By Michael Doutey
The Oklahoma City Thunder fall 108-104 to the Los Angeles Lakers in Oklahoma City on Sunday afternoon. The Thunder trailed essentially the whole game and were really outplayed by the Lakers. The Thunder appeared to be sleepwalking through most of this game and the Lakers took the fight to the Thunder. It felt like one of those traditional Thunder games where OKC played down to their competition. OKC was able to keep the game in striking distance and it felt like OKC was going flip the switch and find a way to win the game. Only OKC was never able to hit the switch and the Thunder suffered an inexplicable loss to a bad, Lonzo Ball-less Lakers team. Here are today’s five observations from a disappointing Thunder loss.
1. Effort
Harken back with me to January 3rd. We are in Los Angeles and the Thunder are taking on the Lakers. The Thunder destroyed the Lakers 133-96 that night. Ah, when times were good in Thunderland. The Thunder did all that without Andre Roberson, who missed the game with knee tendonitis in the knee he just had season ending surgery on. So, pardon me for not accepting that the Thunder are a lost team without Dre. Sure, OKC isn’t a contender without Andre, I’ll buy that. But not able to get stops on the Lakers? No, I refuse to believe OKC is unable to play any defense without Roberson. Today, it felt like the team was looking around waiting for someone else to make the gritty plays to lead to multiple stops. It felt like no one wanted to go first. The Thunder were really disappointing today and this loss is reflected by the teams poor effort and energy more than anything else.
2. Terrance Ferguson Isn’t Cutting It
In the five games without Andre Roberson, where OKC is 1-4 in those games, Ferguson has been such a significant drop off from Roberson. That’s saying it as nicely as I can. In the 68 minutes T-Ferg has played in, he has mustered two points on 0-4 shooting. He has shot the ball just four times in five games. Four. And they have all been three’s. His two points have come from the free throw line. On offense, that’s not going to cut it. We are going to get analytical here. But the Thunders starters with Roberson was a net rating of plus 14.2 per 100 possessions, which is the best on the team. With Terrance Ferguson with the starters, the Thunder are a negative 11.3 per 100 possessions. That is a difference of 25.5 per 100 possessions. That simply isn’t good enough. Billy Donovan has to look at another option for his starting lineup. The Thunder’s next best net rating lineup is with Josh Huestis with a rating of plus 8.5. But that’s in a small sample size of just 71 total minutes. I would like to see a couple games of Josh Huestis starting to see how that works.
3. Steven Adams off Night
Adams has been a beast lately. The Thunder have been better for it, obviously. But tonight, the Lakers had an excellent gameplan. Brook Lopez has developed a great outside shooting game. So, the Lakers used that to their advantage. Lopez was stalking out on the perimeter, taking Adams away from the paint. Lopez, who scored 20 points, including going 4-9 from three, really hurt the Thunder. That also freed up space for Julius Randle in the paint. More on that in a second. But Lopez also kept Steven Adams off the offensive glass, which has been really hard to do lately. Adams was held to five total rebounds, but also just two offensive boards. OKC has cashed in on those second chance opportunities. OKC lost that battle today. The Lakers outscored the Thunder 18-13 in second chance points.
4. Lakers Game Plan
The Lakers did an excellent job on OKC. They brought Lopez out to the three point line, and that enabled the Lakers to get a one-on-one matchup with Julius Randle and Carmelo Anthony. The Lakers ran the offense through Randle. He scored 19 points on 7-15 shooting. Randle was able to beat Anthony and either he was able to score or Thunder sent help and Randle was able to move the basketball and the ball found its way to an open shooter. The Lakers slowed the pace, moved the basketball, got good shots and frustrated OKC. LA ran the inside-out offense to break down OKC’s defense and forced them into scramble mode. The Lakers cashed in and the Thunder’s defense looked really bad because of it.
5. Defending the Three Point Line
In the five games since Roberson has gone down, OKC has allowed 58 made threes at a rate of 11.6 made threes per game. That isn’t very good, especially when OKC had only made 44 threes over that span, good for just 8.8 made threes per game. OKC is being outscored by 42 points on the three point line over the past five games and being outscored by 8.4 points at the three point line per game. OKC has four straight losses by six to Washington, three to Denver, 14 to New Orleans and then four today to the Lakers. If OKC was even in three point line category over the past few games, OKC would probably have won three out of the past four games instead of losing four straight. OKC has to defend the three point line much better without Andre Roberson. Period.
The Thunder now take their four game losing streak to the Bay to face the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night. Tip time is set for 9:30 inside Oracle Arena.
