Trailing the entire game, Isaiah Joe had a chance to complete a 21-point comeback with a corner 3 at the end of regulation. Alas, the sharpshooter’s attempt fell short as the final buzzer sounded.
Playing on the second night of a home-and-road back-to-back, the Oklahoma City Thunder fought admirably after looking sluggish for most of the contest in their 141-138 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
“We didn’t have our best tonight obviously but I thought we stuck together and stayed in it,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said on the loss. “I thought as the game wore on, we got more and more energy and more and more engaged after obviously a sluggish start.”
Not scoring their first points until nearly four minutes into the contest, it was evident fairly early the Thunder entered Atlanta battling fatigue. A flight delay the previous night only guaranteed OKC tipped off with a scheduling disadvantage.
To the Hawks’ credit, they took advantage of this and got off to a 39-25 lead following the first quarter. The Thunder’s offense started to pick up in the second quarter with 34 points, but Atlanta’s 37-point second frame saw OKC enter halftime trailing 76-59.
The third quarter saw both teams turn it up a notch with their scoring — the Thunder scored 44 points and the Hawks scored 40 points. Entering the final frame, OKC trailed 116-103.
From that point on, the Thunder and Hawks continued to exchange buckets. With less than three minutes left, it looked like OKC’s hopes of a comeback finally vanished as Atlanta led by 15 points.
Instead, what proceeded was a 14-2 run by the Thunder in the final 2:20 of the contest to work their way back for the aforementioned chance of potentially tying it up.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander single-handedly almost mounted a comeback as he scored the final nine points of the contest. Overall, he led OKC with 33 points and 13 rebounds.
Jalen Williams was OKC’s other big scorer with 21 points. The Thunder enjoyed a productive night from their bench with 49 points.
After a slow start, the Thunder turned into a scoring machine for the final three frames. Overall, OKC shot 55% from the field and went 18-of-36 (50%) from 3. It shot 20-of-26 from the free-throw line and collected 30 assists on 50 buckets.
The problem for the Thunder was on the other side — the Hawks scored with ease as they had 37-plus points in the first three quarters. Atlanta shot 51% from the field and went 14-of-39 (35.9%) from 3. It went 31-of-33 from the free-throw line and had 30 assists on 48 buckets.
The monster scoring night from the Hawks was headlined by four 20-point scorers. Atlanta’s backcourt led the way as Trae Young had 24 points and 11 assists while Dejounte Murray had 22 points, six assists and six rebounds.
Jalen Johnson scored a career-high 28 points on 11-of-18 shooting and Bogdan Bogdanovic totaled 23 points and shot 5-of-11 from 3 off the bench.
“The energy that we needed to have wasn’t there for much of the night on the defensive end,” Daigneault said. “… We just didn’t play well enough to win.”
Considering the circumstances, this one felt like it was safe to pencil in as a scheduled loss for the Thunder. After picking up a massive win over the Boston Celtics, it only makes sense OKC struggles on the second night of a home-and-road back-to-back.
It felt that way for most of the game. But even though the Hawks led wire-to-wire, OKC’s late flurry to turn it into a three-point deficit makes this loss easier to stomach.
“It’s not always going to be perfect (but) I’ll always ride with these guys any night,” Daigneault said. “It wasn’t our fastball tonight… To continue to fight the way we did was impressive.”
Let’s look at Thunder player grades.