For the last two seasons, the Oklahoma City Thunder has been one of the best three-point shooting teams in the NBA.
Whether those looks were open or contested, OKC typically knocked them down. That was not the case Tuesday night. In its second NBA Cup game of the season, OKC shot 30% from three, leading to a 110-104 loss to the San Antonio Spurs without Victor Wembenyama despite a late attempt at a comeback.
Keldon Johnson starred for San Antonio, scoring 22 points and looking like the player many thought he could be when the Spurs extended him a few years back. Chris Paul and Charles Bassey aided Johnson in his efforts, playing some of their best games of the season with 14 and 12 points, respectively.
On the OKC side, no one outside of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams was able to get anything going. Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams combined for 59 points and fueled the Thunder offense when no one else could, but it wasn’t enough to combat San Antonio’s success as a team.
Outside shooting was the main determinant in the game, but an issue that has been all to familiar for OKC popped up as well — rebounding.
The Thunder allowed seven offensive rebounds and there were several instances where it got a stop only for San Antonio to get the rebound and kick it out to an open shooter. Until OKC gets its size back, it is unlikely to be an average rebounding team, not to mention a good one. However, OKC has to get the issue in check, or else outgunned teams like San Antonio will continue to flip the script on a team that was the one doing the dominating early in the season.
It is hard for OKC or its fans to have a noticeable amount of worry at this juncture. Before the game, it was first in the Western Conference despite the injuries to Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein and Jaylin Williams. No long-term issues have been unearthed and OKC shouldn’t be worried even with the loss to San Antonio, but there are definitely some things the team needs to work on if it wants to keep its head its head above water until Hartenstein comes back.
Luckily for the Thunder, Hartenstein is slated to return in the near future and when that happens, I expect a lot of the issues that seem like a big deal now to evaporate. However, Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace need to get it going from deep if they want to be as impactful on the offensive end as they are on the defensive end. If they and the rest of OKC’s role players can’t become more reliable from outside, games like this will happen again.
