The Oklahoma City Thunder won their second game in a row and in impressive fashion. The Thunder blast a good Milwaukee Bucks team, 110-91. The Thunder defense flexed their muscles and made it tough on the Bucks all night in route to easily the Thunder’s best win of the young season. We’ve got your five observations from tonight’s impressive Thunder win.
1. The Thunder defense showed why they are one of the top defenses in the entire league. The only double figure scorer for the Bucks was MVP candidate, Giannis Antetokoumpo, who scored 28 points. Everyone else on the Bucks roster was held to nine or fewer points. OKC held Milwaukee to 42-percent shooting and just 30-percent from three. The Thunder were able to out-rebound the Bucks by 15 and only allowed four offensive rebounds the entire game. The Thunder made a concerted effort on the defensive glass and limited the Bucks second chance points. Steven Adams did an excellent job on the boards, grabbing 11 total rebounds and eight of those came on the defensive end. Carmelo Anthony also had eight rebounds and Russell Westbrook added 10 as well. The Thunder really did an excellent job on defense and then capitalized on that by some great rebounded, which had been an issue against teams like Minnesota where the T-Wolves grabbed some offensive misses for easy put backs. The Thunder need Melo to continue to rebounds at a high rate like he did tonight.
2. The Thunder offense has been very balanced in this young season. OKC had five double-figure scoeres with Westbrook, Anthony, Paul George, Steven Adams and Jeremy Grant coming off the bench. The Thunder were lead by George, who was really good on this road trip after his frustrating game against his old team last week. PG scored a team-high 20 points on 8-17 shooting and connected on four of his eight three-point attempts. On this road trip, George has scored 20 points in all three games. Melo had a nice night with 17 points and has done a nice job leading the second unit. Westbrook did not shoot well for the second game in a row, but he scored 12 points and added 10 rebounds and was one assist shy of another triple-double. Russ would have had it but he didn’t have to play in the fourth quarter for the second consecutive game. Adams was great again tonight. Steve scored 14 points on 7-10 shooting and he brought down 11 boards for another double-double. He’s the x-factor on this team and when he plays this way the Thunder are a bear to deal with on offense. Jerami Grant had a huge fourth quarter scoring 11 of his 17 in the fourth. He has been superb coming off the bench on both ends of the floor this season.
3. Let’s talk about Andre Roberson’s game tonight. It was easily his best of the season as Dre scored nine points and even hit a three. He swished both his free throws and was great on the defensive end. Hopefully this is a confidence booster for Dre. He had a tremendous sequence where he hit both his free throws, had a block on the defensive end and then nailed a three. You could see the relief in his body language. He may have been too confident after that because he quickly shot two more three’s, which he should never do. But I guess I’d rather have confident and aggressive Dre than a zero confidence Dre. It’s no mystery why the Thunder looked elite defensively tonight. When Dre is engaged on defense he enables the Thunder to take a good defense to an elite level. And we saw how good that can be in this game.
4. Patrick Patterson also had his best game since arriving in OKC. Patterson is a solid defender, passer and three-point shooter. Patterson has been doing a good job of making the extra pass in the past few games and setting solid screens. But we haven’t seen him shoot the ball well yet. Two-Pat hit his only two shots he took tonight, both from three-point distance. Patrick is finding his way back after a minor knee surgery in the offseason. But what we’ve seen in the past couple games is a really encouraging sign that he is on the right track to be becoming a significant role player on this team.
5. The Thunder finished this road trip with two blowout wins where the starters either sat all of nearly all of the last quarter. But previous to this game the Thunder didn’t have a good win yet. The Thunder had beat three Eastern Conference teams in the Knicks, Pacers and Bulls who aren’t thought of as good teams. But this win against a good Bucks team is really impressive. And what is more impressive is the way the Thunder did it. They controlled this game from the start. The Bucks aren’t best in the East yet, but they are a really tough team with a legit MVP candidate. This is a really good quality win on the road. The Thunder appear to be figuring some things out and this win is proof of that.
The Thunder will return home to face the red hot Boston Celtics Friday night. The Kyrie Irving led Celtics will be in town for a late 8:30 tip inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
