Thunder 131, Warriors 94: The Day After Report

Nuggets and notes

• On consecutive nights, the Oklahoma City Thunder rolled over an inferior opponent. Look, I enjoy a fun, close, competitive game as much as the next person, but I also thoroughly enjoy it when the Thunder just plain destroys an opponent.
• I recognize that the Warriors were missing Stephen Curry, Jimmy Butler III, De’Anthony Melton and Jonathan Kuminga. That certainly contributed to the lopsided score.
• Oklahoma City immediately jumped on Golden State and led by 11 after the first quarter. In the second, the Warriors went on a 9-0 run to make it 38-36, and millions of Thunder fans said, “oh no, are we really going to let the Warriors hang around?”
• The answer was no.
• The Thunder responded in a big way, falling behind 14-2 and before you could say Brandin Podziemski, the Thunder were up 52-38. Game over.
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 30 points on 10-for-20 shooting were surgical, as SGA showed his true ability to score at all three levels (10-for-20 from the field, 3-for-5 from three) while dishing out (7 assists). He’s good.
• Chet Holmgren continues to impress: 15 points, 15 rebounds, 4 blocks and only 8 shot attempts. The edge deterrence doesn’t fully show up in the box score, but Golden State finished with just 28 points in the paint as a team.
• Once again, Lu Dort found his stroke from deep. Dort scored 11 and was 3-for-4 from beyond the arc. I said he was fine.
• Oklahoma City’s ball movement was elite all night: 34 assists on 48 made field goals.
• The pace was fast and furious, especially in the first half, and no matter how GSW tried to push the pace, it definitely played into OKC’s hands. The Thunder forced 17 turnovers for 26 OKC points, and the champions also racked up 31 fast-break points.
• Big night for the bench: 62 points, with Branden Carlson (along with Aaron Wiggins) leading all bench scorers with 15 points. Carlson also grabbed 11 rebounds for the second double-double of his career. As essentially the fourth true great, Carlson is impressively useful in that role.
• Carlson is one of those guys who sees an opposing fan base contributing and says, “who is this and how does Presti find these guys?” An example: during the Amazon Prime broadcast they had Warriors legend Chris Mullin along for a while. Mullin saw Carlson disrupt a Warriors shot inside and briefly confused him with Chet Holmgren before realizing it wasn’t Chet. He had to ask the broadcast crew who that was.
• Great night for Wiggins too. Aaron Wiggins scored 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting, including 3 triples.
• I also want to give some props to Ajay Mitchell. Mitchell played a great game within himself and the flow of the game. He didn’t force shots to try to add points: 11 points on 5-for-7 shooting and 6 (!) assists in 25 minutes. Good for taking what the defense gives you, Ajay.
• The Thunder are tough to beat when they shoot well. OKC shot 52% from the field, 42% from three, and a perfect 19-for-19 at the line.
• As another piece of evidence for how overmatched the Warriors were last night, in the fourth quarter, when the benches were empty, OKC still put up 36 points and won the quarter by 12 points.

One important takeaway

I’m not just being lazy here. I honestly don’t know what you can say about this. The results were exactly what you would think they would be. The Warriors without their best players couldn’t keep up. The Thunder (themselves somewhat lacking without Isaiah Hartenstein and Jaylin Williams) took advantage of the disparity and dismantled Golden State in Oakland.

That’s now four straight double-digit wins (three vs. 25+), and I’ve almost forgotten about those ugly losses to the Spurs.