The Oklahoma City Thunder suffered one of their worst losses of the season on Wednesday. After securing a 22 point lead on the road against the Los Angeles Clippers, the team withered down the stretch, allowing the Clippers to cut the lead and eventually win.
It was an altogether disappointing performance from the Thunder and star forward Kevin Durant had some thoughts on it after the game (via Kurt Helin of Pro Basketball Talk):
“If we want to be a great team, we’re fooling ourselves,” Kevin Durant, arms resting on his thighs and looking at the ground after his team blew a 22-point lead and lost to the Clippers Wednesday. “If we want to be a great team the way we’re playing, we’re fooling ourselves. We want to win a bunch of games in the regular season, that’s cool, but we’re fooling ourselves with the way we’re playing.”
Head coach Billy Donovan also had thoughts on the loss, hoping the loss can be a stepping stool as they attempt to improve down the stretch:
“I’ve said this before, the best thing for this team is adversity,” Donovan said. “We need adversity. It doesn’t need to be easy, in my opinion…. Now here is an adverse situation, what do we do with this in terms of going forward? When we get leads like this, can we sustain playing the right way on offense and defense?”
These quotes are telling of a team that has consistency issues throughout the season. Although they have been mostly a great team, accumulating a 42-19 record to this point, they have had too many brutal losses. Whether it was a blown lead to the champion Warriors or to these Clippers, the Thunder have struggled to finish off games which they should have won.
In all fairness, however, both Durant and Donovan must shoulder a large portion of the blame for that. Donovan’s new offense withers to the same late-game offense that former head coach Scott Brooks was routinely criticized for – isolation plays split between Durant and Russell Westbrook.
Durant, meanwhile, had some rough stretches in the last few minutes of the game against the Clippers. He missed routine jumpers and free throws, had multiple turnovers, and allowed DeAndre Jordan to get a tip-in and-one when he should have had a rebound. All of those plays had major consequences on the Thunder’s chances of winning.
The point of all this is that the Thunder have major issues. The team has been unable to close out big games and that bears bad news for the playoffs. The consensus third best team in the West looks like they could be and likely will be overmatched against either the Spurs or Warriors in the second round of the postseason. Until the team improves its issues (and that starts with accountability across the board) it will be much of the same for the OKC Thunder.
