Re: Thunder/Wolves GDT
Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2024 8:08 am
Obviously I didn't like the result, but somehow this loss makes me even more confident that we have a championship team. OkC is a good team, but we were in this game (and should have won) despite a rare disastrous performance from our team leader. Bite Bite was 1-11 with 3 turnovers and only 4 assists and a team-worst -22. But come on guys, that's not going to happen very often...he's a remarkably consistent PG who happened to lay an egg tonight for the first time all season. But let's lose the narrative that OkC is more poised in the clutch than we are. Going into last night's game, we were 7-1 in games decided by 5 points or less, and OkC was 5-6. You need to be able to win close games if you intend to win a championship, and last night's results notwithstanding, only one team on the court last night has proven they can do that consistently.
Let's look at the stats. We totally owned the boards, winning the rebounding battle (as we have every game so far in 2024) 50-37! But once again the story was assists and turnovers. We remain undefeated when we have at least 27 assists, and last night we only got to 22. And 21 turnovers is unacceptable...that was the theme of the post-game press conferences. The starters were mostly outplayed, and the bench shined. But despite Conley's poor night, I don't fault him for not giving JMac more minutes...I'm not sure you can have Jordan on the court when SGA is out there.
Disappointing loss, but I can't wait for the rematch in 8 days. We'll destroy them on the boards again, and if Conley has a normal game, I think we might win by double digits.
Let's look at the stats. We totally owned the boards, winning the rebounding battle (as we have every game so far in 2024) 50-37! But once again the story was assists and turnovers. We remain undefeated when we have at least 27 assists, and last night we only got to 22. And 21 turnovers is unacceptable...that was the theme of the post-game press conferences. The starters were mostly outplayed, and the bench shined. But despite Conley's poor night, I don't fault him for not giving JMac more minutes...I'm not sure you can have Jordan on the court when SGA is out there.
Disappointing loss, but I can't wait for the rematch in 8 days. We'll destroy them on the boards again, and if Conley has a normal game, I think we might win by double digits.