1/24 | G48: New Orleans Pelicans at Oklahoma City Thunder - 7PM CST

[Thunder Up]

I say when we have good wins and bad wins. Do a better job paying attention

That has no bearing on you overreaction to this game.

Then you probably shouldn’t use then word “everything” if you really mean some things. If you’re satisfied with squeeking out a win against the twelfth team in the west who was missing four key players while being on the second night of a back to back (also their 3rd game in 5 days), then that’s your right. That’s a pretty low bar, in my opinion. To each his own.

you play to win the game. there are no style points in the NBA. simple as that
30-18 is better than 29-19, 30-18 with a 20 point win is the same as 30-18 with a 6 point win, move forward

[RalphSampsonJr]

Lucky Adams aint a stat giy. Dude would get mad with how often he gets cooking then completely ignored in 2nd halves

[Dadouv47]

That has no bearing on you overreaction to this game.

Then you probably shouldn’t use then word “everything” if you really mean some things. If you’re satisfied with squeeking out a win against the twelfth team in the west who was missing four key players while being on the second night of a back to back (also their 3rd game in 5 days), then that’s your right. That’s a pretty low bar, in my opinion. To each his own.

you play to win the game. there are no style points in the NBA. simple as that
30-18 is better than 29-19, 30-18 with a 20 point win is the same as 30-18 with a 6 point win, move forward

I think we all know that the goal in basketball is to win.

It's just a bit concerning when you are unable to finish the work against a team without 3/4 key players while you are up 20+ and your coach let your superstar in (PG13) to end this and rest the starters for the 4th quarter,

[Pillendreher]

Well, this wasn't as pleasant as expected. They didn't give enough effort on defese most of the game unfortunately. Way too many buckets for the Pelicans early in the shotclock or simply based on moving without the ball. They should look at some film of how that team plays defense: They're greatly outperforming the offensive talent on that team.

Staggering George means more minutes for Schröder with the starters btw. I do not like that at all. We need a decent backup for him.

When you're up 98-76 with 13 minutes to go, you can't give up 42 points for the rest of the game. Some of those shots were just bs makes, but most of the time they simply didn't bother to rotate. That's an effort thing. Fatigue may play a role, but I too think that this was the kind of performance you see when you know that the opposing team is most likely not going to beat you and you try to get off with less effort than usual.

[hardenASG13]

Have none of you ever been way up in a basketball game, against a team you know you're better than? Probably not with your negative bball views, but You can lose intensity and become careless. The warriors do it alot through the years. It happens. Very good teams in the NBA, in January, don't always give 100 percent effort on D, especially against a terrible team they can beat in their sleep (exactly what happened here, particularly in the 4th). Nor should they. Remember, they are people, not robots.

Thunder keep rolling, Westbrook is looking better and better each game (predictably), Ferguson has taken a major stride this month, grant/adams is a really good frontcourt, PG has had an mvp season, nader is becoming fairly consistent scoring off the bench, and patterson is showing signs of life. Plus they won this game. These are like, good things......

[Pillendreher]

Have none of you ever been way up in a basketball game, against a team you know you're better than? Probably not with your negative bball views, but You can lose intensity and become careless. The warriors do it alot through the years. It happens. Very good teams in the NBA, in January, don't always give 100 percent effort on D, especially against a terrible team they can beat in their sleep (exactly what happened here, particularly in the 4th). Nor should they. Remember, they are people, not robots.

Be that as it may: When you give up almost 120 pp100p over a two week stretch to teams, you should want to get back to what you were before that, no? With the amount of rest they've had recently (hint: Not so much. What's up with that? They say the schedule has been better, but the Thunder have played a game in less than every two days over the last 8 weeks: 27 games in 52 days) you'd want to finish this game cleanly, not having to play each starter 30+ minutes vs a team that is lacking four out of its 5 best players..."Screw ups" like this are concerning because the team has been doing that for a while now.

[hardenASG13]

Have none of you ever been way up in a basketball game, against a team you know you're better than? Probably not with your negative bball views, but You can lose intensity and become careless. The warriors do it alot through the years. It happens. Very good teams in the NBA, in January, don't always give 100 percent effort on D, especially against a terrible team they can beat in their sleep (exactly what happened here, particularly in the 4th). Nor should they. Remember, they are people, not robots.

Be that as it may: When you give up almost 120 pp100p over a two week stretch to teams, you should want to get back to what you were before that, no? With the amount of rest they've had recently (hint: Not so much. What's up with that? They say the schedule has been better, but the Thunder have played a game in less than every two days over the last 8 weeks: 27 games in 52 days) you'd want to finish this game cleanly, not having to play each starter 30+ minutes vs a team that is lacking four out of its 5 best players..."Screw ups" like this are concerning because the team has been doing that for a while now.

I don't think they give a **** about their pp100, especially during a game. It was like a 10 point spread. They were up 20 at one point, and won by 6. Pels had the backdoor cover, by about 4 points....nothing (bad) to see here.

[Pillendreher]

I don't think they give a **** about their pp100, especially during a game.

pp100p in this case is not just some random number only nerds would care about. It's the measured quality of the defense they have played. They don't need to go "Are we below 100 DRtG yet coach?" in every timeout, but they should worry about relapsing to those bad habits they showed during that 2-week-stretch. Through the first 38 games they held teams at 101 pp100, 7.4 points worse than expected based on their ORtG. They haven't cracked 105 DRtG since. Not once. They have to worry about that. Even though they have been on a great run offensively, their defense needs to be at an excellent level, period.

[hardenASG13]

I don't think they give a **** about their pp100, especially during a game.

pp100p in this case is not just some random number only nerds would care about. It's the measured quality of the defense they have played. They don't need to go "Are we below 100 DRtG yet coach?" in every timeout, but they should worry about relapsing to those bad habits they showed during that 2-week-stretch. Through the first 38 games they held teams at 101 pp100, 7.4 points worse than expected based on their ORtG. They haven't cracked 105 DRtG since. Not once. They have to worry about that. Even though they have been on a great run offensively, their defense needs to be at an excellent level, period.

Not against the undermanned pels in January......this game was over before the tip. Golden state gave up 118 to a wizard's team without their starting PG, PF and C last night, won by 8. I doubt they view it as a problem.......it happens, all the time.

[Pillendreher]

I don't think they give a **** about their pp100, especially during a game.

pp100p in this case is not just some random number only nerds would care about. It's the measured quality of the defense they have played. They don't need to go "Are we below 100 DRtG yet coach?" in every timeout, but they should worry about relapsing to those bad habits they showed during that 2-week-stretch. Through the first 38 games they held teams at 101 pp100, 7.4 points worse than expected based on their ORtG. They haven't cracked 105 DRtG since. Not once. They have to worry about that. Even though they have been on a great run offensively, their defense needs to be at an excellent level, period.

Not against the undermanned pels in January......this game was over before the tip

And that is the kind of sentiment that leads to games like this. The game should have been over after 3 quarters, but it wasn't. They had a 22 point lead with the 3rd quarter almost over, every starter sitting pretty at 27ish minutes. That should have been it. But instead, they were up by just 5 points with 98 seconds to play. This was close till the last second and it's because of this "who cares, we got this" bs.

[Old Man Game]

Game started going to **** when BillDoh stuck with the Nader and Schroeder paring too long. Thankfully that Pelly team just didn't have enough bullets in the clip to really do anything with the opportunity.

[Dadouv47]

We are not the warriors and we can't afford to lose games that are ''over before the tip''. If we want to get to the WCF we need to finish 2nd or 3rd (if GSW finish first). We are closer to 4th or 5th than anything else and we would be in a more comfortable position if we didn't screw up against some very bad teams (chicago, atlanta...)

[CROklahoma]

Yea its a must to finish 3rd, don't think we'll be able to catch Denver; maybe if they suddenly hit the wall after ASB.

[SecondTake]

Yea its a must to finish 3rd, don't think we'll be able to catch Denver; maybe if they suddenly hit the wall after ASB.

We'll pass Denver. Once Isaiah Thomas comes back Denver are going to start dropping enough games to pass them.

[Dadouv47]

Yea its a must to finish 3rd, don't think we'll be able to catch Denver; maybe if they suddenly hit the wall after ASB.

We'll pass Denver. Once Isaiah Thomas comes back Denver are going to start dropping enough games to pass them.

they won't play IT a lot in my opinion.