DENVER – The ball hung on the rim and fell awry. Sometimes it clanged off, but either way the Thunder left points on the board on Friday night in Denver. On the road in the NBA against the team with the best record in the West, those missed opportunities are often much too much to overcome, and they were tonight for Oklahoma City.
The first quarter of the Thunder’s 109-98 loss to the Nuggets was a wild west shootout, with Denver hitting its first six three-pointers, including three by Torrey Craig who isn’t billed as a shooter on the scouting report. After only 10 minutes had eclipsed on the clock, the Nuggets had knocked down 13 of 19 shots. While Denver was doing damage from the outside, the Thunder put Steven Adams to work in the paint as the Kiwi center scored 14 of his 26 points in the first quarter. It was Adams’ fourth-straight 20-point game. By the end of the period, the score stood 39-32 for the home team.
“We tried to get them to drive more and then build out to their shooters,” said Adams. “It started with me honestly. I was giving (Nikola) Jokic too much space and that was allowing them to get in rhythm uncontested.”
After that, however, the Thunder’s defense firmed up and held Denver to just 43 total points between the second and third quarters. Instead of getting beat as frequently on backdoor cuts and giving up open catch and shoot threes, the Thunder did a better job of getting into their defensive assignment and making it uncomfortable. The result was a more harried and less fluid Nuggets offense, and the Thunder began to turn the tide a bit at the end of the second quarter when it forced three consecutive turnovers and then in the third quarter when it held Denver to just 7-of-18 shooting and 7 giveaways.
“We actually did a better job in the second half of pressuring and getting our hands active than we did in that first half,” said Head Coach Billy Donovan.
What prevented the Thunder from getting over the hump during a burst before halftime, as well as during some charges in the third and fourth quarters, was an inability to make free throws (17-of-29 on the night) and to finish shots in typically high-efficiency areas of the floor. In the paint the Thunder got off 54 shot attempts but only managed to make 26 of them (for 48.1 percent shooting), with chip shot layups falling by the wayside in addition to 6 blocked shots by the Nuggets. By comparison, the Nuggets made just as many shots in the lane (26) on only 41 attempts, for 63.4 percent.
“We had a lot of missed opportunities from the free throw line, a lot of missed opportunities around the basket and I thought we had some good looks. We didn’t shoot it particularly well,” said Donovan. “We had a lot of guys in there. We just weren’t able to finish.”
“That’s part of the game,” said forward Paul George. “You make some, you miss some.”
It was a combination of tough luck, good Denver rim protection and just some poor shooting around the rim that prevented the Thunder from scoring enough points to match its defense tonight. Despite all of that, the Thunder still managed to give itself a chance in the fourth quarter. George scored 26 of his 32 total points in the second half, helping to will the Thunder to within three at 99-96 thanks to a 7-0 Oklahoma City run kickstarted by a Russell Westbrook wing three and then four straight points from George.
“Paul had the hot hand. He had a lot to do with us getting back in the game,” said Donovan.
With under four minutes to go, however, the Thunder missed out on chances to score on three out of four possessions, including misses by Adams at the rim, a turnover by George as his lefty crosscourt pass to a wide open Jerami Grant in the corner was intercepted by Denver’s Monte Morris, doubling back into the play, and then finally a missed three by George.
“That turnover kind of sealed the game,” George himself noted. “They had been helping off the corner the whole game and I saw JG (Grant) open and his man slid over. Morris just dropped late.”
In the meantime, the Nuggets got a step-back jumper from Morris and a backdoor cut from Craig, whose dunk with 2:00 to go just about sealed the deal. The Thunder never got closer than 7 in the final 120 seconds. Donovan’s club played with grit and energy, but the most notable big picture concern for the Thunder was the timely second chances that Denver was able to get – 10 total offensive rebounds that resulted in 18 points.
“Cut out the first quarter, we played them right how we wanted to. We held them to 108. This team, offensively, they put points up,” said George. “We were fine, but we just didn’t get the second opportunities on rebounds.”
Highlights: Thunder at Nuggets