Quite the frustrating loss for the Thunder tonight as the Philadelphia 76ers put an end to their four-game losing streak by snapping OKC’s five-game winning streak, 120-113.
I sound spoiled by saying this was a frustrating loss, I know. The Thunder lost to a team that has the potential to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals this year, and it’s only their second loss in 10 games but they could have and should have won this game.
Philly was simply hitting on all cylinders, shooting over 50 percent on the night and the Thunder withstood that until they tried to fight fire with fire in the second quarter. Philly got up by as much as 14 points in that quarter and the Thunder couldn’t shoot their way into a win this time.
In my opinion, this was the best I’ve seen Steven Adams play. He was assertive, he was active, he was nimble and he was very aggressive. He completely outplayed all-star Joel Embiid, scored 24 points and pulled down 15 rebounds, nine of which were offensive.
Other than Philly shooting well from three, Josh Richardson and Tobias Harris torching OKC with 41 combined points, and the Thunder straying away from their gameplan for nine minutes, they didn’t play poorly. They gave up a ton of points so their defense could have been better, but they should have won this game.
If Shai Gilgeous-Alexander simply reaches his season average, this is a tie game. So Thunder fans, lets eat this loss. There’s not a lot of time to ponder on this one. They’ll head north to Brooklyn overnight for a 6:30 pm CT tip tomorrow evening.
