Blazers 121, Thunder 119: The Day After Report

Nuggets and notes

• The Thunder won’t win 100% of their games. No fair.
• The Thunder fell to 8-1, losing for the first time in their title defense.
• Oklahoma City hadn’t lost a significant game in 139 days. It turns out that even when you’re the defending champion with every excuse in the world to come up short, it still sucks to lose: the second night of a back-to-back. No Chet. No Dort. (Still) no J Dub. Against exactly the kind of young team that can catch a heavyweight with relentless dancing and jabbing for the upset. Still. No fun.
• The Blazers are fun and dirty. But that’s not a challenge for the Thunder on most nights. Because that’s what Thunder is Great and sloppy. They are not inferior to less competition; they rush and fight to win every lead, almost every possession. This has increasingly resulted in blowouts after using their advantages against any team for 48 minutes, as every other team has less talent And less courage than OKC.
• But the Blazers played like the Thunder, right down to an eerily similar box score.

• The only category with more than three points in favor of either team, as measured by percentages or counting statistics, was three-point shooting. More about that later.
• The Thunder looked tired, but clearly wanted to keep the winning streak alive. They never let go of the rope, but suffered an inexcusable defensive mistake late in the fourth quarter that proved too much to overcome. Trying to keep it to one possession, OKC gifted Portland a layup with 36 seconds left thanks to a complete failure to blitz and recover by the team with championship experience.

• We’ll increasingly recognize the Thunder blueprint in other developmental rosters. It’s a copycat league and the team building has typically followed the strengths of the most dominant players. Boston was already a harbinger for the proliferation of rangy, all-3-and-D rosters. Oklahoma City has added depth, speed and defensive aggression to that formula, and other teams are trying to keep up.
• Shai was not intimidated by the mighty Donovan Clingan, which is no surprise. But he had a poor shooting night, missing seven of 10 shots between the arc and the paint, and all five shots he made from the free-throw circle.
• Ajay Mitchell wasn’t intimidated either, a more recent development since the sophomore standout. Mitchell forwent kickouts in favor of reaching the cup, where he converted six of eight attempts. That’s higher volume and efficiency Shai, Victor Wembanyama and Tyrese Maxey have averaged this season.

• Ajay was such a revelation that I found myself doing the following strange thing: worrying about foul trouble for a second-year player who had contributed less than 20 minutes to the final.
• Then there we were, relying on Mitchell in clutch time. He scored 13 points in the fourth quarter, addressing the secondary play needs that Jalen Williams usually addresses in big games.
• It only took one loss for me to become anxious about J Dub’s return. Good thing I don’t run the front office.
• I don’t closely follow Shai’s scoring streak (he’s long scored 20+ and 30+ points in every regular season game), since it’s not a streak anyone used to worry about, and since he only scored 18 points in a 2025 postseason game. But I’m keeping a close eye on how easy it is for him to get points whenever he wants. 35 on a bad night (SGA was 10-26 from the floor) is still impressive.
• The last minute of the second quarter was maddening. Long reviews and commercials took away from the excitement of an otherwise exciting last-second tip from Isaiah Hartenstein to end the half. I don’t know why they still can’t find the right balance between judgment and Zaprudering reruns, and I doubt they ever will. If AI can do a better job than our referee teams that move the game along to maintain the excitement for the viewer, I welcome robot domination.
• But I suspect AI was responsible for some random, weird statistic in the broadcast tent. The Thunder led 36-16 in the first quarter, and Jerami Grant had just given me the edge already seen with a botched, flailing drive into the paint. What information appeared on my screen? That OKC had scored O field goals in the last 53 seconds of play. Okay. Aaron Wiggins immediately scored a fast break layup to end the drought.
• Hartenstein was robbed in the box score. This was clearly a blockade.

One big takeaway: three-point swings

The Thunder have lost one game by two points. And there’s no rational reason to be upset at the end of the winning streak.

But.

For all the impressive development and cohesion within the team, both offensively and defensively, the simple fact is that long-range shooting is where they can improve most dramatically. They didn’t shoot poorly in this one, but if they had made a few more threes, they would have come away with the win.

We’ve all been arguing a little too quickly about how to split the team because of the looming salary cap restrictions. It’s fun to speculate about whose deals might fit into the long-term plans for OKC, especially since there’s less reason to speculate about blockbuster trades and signings that won’t happen. But if you want to let your mind wander, don’t wander much within the three-point arc.

The team doesn’t need that more defense, play, size or any other element on the field more than what is required to shoot for. Shots that will hold up in the regular season and, most importantly, in postseason games by close margins. The more reliable this team’s three-point shooting is, the more unstoppable they become.