OKC Thunder: 3 takeaways as Thunder escape Wolves for win
By Ryan Lewis
The OKC Thunder stumbled into Saturday night’s game, having lost a heartbreaker to the Minnesota Timberwolves the night before. Even without four key players on Friday, the Thunder still managed to nearly pick up the win in the first game of a two-game homestand against the Timberwolves.
On Saturday, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luguentz Dort, and Theo Maledon returned to the floor for the Thunder, and in the first half of the game, it appeared as if the Thunder were on their way to a blow-out.
But sometimes, things don’t quite work out that way.
The OKC Thunder scored a franchise-record 83 points in the first half of Saturday night’s game, taking a 21-point lead into the break. It was hard to see any possible outcome other than a big-time Thunder win, but in the third quarter, the Timberwolves came charging back, limiting the Thunder to 13 points while scoring 32 of their own.
The Thunder looked nothing like the same team that had dropped 83 in the first half. That collapse is what leads TI’s 3 takeaways.
OKC Thunder takeaway No. 1) Second-half meltdown raises questions
The OKC Thunder dominated the first half of Saturday night’s game, and it wasn’t even close.
The Thunder shot 60.4 percent from the field in the first half and knocked down 10 of their 19 shot attempts from 3-point range. In just about every aspect of the game, the Thunder were, clearly, the superior team.
But somewhere along the way, the team began to unravel.
In the third quarter, the Thunder of the first half vanished. The hot shooting that allowed the Thunder to surge to a big lead was gone. Of the 24 shots taken, the Thunder made just six. From 3-point range, the Thunder were a horrendous 1-for-10.
Mike Muscala, who had gone a perfect 7-for-7 in the first half, missed all five of his shots. Darius Bazley and Kenrich Williams were both ineffective, leaving Dort, Gilgeous-Alexander, Maledon, and Hamidou Diallo as the only scorers.
How does a team set a franchise record in the first half and completely fall apart in the second half?
The Thunder were likely gassed, for starters. The Thunder are a young team, but even young people have a limit to how much energy they can expend before they begin to tire out.
Having just put on a clinic through the first two quarters, it’s understandable that there was less urgency among the players. The lead wasn’t in jeopardy, early in the third, so there wasn’t much of a need to play the Timberwolves as tough on defense.
As for the offense, the Thunder just fell victim to bad shooting from a handful of players.
Gilgeous-Alexander shot 50 percent, but he only attempted four shots. Maledon also shot 50 percent, but he only shot the ball twice. Diallo shot 66.7 percent on three attempts.
The bad shooting bug fell squarely on Williams, Dort, Bazley, and Muscala, who were a combined 1-for-15 in the quarter. Even elite teams will have trouble digging out of that big of a hole.
It’s understandable why Muscala would keep shooting. After having missed no shots through the first half, the belief had to have been that he would keep being automatic. Muscala left the game in the fourth quarter after getting elbowed in the face by Jaden McDaniels.
At that point, the game turned around for the Thunder.