By Michael Doutey | WWLS The Sports Animal

The Oklahoma City Thunder survive 86-85 over Melbourne United Sunday afternoon inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena. It wasn’t a well played game by the Thunder and OKC had to rely on two Josh Huestis authored mega-blocks in the final seconds of the game to hang on for the win. Here are my five biggest observations from today’s Thunder win.

1. It is really hard to find many takeaways from this game. The Thunder came out sloppy and looked a a little lethargic to begin the game. There were moments where that type of play seeped into the second half, which explains the final score. It was somewhat expected with this being an earlier tip for a preseason game against a team that is from Australia. So I know many questions running through fans heads are “should I be worried about this?” To put it simply, no. The Thunder lost in overtime to Real Madrid last season and then squeaked by F.C. Barcelona a few weeks later and they ended up fine. Remember, this is the preseason and the Thunder have been together just shy of two weeks.
2. The Thunder’s offense was pretty stagnant for most of this game. There wasn’t much flow and the ball movement was choppy. Again, I don’t think this is anything to worry about yet. As Russell Westbrook said over the weekend, “This will be a season long thing. It’s not going to happen overnight.” But this game wasn’t encouraging as the Thunder shot just 34 percent from the field and 25 percent from three-point land. The Thunder only had 15 assists tonight and committed 15 turnovers. These are things that the Thunder will have to work on all season long. There are so many new faces and new roles for this team and on-court chemistry will take a while to come together offensively. There will be rough and inefficient nights like this one to start the season.
3. The inefficient night was glaring looking at the stat sheet. Paul George scored 22 points on 5-17 shooting and 3-10 from three. Carmelo Anthony scored 19 points on 19 shots and Russell Westbrook scored nine points on 3-10 shooting and he went 0-3 from behind the arc. Games like these might be the norm for the first few weeks of the season as PG, Melo and Russ find their groove. These three players are used to isolation basketball and you can see that they are looking for one another, but they just aren’t used to each other yet. They did create open looks for each other at times, but they didn’t knock down open shots. It will get better as time goes on, but you should brace yourself for some choppy offense to begin the season.
4. Steven Adams ended up having a solid game with 12 points and 10 rebounds. But he got off to a very slow start and he didn’t get settled in until the end of the second quarter. He had a missed dunk and fell asleep a few times on defense in the first half. When he woke up, he flashed the impressive play we saw back in the 2015 playoffs. Adams brought in six of his 10 rebounds on the offensive ends and most went for easy put backs. Adams also had two blocks on the defensive end to cap off a good game on both ends of the floor. When Adams is engaged on offense and defense, it takes this team to another level.
5. Josh Huestis saved this game for OKC. He had two blocks in the final seconds of the game as he rotated over from the weak side to protect the rim. He had four blocks on the night in just under 11 minutes of action. Again, there aren’t many minutes out there to be had. Remember, Patrick Patterson will have a role coming off the bench when he returns from his knee injury. Huestis and Jerami Grant are competing for minutes and Huestis can add another solid game to his preseason resume. Huestis was a plus-three while he was on the floor while Grant was a minus-nine his his near 20 minutes. Grant only brought in one rebound while Josh nabbed two. It is hard to compare the two, but it is clear that Huestis has caught Billy Donovan’s eye and now Huestis is getting the opportunity to show what he can do for this team.

The Thunder are back in action Tuesday night in their preseason finale as the Thunder take on the Denver Nuggets. Tip is set for 8 p.m. inside the Pepsi Center.