Over the past few years, the OKC Thunder have developed a reputation for being one of the more slap-happy teams in the association and for relying heavily on their trips to the charity stripe to pad their scoring numbers.
Following their short-handed win over the surging Cleveland Cavaliers Sunday night, star shooting guard Donovan Mitchell only continued to peddle such narratives.
Now, despite the fact that there have been countless cases made disputing these claims, the aforementioned descriptors continue to follow Oklahoma City around as dust and dirt do with Pig-Pen.
Interestingly enough, on Wednesday night, the Thunder find themselves slated to face off against the exact type of team people accuse them of being: the Detroit Pistons.
Pistons play the kind of game many accuse Thunder of leaning into
Though the main selling point for this primetime clash is that it's the first and second-best teams from a record standpoint going head-to-head, it also holds a high level of intrigue (at least for OKC fans) due to the fact that the Thunder will be facing a club like the Pistons that plays with the style they're incorrectly lambasted for adopting.
Roughly three-quarters of the way through the 2025-26 campaign, Detroit is without question one of the most physical teams in the league, and, often, to a fault.
With 56 games under their belt, Cade Cunningham and company rank as the most frequent fouling team with an average of 22.3 per game. Four of their mainstay talents (Cunningham, Isaiah Stewart, Jalen Duren, and Ausar Thompson) rank in the top-21 in average personal fouls committed among those who have played 40 or more games.
For comparison's sake, Oklahoma City ranks in with the 10-fewest fouls committed on average at 19.4, while only Lu Dort serves as the lone member of the team to fall into the top-21 in individual fouls.
As for the free-throw hunting aspect of their scoring approach, on the year, Detroit attempts 26.4 shots per game, the third-highest mark. Their 1,118 makes from the foul line account for 17.0 percent of their total points scored as a whole.
The Thunder, meanwhile, rank 14 in the average free throw attempts department at 23.9 per game.
Add all of this to the fact that the Pistons were just recently seen squaring off against the San Antonio Spurs as if it were a UFC match rather than an NBA game, and there should be no debate that Detroit is, in fact, the kind of team many claim the Thunder to be.