Thunder Get Down 30 But Fight Back To Make It An Interesting Game In Loss To Warriors After Chet Holmgren Leaves Game With A Hip Injury

Oklahoma City, OK – It’s the second game of the Thunder six game home stand and they welcome the Warriors into town who are one of the more surprising teams so far this season.

Before the season, most people would have considered this game to be an easy scheduled win for the Thunder but the Warriors come in as one of the best teams in the league sporting a 7-2 record. They also bring in the league’s second ranked defense only behind the Thunder. So what once was looked at as a “boring game” even with Steph Curry playing has turned into a premiere Sunday night matchup.

Coming into the game, a lot of talk has been made of the Thunder and their shooting woes from three. Though they’ve been better the last couple of game, they have a long way to go if they want to repeat as the leagues best three point shooting team this season. A lot of the shots they’ve missed from three have been really good looks but the difference from this year and last is how they’re getting those looks. A lot of pull up threes and threes coming out of rhythm of the usual Thunder offense.

That seemed to be different against the Warriors. To start the game, the Thunder, mostly Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, made more of a concerted effort to get downhill and get to their bread and butter by getting their offense going from inside out.

“They’re great at point of attack…they’re a really aggressive defense and you’ve got to battle their pressure and physicality with force.” Head coach Mark Daigneault when asked if the plan was to come into the game to make more of an effort to get down hill. 

“I thought we actually did that pretty well.” 

And that led to a lot of success with the Thunder taking a 33-26 lead into their second quarter and holding the Warriors to 41.7% from the field and 33.3% from 3.

It came at a bit of cost though. While attempting to block an Andrew Wiggins attempt at the rim, Chet Holmgren took a hard fall and needed help getting to the locker room as he couldn’t put any weight on his right leg. It was a deemed a right hip injury and he was out for the rest of the game.

There was no update on his status after the game Mark Daigneault mentioned in his post game presser.

It was a huge blow to the Thunder who are already without Isaiah Hartenstein, Jalen Williams, and Kenrich Williams. The injury kind of took the energy out of the build as the Thunder looked a little sluggish for the rest of the first half as the Warriors got hot from three.

“It changed a lot for us defensively as you can probably tell.” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on Chet going down. 

Shooting 9-14 from distance in the second after only hitting 4 of their 12 attempts in the opening quarter. Taking a 65-58 lead into halftime, the Warriors gained full control of the game.

Once the Warriors grabbed the lead they didn’t look back. Thunder never fully recovered from losing Chet and the Warriors took full advantage. Thunder had to play really small which plays into exactly how Golden State wants to play. OKC really made a great effort to try and get downhill to create good looks but with Chet out, Golden State took most of those drives away. Once they started packing the paint, the Thunder really needed this to be a night they couldn’t miss from three and it just wasn’t.

After the three point barrage started from the Warriors they never looked back. Warriors being hot from three combined with Chet being out made for a really rough going for the Thunder for a while. Getting down by as much as 30 and it looked like we weren’t going to see the starters for the fourth quarter.

Insert Dillon Jones. Jones only played 15 minutes and he didn’t have any flashy numbers but his energy and effort were contagious and he helped lead a miraculous comeback. Enough so it made everyone in Paycom Arena believe the Thunder were going to complete the comeback. OKC brought it within six and for a moment, it really seemed like they were going to do it but the Warriors still have Steph Curry and he is still playing at a high level. Steph hit two dagger threes for the Warriors to put the game out of reach and that was all she wrote.

The Thunder lose to the Warriors 127-116 in the first night of a back to back and lose their second game of the season.

“We’ve been a high execution team for much of the season and tonight we weren’t.” Mark Daigneault on the loss.

OKC was led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who finished with 24 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists and Jalen Williams who finished with 20 points, 4 assists, and 4 blocks. Lu Dort was solid with 16 points and 6 rebounds while Cason Wallace led the way off the bench with 16 points.

Taking a loss always sucks in the NBA. Especially when you’re a team as good as the Thunder. The major story of the night though is losing Chet. Not only losing Chet though, it’s also losing him while you’re already down the other bigs on the roster and now you’re left with none. This changes everything the Thunder want to do. How they want to play on both ends of the floor. If he does have miss some extended time, it will be one of the biggest blows in the league so far.

The Thunder will look to not start a losing streak when welcome the Clippers into town on their second game of a back to back Monday night.

The post Thunder Get Down 30 But Fight Back To Make It An Interesting Game In Loss To Warriors After Chet Holmgren Leaves Game With A Hip Injury appeared first on BlackSportsOnline.