12/23 - 7PM CST | G33: Oklahoma City Thunder at Utah Jazz

[Thabo Sefolosha]

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HIGHLIGHTS

Spoiler:

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OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER at UTAH JAZZ
7PM CST |
Thunder: 17-15 | #5 in West
| 23.5 PPG, 9.5 RPG, 9.9 APG
ROSTER:

Spoiler:

Jazz: 15-18 | #9 in West
| 18.1 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 1.8 APG
ROSTER:

Spoiler:

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SUMMARY
Thunder Last 3

Spoiler:

12/22/17 vs ATL W 120-117
12/20/17 vs UTA W 107-79
12/18/17 vs DEN W 96-95

Thunder Upcoming 3

Spoiler:

12/25/17 vs HOU 7PM CST
12/27/17 vs TOR 7PM CST
12/29/17 vs MIL 7PM CST

INJURY REPORT

PLAYER OF THE GAME

Spoiler:

8 | Steven Adams
8 | Russell Westbrook
5 | Carmelo Anthony
4 | Paul George
2 | Raymond Felton
2 | Jerami Grant
1 | Andre Roberson
1 | Alex Abrines
1 | Patrick Patterson

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| NBA.com | | Thunder.com | | ESPN.com/NBA

[Thundershock88]

I expect a much closer game tonight. Need this one, as our next two are extremely difficult.

[Pillendreher]

Gotta show me some consistency tonight.

[ThunderBolt]

I hate that we are playing so soon after the last game. They bounced back nicely against the spurs and will likely be looking for revenge.

[ducler]

[Funcrusher]

I'm glad it seems Donnie-Mitch will be playing today. Love that kid.

[dakomish23]

Just keep fighting. I expect a double digit lead more than once for UTA tonight.

[bondom34]

Yeah I'd be pleasantly surprised witha win here, but just fight.

[ThunderBolt]

We need George to get pissed at the start of every game.

[NaturalThunder]

Felton, Abrines, Huestis, Grant, Patterson to close the first quarter. Not sure what Donovan was thinking? I guess it's because it's the second night of a back-to-back and he's trying to buy more rest than usual for Russ, Adams, Melo, and PG?

[InTheSabonus]

Ideally you wouldn't see Abrines OR Huestis on the floor. Yet these days Billy plays both. At once.

[Funcrusher]

Abrines is a human turnstyle and it's gross.

[InTheSabonus]

So the key to getting PG to play well is just to get him pissed off?

[ThunderBolt]

Good first half. Russ went cold.

[Funcrusher]

Good first half but this is a perfect example of why we need more shooting.

[slick_watts]

i don't think we need more shooting i think we need to play our shooters in better situations.

case in point- george bench unit since we have played it exclusively is where abrines / patterson get most of their minutes. in a garbage lineup that is -24pp100. but we play it anyway.

patterson is thriving next to adams whenever they play together. but billy has a psychological aversion to doing this in 1st or 3rd quarters with patterson the first sub. so patterson (one of our shooters) is the last sub usually and plays limited minutes with the players he performs the best with. instead we typically bring grant in, who is sub-30% from three next to westbrook, or huestis, who is a g-league player. these players aren't really heightened that much by westbrook's presence (or adams') so what's the point?

i'd bring patterson as first sub for melo and play starters with patterson for a bit. then maybe abrines for roberson or huestis depending on how the game is going. grant (the tweener) should come in as the last sub when melo comes back in and we should play melo-bench instead of george-bench. this gets patterson and abrines in front of westbrook some more.

it really does seem like billy is giving zero regard to lineup performance and is just hoping george-bench turns it around.

[ThunderBolt]

I love third quarters.

[Dadouv47]

Can we start moving?

[Dadouv47]

That was the worst possession of the season.

[slick_watts]

this is a perfect example of what i was talking about. adams comes out, grant comes in. why not patterson? does donovan think grant is better than him? if he does he's an idiot. is grant more likely to ignite the offense than patterson? if donovan thinks this he's an idiot.

the only possibility is if maybe patterson is still not 100%. it just makes no sense why we are maximizing grant's minutes with the good players instead of patterson, who is demonstrably better than grant at both ends.