player grades from the match.