During a press conference before the Wednesday game against the Indiana Pacers, it was mentioned to Kenrich Williams that the Oklahoma City Thunder had had three competitive, winnable games in a row, but weren’t able to pull through. He was asked what the team needs to do to close out and win.
“I don’t think it’s all at the end, I think it’s throughout the game,” Williams said. “Little mistakes here and there.”
Six hours later, it was apparent that this was the case once agian. The Thunder lost to the Pacers 122-116 in a game in which they outscored Indiana in the second half and even cut the deficit as low as a single point in the fourth quarter, but they couldn’t snap the losing streak that has now reached 12.
Head coach Mark Daigneault said it wasn’t about the finish as much as the little mistakes that piled up throughout the first three quarters.
“In the course of the game, we just gotta be a little cleaner with our execution, whether it’s transition D, early on it was the glass, obviously we had some untimely turnovers tonight. We took a couple tough shots in the first half,” Daigneault said. “And that stuff just adds up over the course of the game.”
The Thunder cut what had been a 13-point deficit down to one with 5:08 to play when Moses Brown got an easy dunk. But in the next six seconds, Caris LeVert streaked up the court and hit a layup for an and-one, which sparked a quick seven-point Pacers run.
With 32 seconds to play, Darius Bazley hit a layup to make it a five-point game. Ty Jerome stole the ball and made a 3-pointer with 24.5 seconds to go to pull within two points.
Oklahoma City couldn’t get any closer than that, though, as Malcolm Brogdon closed it out with four free throws and finish with a game-high 29 points.
“We played with a little bit of a deficit tonight down the stretch and I’m happy with how we hung in there,” Daigneault said. “Got it back down to two, gave ourselves a chance.”
Here are three takeaways:.