OKC Thunder game grades: Season-Opening beat down
By Rylan Stiles
On Wednesday night, the OKC Thunder got their season started on the road in Chicago. The Thunder registered a 20-point beatdown of the Chicago Bulls, sending their Windy City foes spiraling. A players-only meeting after the season’s first game is never a good sign.
While the Thunder and Bulls started the first frame with a track meet, a Muddy second frame was met with a 7-0 Bulls run to start the third period. After that hot stretch, Mark Daigneault called a timeout just a hair over a minute into the third quarter. From there, it was all OKC Thunder as their lead swelled to 21, wrestling away control from Billy Donovan’s squad.
The OKC Thunder beat down the Bulls to the tune of a 20-point win, grading the performance.
As the Thunder stretched their lead and eventually won by 20 points, they did not play perfectly. Their 15 turnovers, poorly timed misses at the charity stripe, and lack of their two best bench players. Yet, they beat down a competitive Bulls team on the road. That in itself should be the reason for optimism around Bricktown.
If you can win a game by 20 points and not play your A game, you are in for a wildly successful 82-game run. From our first look at the exciting young core to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropping 30 points again and Cason Wallace’s stellar debut, there is much to recap from this contest.