By Michael Doutey
The Oklahoma City Thunder played their third game of the season without Russell Westbrook, the first since Westbrook sprained his left ankle on Monday night. And as we have witnessed over the years, the Thunder struggle to win games without Russ in the lineup. Tonight’s game did nothing to dissuade that line of thinking.
The Thunder were able to build a 16 point second half lead early in the third quarter, keeping the Cavs at arms distance, but never pulling away enough from the Cavs to run away with the game. The door was left open and eventually the Cavs caught fire, taking a small fourth quarter lead.
There was a few possessions where the lead went back-and-fourth, but the Thunder eventually were able to execute down the stretch and pull away late, earning their sixth straight straight win 95-86. The Thunder advance to 6-4 on the season and will face the Houston Rockets tomorrow night in OKC. Here are tonights five observations.
ONE: Ugly Wins are Still Wins
This was an extremely ugly win for OKC over the NBA’s worst team. The Thunder shot just 42 percent from the field, 7-27 from three and 18-26 from the free throw line. Those numbers are gross and typically have lead to losses. The Thunder also had just 10 assists, which isn’t good and isn’t all that surprising given the poor shooting percentage. Number similar to these from earlier in the season lead OKC to four losses in a row. In those games, the Thunder had open and good looks but didn’t knock them down. That was true again tonight. The Thunder also caught a little break. Down the stretch both JR Smith and Kyle Korver both had a couple good looks from three that just didn’t go down. It was not pretty. It wasn’t thrilling. But it was good enough for a win, which on the road without Russell Westbrook is good enough for me.
TWO: Dennis Schröder to the Rescue
One thing that may have contributed to OKC’s early losses was Schröder not being entirely comfortable with his new team. After a couple more weeks with the team and with good play, Schröder was ready to take over in the absence of Russ. Tonight, Schröder dropped 28 points, a season-high, on an efficient 11-19 shooting. Schröder took advantage of rookie Collin Sexton, getting to the rim with ease all game long. Schröder grabbed seven boards but didn’t record and assist, which is a little concerning. But he has done a good job of moving the ball with the second unit in his time coming off the bench, so maybe it is just a one game anomaly. The Thunder needed all the points they could earn and that was what the game called from Schröder and that is what he delivered.
THREE: Bench Struggled
Without Schröder, the bench really struggled. I was not really impressed with how Raymond Felton ran the second unit. He is not great at running the offense. Too often the ball ends up sticking in his hands and he has to make a play. At times, Raymond turns into Uncle Ray and just gets buckets. But so far this season Ray hasn’t quite been what he was at times a season ago. Felton was a minus-11 in his 14 minutes, where he scored just four points on 2-6 shooting, had two assists, three steals and a block. The bench was bad on offense but actually was good on defense. Felton had the three steals, Diallo had one and Nerlens Noel had two. Noel also had four blocks and did a great job rim protecting. Patterson also struggled. Outside of his lone three, he missed a couple around the rim and dropped a pass on a nice cut. The bench was really aided by Diallo in the first half by getting out on the break, scoring eight points and bringing energy. But everyone outside Alex Abrines had a negative plus-minus. The bench has been a strong point all season, but without Schröder running the second unit, they looked like fish out of the water.
FOUR: PG Solid Night
PG had a solid night at the office, scoring 18 points on 7-16 shooting. He hooked up with Steven Adams on a last second three right before halftime, his only make from three in the game. But he grabbed seven rebounds, had two assists and two steals in 39 minutes of action. While his defense has been tremendous, he is still struggling to find his way on offense. Tonight he got to the rim some, but later in the game he shied away from taking drives and passed them away. I would have liked to have seen him be a little more assertive, but he was still solid tonight and is doing things on the defensive end to held the team win games.
FIVE: Thunder Pesky Defense Bothers Cavs
The Thunder did a great job of creating turnovers. OKC leads the NBA in turnovers, forcing 18.2 per game. Tonight, the Thunder forced the Cavs in to 20 turnovers and OKC scored 21 points off of them. OKC also lead the league in steals with 11.7 per game. Tonight, the Thunder did another great job, grabbing 13. OKC also blocked nine shots. The Thunder held the Cavs to 37 percent shooting overall and 9-31 from three. OKC’s offense was not great, but they didn’t allow it to disrupt their stellar defense.
This was the first night of a back-to-back. Tomorrow, the Thunder will be home to take on the Houston Rockets. Russell Westbrook has yet to be ruled out of that game and we will have an update a few hours before tipoff, which is set to be at 7 p.m. inside Chesapeake Energy Arena.
