OKC Thunder: 3 takeaways in 30-point beatdown by the Nuggets
By Ryan Lewis
If the youthful OKC Thunder players ever looked tired, it was against the Denver Nuggets in Saturday’s 126-96 loss.
The Thunder, fresh off their victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, went into Saturday’s game looking to pick up their third straight victory, but the task was a tough one as the Thunder have lost both games they’ve played against the Nuggets this season.
The third and final matchup between the two teams this season had the same outcome.
The Denver Nuggets are the fifth-best 3-point shooting team in the league. To have any chance of winning, Oklahoma City needed to shut that option down. The Thunder also needed to rein in Nikola Jokic, who has torched the Thunder defense this season.
OKC failed on both of those tasks.
The Nuggets shot just 31 3-pointers in the game, but when Denver did shoot from deep, it converted 48.4 percent of those shots — Michael Porter Jr went 4-for-4 in the first quarter, alone.
The Thunder’s struggles were apparent in the first quarter as the Nuggets shot out to a 13-0 lead before Oklahoma City could put points on the scoreboard. Even when the Thunder got there, their shot was nowhere to be found.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander accounted for four of the Thunder’s nine makes in the first quarter. No other player made more than one bucket.
The rest of the game wasn’t much prettier.
Facing such a large deficit, Gilgeous-Alexander played just 26 minutes in the game, and he didn’t touch the court at all in the fourth quarter. Instead, the Thunder mostly relied on younger, more inexperienced players such as Ty Jerome, Kenrich Williams, Justin Jackson, and Theo Maledon.
Jerome played all 12 minutes in the fourth and led the Thunder with eight points in the quarter. After debuting with nine points against the Hawks, Jerome scored 15 points on 50 percent shooting against the Nuggets.
Darius Bazley continued to excel with a 22-point, 50 percent shooting outing on Saturday.
Overall, it was a bad night for the OKC Thunder starters aside from Bazley and Gilgeous-Alexander.
Al Horford scored just six points on 27.3 percent shooting, while Luguentz Dort finished with two points on 16.7 percent shooting and Maledon scored just one point at the free-throw line, finishing 0-for-6 from the field.
Because the Thunder spent most of the game so far behind, the bench saw more floor time, and the outcome was mostly good. That’s why the bench play leads TI’s 3 takeaways:
OKC Thunder takeaway No. 1) Bench deserve praise in bad loss
There weren’t many positives in the OKC Thunder loss, but they mostly came from the bench, if there were any.
The Thunder bench combined for 52 of the Thunder’s 96 points. Jerome and Isaiah Roby combined for 30 of those points as Jerome finished with 15 points and Roby finished with 15 on 50 percent shooting.
Williams put up 12 points on 83.3 percent shooting, Mike Muscala had eight on 60 percent shooting, and Jackson had just two on 20 percent shooting.
Roby had the best night for the bench as he pulled down nine rebounds, dealt seven assists, and picked up two steals. The only real negative about Roby’s play on Saturday was his six turnovers, which can be cleaned up with more experience.
Williams continued to show why he belongs on the court, adding five rebounds to go along with his 12 points.
When the rest of the team couldn’t put it together, the Thunder bench came to the rescue, and that’s always a positive thing.