Trailing by 3 points, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s deep 3-point attempt clunked off the backboard as the final buzzer sounded.
The Oklahoma City Thunder couldn’t create any late-game magic in their 106-103 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. The loss drops OKC’s final record of in-season tournament group play to 1-3.
“We could’ve attacked it a little bit better,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said on Minnesota’s zone defense. “We also missed some shots during that stretch. And a combination of those two things made it hard on us… The second-half offense really hurt us tonight.”
After leading 61-53 in the first half, the Thunder’s offense sunk as the Timberwolves limited them to 42 points on 31% shooting the rest of the way.
The second half saw OKC struggle to generate quality looks as the Timberwolves suffocated each drive to the basket. Minnesota chipped away at OKC’s lead and entered the final frame trailing by just two points.
Troy Brown Jr. — who closed this game out in place of Anthony Edwards, who missed most of the second half after a hard landing on his hip — scored five quick points to give Minnesota a five-point lead with 31 seconds left.
A Chet Holmgren 3-pointer helped give OKC some slight hope as it cut its deficit to two points with 27 seconds left. After trying to force a turnover, the Thunder finally decided to foul Karl-Anthony Towns, who swished in both free throws to regain a four-point lead.
A Gilgeous-Alexander dunk cut it to two points once again with five seconds left. Brown Jr. split a pair of free throws and gave OKC a shot to tie it trailing by three points with four seconds left. The final possession resulted in the aforementioned Gilgeous-Alexander 3-point attempt that didn’t go in.
“Trying to get the ball to Shai in some space,” Daigneault said on the final play. “Gobert on the ball I thought was a little disruptive to the entry pass and pushed us a little further out than we would’ve liked to be.
“But at the end of the day, we had a really good player with the ball, down three, and that’s what you can ask for.”
Overall, the Thunder shot 41% from the field. This included an 11-of-30 (36.7%) from 3. Rebounding continues to be an issue for OKC as it was outrebounded, 51-36.
Meanwhile, the Timberwolves also struggled on offense as they shot 42% from the field. The difference for them was from outside as a 14-of-33 (42.4%) night from 3 helped keep them in it.
“I thought they were uncomfortable with the way we were guarding them,” Daigneault said on the defense. “I thought there was a little slippage in the third (quarter). After we built a little bit of a lead, we let Edwards get a little loose there.”
Gilgeous-Alexander led OKC in its three-point loss. The 25-year-old scored a game-high 32 points. In his first game at Minnesota, Holmgren had 16 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
Meanwhile, the Timberwolves survived the absence of Edwards, who scored 21 points and had five rebounds before he exited the game with a hip injury in the third quarter. Brown Jr. stepped up and scored 17 points.
The frontcourt duo of Towns and Rudy Gobert led Minnesota to the win. Towns had 13 points and 10 rebounds while Gobert had 17 points, 16 rebounds and four blocks.
“We have to get better as a team and practice and the film room and continue to get better,” Holmgren said on the loss. “We can’t just brush it off because then we can’t learn lessons from it.”
Let’s look at Thunder player grades.