During the NBA season, every team has its ups and downs.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are no exception. The Thunder played the rare afternoon back-to-back, taking on the Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings at 2 pm on Saturday and Sunday.
It was a tale of two games for for OKC, who split the back-to-back 1-1, getting blown out by Dallas on Saturday, and subsequently dominating the Kings on Sunday.
The first game marked one of OKC’s worst performances of the season. Luka Doncic showed why he is a MVP candidate despite Dallas sitting as the eight seed. Doncic came flying out of the gates and set the tone in the early going. Behind Doncic’s offensive explosion, Dallas ran out to a double-digit lead, and never looked back.
OKC closed the gap to four points at one point in the second, but the Mavs responded almost immediately and took back momentum and went into halftime leading by nine.
Despite cutting into the deficit in the second, OKC seemed to fumble any momentum it was able to get its hands on, and the Mavericks easily dispatched of the Thunder in the second half. No one on OKC played particularly well, but the struggles of Josh Giddey were especially glaring during the game.
Dallas adopted the strategy of letting Giddey shoot in the third quarter, and not only did they let him shoot, but they didn’t guard him at all. Wide open three after wide open three clanked off the rim, and even Giddey’s usually dependable floater wasn’t going in.
This season has been a struggle for Giddey in more ways than one, but the game against Dallas was perhaps his worst game of the season. Fortunatley for OKC, the emergence of Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren has reduced the need for Giddey to turn into a star, but if he doesn’t turn it around soon, it’s likely his playing time in key moments will begin to dwindle.
Giddey wasn’t alone in his struggles, and Dallas played most of the fourth quarter against members of the OKC G-League squad, and got an easy 146-111 win.
OKC was forced to put one of its worst games of the season in the rear view quickly, as a feisty Kings team coming to town.
The second end of the back-to-back started a lot better than the first.
The Thunder took a first quarter double digit lead of their own against Sacramento. With Shai Gilgeous-Alexander looking more like his usual self, OKC’s offense got into its typical flow. SGA was emphatic following the loss to Dallas that OKC has to come out with more energy than they did against the Mavs, and he certainly led by example less than 24 hours later.
SGA was more aggressive in hunting his shot than he typically is. While he still played within the offense as he always does, he was out to get his Sunday afternoon, and OKC got results because of it. The all-star starter racked up 15 first quarter points, doing so in every way possible.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s strong start was enough for OKC to take a lead into the second, but the Kings fought back and closed the gap to only two heading into the second quarter.
With SGA on the bench, Williams got his chance to command the Thunder offense. Williams took the baton from SGA as the offensive aggressor, and it seemed like whenever Sacramento would allow him to go left, Williams was putting two points on the board. Floaters, step-backs or running hook shots, whatever J-Dub put up it seemed to go in. When he wasn’t scoring, he was running the offense like a 10-year vet, dishing out assists left and right.
By the time the dust had settled in the second quarter, contributions from Williams and Gilgeous-Alexander allowed the Thunder lead to balloon to ten, and the star duo each had 19 points to show for it.
Gilgeous-Alexander stayed in his bag in the third. Malik Monk tried his best to make it a game, but OKC never took its foot off the gas, clearly taking SGA’s request for increased energy from the night prior seriously.
OKC’s offense was impressive throughout the game, but it was its defense that closed it out.
The Thunder, like any other team, had a few stretches where they missed a few shots, but they made a priority to keep Kings star De’Aaron Fox in check. Fox has killed OKC in the past, and was a big reason for Sacramento’s eight game win streak against the Thunder.
Fox ended up with only 15 points, shooting only 35% from the field and finishing the game as a -27 in the +/-.
The Thunder defense fed their offense, and behind SGA and Williams, the lead grew to as many as 20 in the third quarter, and OKC took a 17 point lead into the final quarter.
OKC’s ability to lockdown Fox, feed Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams, and force turnovers allowed them to close out the game with relative ease. Sacramento made it close once in the final quarter, but as soon as SGA came into the game, OKC ran out to another massive lead.
Monk and Domantas Sabonis did what they always do, with Monk filling it up from the outside and scoring 26, and Sabonis picking up a triple double and banging the ball down low, but SGA’s 38 points proved to be to much for the Kings to keep up with, and OKC won 127-113.
It was an impressive get back for the Thunder, who could’ve easily limped to the upcoming all star break on a four game losing streak. Instead, OKC flexed its muscles against a good Sacramento team, and kept itself in the race for the one seed with a much deserved break coming after OKC takes on Orlando on Tuesday.
