Oklahoma City Thunder Regular Season Thread: Part IV

[NaturalThunder]

Portland comes up with another 50/50 ball...Lillard makes Portland's 38th there pointer of the game.

And when Portland doesn't make a 3-pointer, they score on a conventional 3-point play.

[NaturalThunder]

Seriously, do they ever miss jumpshots?

[NaturalThunder]

Well, Huestis had two FTs that would've cut the deficit to 9, but he missed both. Portland pushed the lead back out to 15 before Kanter got that buzzerbeating putback.

All-in-all, it wasn't a terrible half given the circumstances. Portland shot 58.5% from the floor and 55.6% from three (10-for-18) and we're in semi-striking distance. Of course we just gave up 72 points in a half but Portland also took and made a ton of jumpers; not just 3s, but they were draining a lot of mid-range and long-range 2-point pull-ups, too.

[NaturalThunder]

And Portland comes out and drains two 3s to start the second half. Because, why not?

[NaturalThunder]

Well, that escalated quickly. 13 point halftime deficit turns into a 21 point deficit as Portland scores 12 points in 3 minutes.

[spearsy23]

Poor Steven, Huestis is the second best defender on the team tonight

[KD35Brah]

Crabbe is hitting 3s like his name is Steph Thompson.

Down 20 with 4 starters out and Donovan won't play Huestis and rest Adams.

[NaturalThunder]

Not as embarrassing as our full squad giving up about 100 points to the Clippers JV team the other night, but Portland did just give up 83 to us in 3 quarters without about 70 PPG in the lineup tonight.

[NaturalThunder]

Kanter has 31 and 14 and somehow we've whittled the lead down to 10.

[NaturalThunder]

And then we lose Crabbe who hits his 19th three-pointer of the game and Aminu goes Kevin Durant on a fastbreak and finishes a smooth acrobatic layup. Lead back up to 15.

[NaturalThunder]

Payne's really struggling finishing his drives tonight. He's 4/14 from the floor and probably about half of his 10 misses have been layups, runners, or floaters.

[NaturalThunder]

Last post in my one-man convo/serial posting binge.

Portland is going to finish with around 45 wins and may finish 5th in the West this year. Last year we won 45 games and missed the playoffs. The bottom half of the West is a disaster this year.


And as I'm typing all of this, Huestis drains back-to-back 3s.

[KD35Brah]

Payne looks horrible...

[spearsy23]

Payne's really struggling finishing his drives tonight. He's 4/14 from the floor and probably about half of his 10 misses have been layups, runners, or floaters.

He's been crap in the lane for all but that 8-10 game stretch when he first got playing time. His in between game needs quite a bit of work still, but his biggest strength is getting the team into an offense which we still need on the second unit.

[KD35Brah]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/UpTheThunder/status/717927238713237504[/tweet]

[NaturalThunder]

Kanter finishes with 33 points and 20 rebounds. Not a bad showing on the road with KD, Russ, Serge, and Robes resting. Only los by 5 after trailing by 23 at one point in the second half.

[bondom34]

Didn't watch, but the score was reasonably close.

Houston lost . It was good.

[spearsy23]

Respectable looking loss all things considered. Kanter has value around the league, I almost wish we could keep him and Adams and replace Serge.

[spearsy23]

Didn't watch, but the score was reasonably close.

Houston lost . It was good.

I'm torn on this. On the one hand eff Houston, but on the other they are the only team that can even hope to steal a first round game from GSW.

[KD35Brah]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ErikHorneOK/status/717928016572067841[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/anthonyVslater/status/717927536479457280[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/OKCThunderHeads/status/717927861580140544[/tweet]