The Oklahoma City Thunder played their third preseason game in four nights, as they welcomed in Josh Giddey’s former NBL squad the Adelaide 36ers who made history on Sunday night by topping the Phoenix Suns. Tonight, it was OKC who dominated behind Tre Mann’s incredible scoring outburst.
The OKC Thunder beat the Adelaide 36ers 131-98 as Tre Mann scores a team-high 26 points and the Oklahoma City Thunder featured six players in double-figures, despite being shorthanded.
The Oklahoma City Thunder dominate the Adelaide 36ers behind Tre Mann’s scoring outburst, showing potential ceiling as a pure scorer
For the second time in three games, Tre Mann’s offensive game left OKC Thunder fans with their jaws on the floor in lifting the team to a win. The second-year guard finished with a team-high 26 points on just 11 shots, missing just two attempts all night. Mann dazzled with his step-back isolation jumpers, and floor-spacing deep triples, with two assists, and two rebounds to add to his stat line as well.
Mann turned in all that production in just 23 minutes of action, and the Oklahoma City Thunder hope he can find some consistency along the way this season. Without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the floor, Tre Mann becomes the team’s best scorer and he showed up in a big way tonight.
Lindy Waters III finished with 23 points by splashing home six three-pointers in the OKC Thunder win, joining Mann, Aaron Wiggins (12), Darius Bazley (12), Josh Giddey (10), and Eugene Omoruyi (19) in the double-digit point club.
The OKC Thunder saw their lead swell to 40 and were never on the wrong end of the scoreboard. For the third straight game, the undersized Thunder won the battle on the glass, while also turning in more fastbreak and second-chance points.
As a team, the Oklahoma City Thunder made 50 percent of their shots from three-point land, while shooting 92 percent at the charity stripe, and 52 percent from the floor.
While it was just preseason, and against a non-NBA team, it is important to remember this non-NBA team beat the Suns just days ago, who won over 50 games last season. The OKC Thunder are also missing key pieces to their rotation such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Ousmane Dieng, Kenrich Williams, and even Mike Muscala. That is not to mention missing Chet Holmgren for the entire season.
The Thunder took care of business on Thursday night in the Paycom Center, and look to do the same on Sunday when they finish their home preseason slate against Ra’anana Maccabi.