Hello! Apologies for the delay between posts, obviously Friday was less than ideal for the Thunder and me, especially. My unfortunate fall into despair for a day could only be dragged out by another Thunder win….. Luckily, on Mother’s day the Thunder came out on the road and stole one in Denver!
Let’s review Friday’s game really quick, though. We lost. That’s it. As much as I want to just live like it never happened, it did. The Thunder yet again had the opportunity to close it out in a close game and fumbled it. In an insanely close game, it seemed like we had given up on any offensive execution down the stretch, and in OT, we looked like a team that was scared of the moment. I love Shai, he’s the MVP and will arguably go down as a Thunder great up there with Russ and Nick Collison. But come on, man, JDub had it going and he pretty much kept them in the game in the 4th. He got virtually no shots in the last 2 minutes and OT, besides late shot clock heaves. It seemed like that old Thunder Iso, a little bit like when KD and Russ would bog down and play your turn, my turn, except it was just Shai. Now, if he makes just one of those, obviously I’d eat my own words. It just seemed like the altitude and the effort were killing us. We won’t talk about OT for real though we unfortunately had to witness it.
Now, yesterday’s game was an absolute SLUGFEST. I was legitimately tired when the game was finished. it felt back and forth and back and forth, and then after the 3rd, I was deflated. My friends and I have had a thing all season, basically crashing out at the beginning of games when we were playing bad to hopefully light a fire in the universe for the Thunder to play better. Needless to say, we extended that into the 4th yesterday. It honestly felt like we gave up, and we threw away all the work this season to go out like this. (I know it still would’ve been 3-1) It felt different in the 4th, however, the thunder generated not only good shots, but they were making them FINALLY. Going back to my keys to the game from game 3, the Bench mob of Wiggins, Cason, and Caruso won us the game. They provided a defensive and offensive spark that wasn’t there most of the game. And again the man who’s saved basketball time and time again gives us exactly what was necessary.
One thing I cannot stand was FREE THROWS. Oh my lord Denver fans all over twitter have just been on the tik tok highlight pull of “Jokic would score if he wasn’t defended like this” and it’s just physical defense?!? Legitimately have never see anything like it with how Denver was on the internet yesterday you would think the thunder shot 60 free throws. The nuggets shot 10 more!! And my main thought is whatever, but the physicality that Jokic plays with I think their fans are just not used to someone playing with that same physicality. They expect all the thunder players to just let him back them down and hit easy layups. Not contest. And stand there. We complain all year about the refs and the lack of physical basketball. But when it comes time to watch physical grind it out basketball there is nothing but complaints and discourse about one team or the other.
There are times I admit that Shai is trying to draw fouls to get to the line, but how often have we seen Shai run to the officials to complain? Almost never. if it’s a foul, he’s going to be mad and probably say something. But it seems like it’s every play for Jokic very Luka-esque from last year’s playoffs.
Enough of the refs, however. The Thunder gutted this game out 92-87 and really, the 4th quarter was the difference. We shot 42% and held the Nuggets to 30% on 7/23 shooting, and the thing that usually kills the Thunder in games is open corner threes, probably saved them. Denver shot 0/14 on corner threes this game, and there were some really bad misses, one being from Russ, who’s played perfectly in this series so far, with just a major deflating airball from the corner. The Thunder finally got out of the slump in the last few minutes of the game, and we won. But man, was that just heart-wrenching, my pulse was well in the hundreds.
In any case, we escaped, we survived. now we have to do it again for game 5, and if we don’t want a repeat of last year, we need to carry the momentum into the next game. So here is the 5 Keys for game 5.
5 Keys for Game 5:
Key 1: OPEN THREES.
To say that we have been abysmal at our threes this playoff has been an understatement and open threes have felt even worse we are generating good looks every game, we just need to knock them down. an example game 2 The Nuggets shot 40% from three and the Thunder shot 44%, and we blew them out of the water. we need to get back to the baseline, ESPECIALLY when were open. Hitting these open threes generates so many other good looks, the defense has to help or recover guys who are hitting open looks.
Key 2: Physicality
Make Jokic continue to play physically. Jokic has played 40-plus minutes in virtually 11 playoff games obviously, he’s a generational talent and can go off at any time. Still, you have to make it tough he’s the engine that drives them and their offense and he’s been sputtering the last few games.
Key 3: Shai
Shai has been lackluster this whole playoff run for a hopefully recent MVP contender and needs a truly great game. Game 4 was probably the second-best game of these playoffs besides Game 4 in Memphis. We need a true MVP moment and Game 5 is the chance to show who you are.
Key 4: Dub & Chet
We sold a good Chet and Jdub game in game 3, and it was probably their best in the playoffs, but we need that again, and when it all comes together, we get a cohesive offensive and defensive effort like game 2. But these guys need to get it going consistently, defense will key in on Shai most of the game, so they need to get their looks.
Key 5: To grind or not to grind
These grind-it-out types of games are good and bad for the Thunder. We’ve seen our defense is top tier and worthy of one of the best of all time monikers. With these types of games, however, we have seen how much the offense dies. We were top 5 in offense all year, but it feels like we can’t buy a bucket these playoffs. mark was right when we play our brand of basketball, the results show themselves like game 2.
We are looking at the biggest game of OKC’s history besides KD era games 5-6-7 against Golden State. My nerves aren’t there yet, but it’s tracking. I don’t think it’s going to be a blowout, but I think it’s going to be the most impressive win so far. The final will be 117- 102 Thunder.
This is the biggest game this year since last game, and we need to show who we are.
THUNDERUP!!!!!
Thunderiffic 
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