The ongoing theme of this Oklahoma City Thunder squad this season is that despite having one of the worst records in the league due to youthfulness and inexperience, opposing teams cannot head into their games against them with the mindset that it will be an easy win. This can’t be exemplified better than Thursday’s game against the team with the best record in the league and reigning Western Conference champions Phoenix Suns, where they lost the game 113-101.
Considering the context — the second night of a back-to-back on the road against a team that was 14-2 at home — the Thunder being blown out by a lot would not have been that surprising of a result. If anything, it is what most would expect. And that result would not be a detriment on the Thunder. It would speak more on the fact that the talent gap between arguably the best team in the NBA and one of the worst teams in the NBA is wide.
But instead, the young Thunder were able to keep this game interesting for all four quarters. This did not look like the case after the first quarter, where the Suns led by 12 points. But the league leaders in 15+ point comebacks this season were able to make this contest interesting with a 31-16 second quarter advantage. I would prefer labelling this type of game as a productive loss more than a moral win. The Thunder were able to keep up with one of the best teams in the NBA in their arena as they finish a stretch of four games in six nights. This loss is productive in the way that the team was able to realize that they took it round-to-round with one of the bests while also improving the team’s lottery odds and keeping up with the pace of the reverse lottery standings.
Thunder fans would love to have more games follow this script where the young talent shows out and keeps things close but ultimately fall short. With all that said, let’s take a look at player grades:
