OKC Thunder grades: 4th quarter mini burst seals game for Grizzlies

In fairness, this effort by the OKC Thunder was somewhat inevitable. Playing shorthanded through the past five games while facing playoff seeds and four currently holding home-court position.

The Thunder were in every one of those matches often leading by double-digits and were missing star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in four of the five matches. SGA returned to the floor on Wednesday versus the Grizzlies. His presence offered room for optimism but they didn’t have Al Horford as the team continued the practice of resting the vet in second games of back-to-back sets.

The result was the Thunder didn’t seem to bring the same type of attack and energy as they had in the five prior games.  It’s not a shot or negative because any team in the association would be fatigued after a five-game set like OKC just experienced particularly using only eight or nine players.

"Gilgeous-Alexander summed it up in his post game comments as per ESPN: “The ball didn’t go in our favor. They got a couple of offensive rebounds. We didn’t make enough shots. “Nights like that happen. … We just didn’t do enough defensively and offensively.”"

Both clubs were playing on consecutive nights and the Grizzlies were coming off an embarrassing 144-113 loss to the Pelicans.

Neither team built much of a lead in the back and forth affair until the final frame. During a little more than four minutes  (11:03 – 6:41) Memphis turned the game via a 15 to 3 run. That broke the game wide open and the Thunder weren’t able to counter or draw closer than seven points and even that occurred far too late in the match to matter.

With that let’s dive into the grades from the match