Thunder 126, Warriors 102: The Day After Report

Nuggets and notes

• The Oklahoma City Thunder remain the only one-loss team in the NBA. The 75-win pace remains intact.
• The Thunder walked away with it at 24, and it wasn’t actually that close. OKC was led by a whopping 36 people, which led to this beautiful image of the Warriors’ coaching staff:

• OKC increases its league-leading net rating to +14.4. But when I checked the stats today, I noticed that the Denver Nuggets are up +13.0… without any shade towards Wemby, the Thunder and Nuggets are probably the two best teams in the league.
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is… consistent. SGA sat all of fourth place, but in 28 minutes he did his usual damage, scoring 28 points. The MVP also dished out 11 assists, and had some really great dimes.
• Chet Holmgren came out aggressive and had perfect game shooting. Chet scored 23 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and shot a perfect 9-for-9 from the field, including 2-for-2 from deep.
• One thing I like about Chet is when he gets position in the paint and uses a combination of a pump fake and his length to get an easy basket.

• More Chet: Whew, this was a nice dunk on Draymond Green, who was FRUSTRATED last night. Green also later got a tech.

• After the game, Draymond wondered if his teammates were serious about winning, saying, “Right now it doesn’t feel that way.” That’s interesting considering Draymond criticized the way OKC had fun in post-game interviews last season, claiming OKC wasn’t a serious team.
• From the bench, in the starting five, Ajay Mitchell is reliable. Mitchell led the team with 31 within minutes and scored in double figures again. Ajay has scored double figures in every match except one this year.
• The Avalanche: OKC’s 44-28 third quarter. It was one of those neighborhoods where almost everything went right for the Thunder, and few things went right for Golden State. The league’s best defense also forced seven goals, which led to OKC making ten more shots than GSW in the third. And in that third the ball swung, with twelve (!) assists in that quarter alone.
• A really nice game from Jaylin Williams, who has been struggling from three on this season. He hit his first out of the gate and finished with 12 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists.
• On paper, the Warriors should be a pretty good team, but so far this season they’re pretty meh. I thought this game could be a nice test for the Thunder, who have had a light schedule to start the year, but no. Clinical destruction.

One big takeaway: three!

Our man Ryan Woods has been tracking OKC’s three-point percentage per game on the DT Twitter account (although we’re missing a few). The Thunder started off rather terribly from deep and were dead last in the standings to open the season. However, the team has continued to improve and now has the 22nd best percentage.

The Thunder have solid shooters, and the question has always been: are the Thunder bad from three or is this just a matter of sample size?

But I’m not sure if that matters. Yes, being a solid three-point shooting team is important, but OKC isn’t the kind of team that lives and dies by the deep ball. It can shoot 20% and win by double digits, and it can shoot 44% (like last night) and win. The Thunder hits teams in multiple different ways, with a multi-faceted offense: if the shot doesn’t fall, another offense will fill the gap.

And when every attack hits and the treys fall, like last night, watch out.