Oklahoma City dropped their second game in a row on Tuesday night, a 114-106 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.
Here are three takeaways.
Schroder’s struggles against San Antonio continue
Dennis Schroder will probably be happy after February 23. That’s because he won’t have to play against the Spurs for the rest of the regular season.
In the 10 games prior to Tuesday night, Schroder had been averaging 24 points per game. Against the Spurs, he scored just 14.
In the two games against San Antonio prior to Tuesday’s loss, Schroder averaged only 15.0 points per game, more than four points below his season average. He was shooting 40% from the field in those games, down from 47.4% on the year. On Tuesday, he shot worse than that, hitting on just five of his 13 attempts (38.4%) from the floor.
It’s been a while since OKC suffered back-to-back losses
You have to go back almost a month to find the last time the Thunder lost two in a row. On Jan. 15 they lost 130-121 to the Toronto Raptors and fell the next night to the Miami Heat 119-106.
They responded by running off five straight wins and nine of their next 10.
Oklahoma City has one more game this week, at the New Orleans Pelicans, before the All-Star break.
Another sluggish start
Although the Thunder battled back to tie the game at 79 early in the fourth quarter, they never were quite able to overcome their sluggish start.
OKC scored just 14 points in the first quarter, committing more fouls (eight) than made shots (five).
The Thunder were plagued by a severe scoring drought, going more than five minutes without a point and the final 6:17 of the quarter without a field goal.
As if that wasn’t enough, Oklahoma City also turned the ball over four times during that span.