By: Michael Doutey
The Oklahoma City Thunder fall 117-106 to the Portland Trail Blazers Tuesday night. It was a game where the Thunder came out flat and Portland brought the fight to the Thunder. The Thunder never really responded and as the game went along the Thunder fell further and further behind. Even without Damian Lillard, Portland was able to run their offense and get the Thunder defense off balanced. The Thunder’s poor effort tonight can’t be replicated tomorrow as the Thunder travel to Minnesota to take on the Timberwolves. Here are tonight’s five observations from OKC’s loss to Portland.
1. Lack of Energy and Effort
Every player that came and spoke to the media said the same thing. Josh Huestis, Terrance Ferguson, Patrick Patterson, Carmelo Anthony and Paul george acknowledged the team had little energy to start the game. They all said Portland outworked them as a team. Look, I get it that we’ve entered the doldrums of the NBA season in January and February. But the Thunder were in the middle of charging up the Western Conference standings ladder. But after two really good outings in LA, the Thunder have taken a step or two back in the past two games. Sure, the Thunder have really good wins over the Warriors, Rockets and Raptors, but the Thunder seem to take nights off against teams they should beat. They seem to think that they can show up and their talent will take them past lesser teams. That simply isn’t going to cut it and the Thunder need to play with better energy and effort starting tomorrow in Minnesota.
2. Locker Room Vibes
Usually the Thunder locker room is a positive place regardless of wins or losses. Tonight the team seemed troubled. There was a sense of frustration and irritation in their body language and in their voices. While fans have been asking for this since their first loss of the season, it seems like the Thunder are fed up with themselves and how they played tonight. I might be reading too much into how the vibe of how the locker room felt, but I think the Thunder were really not pleased with themselves. I think we’ll see a much better Thunder team tomorrow against the Timberwolves.
3. No Russ for Media
This was something that Carmelo Anthony did about two months ago after a Thunder loss, but this is the first time that I can remember since I started covering the Thunder where Russell Westbrook skipped out on talking with the media before the doors were opened to the locker room after the game. I wonder how much his frustration from the game went into him leaving early and maybe that’s why I’m reading into the vibe of the locker room as much as I am. Either way, it was an odd game from the Thunder and the mood of the locker room seemed off.
4. No Defensive Effort
The Thunder’s effort on defense was really bad and it got worse as the game went on. There were so many times where perimeter defenders allowed their man to penetrate into the lane, forcing Steve Adams to rotate over to help. That meant Jusuf Nurkic was able to score with ease inside. That was how the game started. Most will blame Adams for his lack of defense, but that is a lazy take. Nurkic was able to get open because Adams was forced to try and help everyone in pick and rolls. Russell Westbrook was really bad at that tonight and then it took several possessions for anyone to help the helper. Basically, no one would rotate over and help Adams who was already helping someone else who lost their man. Then there was lots of ball watching and guy standing around. The effort was bad and the Blazers did whatever they wanted on offense.
5. Standings Update
With this loss the Thunder have fallen to 22-19 on the season. OKC was in fifth at the beginning of the game but now have fallen to sixth behind Portland. Going into last weekend the Thunder trailed Minnesota, who is the fourth seed in the West, by just a game in the loss column. The Thunder now trail Minny by 3.5 games.
The Thunder better figure things out quickly because the Thunder play tomorrow night in Minnesota. Tip time will be at 7 p.m. inside the Target Center.
