OKC Thunder FALL FLAT in Clutch AGAIN, Nuggets Control Series

OKC Thunder FALL FLAT in Clutch AGAIN, Nuggets Control Series

On today’s Locked On Thunder podcast, the Oklahoma City Thunder just might not be ready for this moment as they fall again late in the clutch. What went wrong for OKC? We’re going to talk about it all on today’s show. You are Locked on Thunder, your daily Oklahoma City Thunder podcast, part of the locked on podcast network. Your team every day. Let’s get it going on the Lockdown Thunder podcast. National Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. I am your host, member and beat writer for Thunder on SI, Ryland Styles. Follow me on Twitter at Ryland Styles. Follow the show on Twitter at llo Thunderpod. Coming to you here from Ball Arena in downtown Denver. So, excuse any of the background noise that you might be able to hear. Listen, on today’s show, we’re talking OKC just unraveling in the clutch yet again. What went wrong for the Thunder? Jaylen Williams had a special night spoiled and their backs are now against the wall with Denver controlling this series. Now, you know how we do this show. You know, you take the emotion out of it and you look big picture and we’re going to do that tonight in a in a multitude of different ways. Big picture meaning long-term, shortterm, and everything in between. But when you looked at this response game from Denver, you knew it was going to happen. But when you see it unfold in this capacity, it it feels like one got away from Oklahoma City just as it did on Monday night. Now look, I don’t think it’s as simple as saying like the Thunder should be up 3 0 right now because had Monday night’s game gone differently than game two goes differently and you have this butterfly effect, right? But these were two games as you can point to of things that they the Thunder just have to clean up uh if they want to be legitimate contenders in this league. By that same token, legitimate contenders have to go through situations like this. And I’m not I’m not talking this time long term. Like, find me the playoff series that was a playoff kind of run that ended in a championship that did not see games along the route to the title be met with adversity, be met with contention, be met with feelings such as this one, look no further than the Denver Nuggets. If you believe that the Denver Nuggets are in the driver’s seat for this series, which they clearly are, having won the swing game three here, Denver was buried after game three one round ago. They were buried after game three. They rallied back to win the series in seven. So, like you can look at this in a lot of different ways. There’s a lot of bad for the Thunder. There’s some good for the Thunder. And it’s going to come down to what can they clean up? Because even though on the previous show I mentioned I think that the Thunder would lose game three and win game four, you know, they they need to be able to clean some of the stuff up that’s been a perpetual problem for them through this shortterm run. And it starts with the end of the game and and score one for Mark Dol by the way because he said Tuesday at practice that the narrative out of Monday’s game had they not fouled had Denver hit a three because they didn’t foul would have been why didn’t you foul up three instead of why did you foul up three? That’s the narrative today. But when you take a step back, it’s it’s kind of different situations and three seconds makes the biggest difference here with this game. The Thunder got to retake a late game execution exam and they failed it again because if fouling up three is who you are, why not foul up three again there? Kind of regardless of that nature though, it was 11 seconds to go. It’s a tinge above when you would want to, but Aaron Gordon once again comes up clutch with a corner three uh to send this game into overtime. This is a huge counterpoint to the backlash that fouling up three got because if the Thunder simply make their free throws, the fouling up three strategy is a great idea because the push back from that strategy for Monday night all revolved around, well, you have the best defense in the world. If they hit a three and you go to overtime, so what? Now you play overtime. Well, look, overtime is completely different. and the Nuggets laid a massive haymaker, a knockout punch in the first three possessions of overtime. So, you got your overtime. It made it made matters worse for Oklahoma City to get that overtime. And again, who knows what that would have looked like on Monday. But these are just two examples of the exact same game playing out with two different philosophies to attack it and both of them ending in a loss for OKC, which points to the bigger picture. It’s not about the last 15 seconds Monday. It’s not about the last 11 seconds in this game in regulation. It’s about what led you to get in that spot because this is a young Thunder team that got completely ran off the road in overtime, but they could not run a single form of offense for the majority of the second half. They were laboring. It was your turn, my turn. It was hero ball. We’ll have more on that with Shay coming up. They were just out of sorts. It was missing the seldom good shots that you did create and then not being able to get into your actions cleanly uh for the majority of that second half. And in both Denver’s wins, it’s it’s the same kind of result from the 40, you know, from the first 40 minutes. Oklahoma City creates a lot of good looks in the first game and second game. In the first half, they hit almost none of them. Then when the game does tighten and Denver does tighten the screws defensively and bunker down, now those good shots shots aren’t available to you and with those good shots no longer being presented to you. You can’t create anymore because Denver’s playing such good defense and now you’re taking tough shots and you don’t have guys that have hit tough shots before uh on this stage. you know, you don’t have the reliability on this team. And I thought that this was this was was another game to book in the three game set so far that illustrated Denver’s poise and kind of championship attitude and clutch time experience because the bottom line is you got another awful Nicole Yokic game and you’re one and one in the awful Nicole games. That can’t happen. These games only come around once in a while. I mean, it’s it’s almost as rare as a solar eclipse. But what unraveled the Thunder again was not the final 11 seconds. While it is terrible, while it gets a Fgrade on the clutch time test, you shouldn’t have been in that situation with how Jokic was playing. But you were in that situation because you shot 38% from the floor, 25% from three, and 68% from the free throw line. You can’t make your threes. You can’t make your free throws. cuz you’re not going to win. You’re just not. And to Denver’s credit, their role players stepped up. They shot 40% from three. By far their best shooting game from three, which is another thing that was already baked into this cake of role players typically play better at home. You trusted Denver’s role players, as we said on the previous show, to show up. Now, the messy ending kind of clouds the emotions of this, but the reality is the Thunder still have an opportunity to just go do their job and earn a split in game four. And now it’s a three-game series and now you have home court advantage in that three-game series which is going to be what the Thunder have to do. But the way this game unfolded, game three feels much worse than how it would feel otherwise because not only could the Thunder not hit their shots and nobody really played well on offense except for JDub, but they only win fast break points 14 to7 which is nice, but they only outrebound Denver by two. And I say only because while that’s a marked improvement from where they were Monday where they got crushed on the glass, where did Denver make up the margins? Denver made up the margins by not turning the ball over. There was only three more Nuggets turnovers than Thunder turnovers. And that’s where Monday we were saying that on this show that, you know, it’s it’s not just about what the Thunder can clean up. This is a series. This is a chess match. The Thunder clean up their rebounding. They’ve been really good rebounding the basketball the last two nights, the last two games. Denver in this game cleaned up their turnovers which allowed them to not only not get blown out but win this basketball game here in Ball Arena. Even as the Thunder dominate points in the paint, even as they win second chance points and for for the rebounds that they created, they only won the second chance points by two, but still they they win second chance points. They dominate in the paint and it’s just not enough because the only place the Thunder could hit their shots was in that restricted area. And so you you look at how this game unfolded. 15 lead changes, 12 ties. The game stays within nine points uh each direction, but Denver makes 16 threes, OKC makes nine. Denver makes 19 free throws on 24 attempts. OKC makes 15 free throws on 22 attempts. That’s it. And sometimes this isn’t rocket science. sometimes for as much as we want to go into this lab and put these games under a microscope and and really dive in and dissect them and I love to do that too as you all know from listening to the show. We can go back to this to the series preview and and we can talk about how whoever shot the ball better was going to win this this series. Shooting the ball better is threes and free throws and the Thunder have not done that and the Thunder are now trailing uh two to one in this series and Denver has a chance to throw a knockout punch in game four. your backs against the wall in game four if you’re Oklahoma City. The biggest indictment and the biggest illustration of the failures of the Thunder offense in game three, the Thunder took 104 shots tonight. 104 shots to the Thunder. Denver took 85 and Denver wins the game in overtime. Look, it it can really uh be overlooked what the Thunder did to put themselves in this position to have another clutch time failure. And it also can be overlooked what the Thunder did in the regular season to avoid clutch time. I think that people believe that the Thunder blew out their opponents because they were the only team on the floor trying in the regular season. That’s not true. I mean, you you can just site to quickly move through this. You can just site the Memphis game at home for the Thunder where it was a it was a five-point game or whatever, a tie game with seven minutes to go and the Thunder win by 50 billion points down the stretch. But since they blew the game out between the 7-minute mark and the 5minute mark and at the 5minute mark it it wasn’t a tight game. All of a sudden it doesn’t it doesn’t count as clutch time minutes. Why do you think the Thunder have not had clutch time minutes? Because they don’t do this stuff. They have they had the best free throw shooting team in the NBA. They are able to generate better offense than this. They’re able to play better defense than this for a consistent period of time for 48 minutes. They couldn’t do those things tonight. So, I I I do think that you have to look at this and and not just cast it off as, well, the Thunder aren’t good in the clutch and they’re not tested in the clutch. The Thunder are not doing the things to avoid clutch time and the in the bookings of these three game of this first three game set that they did and that was their bread and butter in the regular season. And a lot of it is completely within their control, right? Guys aren’t shooting the ball as good as they were. Now, you can point to that and say, is that experience? Is that just streaky shooters that are having that are picking the worst times imaginable to have bad shooting series last year in Dallas, this year in Denver? I could give you experience on three-point shooting only because they also didn’t shoot the ball well against Memphis on the road last last round. It just didn’t end up mattering because Memphis couldn’t put up a fight the way that Denver can. So, the three-point shooting stuff, sure. The free throws, especially missing them at home and and and there’s still no excuse to miss them here. But the free throws, that is just completely a lapse and a regret for the Thunder in this series. And it could be what unravels them in this series because again, you’ve gotten two bad Jokic games, you’re one and one in the two bad Jokic games. And in those non Jokic minutes, you saw the Thunder fouling a lot. You saw the Thunder turning it over a lot. saw the Thunder uh you know kind of lapsing defensively a lot. The the Nuggets did not get killed in the non-JIC minutes. So much so that you can see it from Jaylen Williams who was a minus 11 in this game and just completely outplayed everybody on the floor and SGA who had the worst game of his career was a minus 4. So like it wasn’t the Jokic minutes that killed you clearly because he had a bad game. it a and it was the fact that you couldn’t punish Denver for a Jokic bad game by playing them off the floor whenever Jokic was not there, which is what you did in game two and what you did frankly in game one. We mentioned it after game one, the nineic minutes were were great for the Thunder to extend their lead and get that up to from a five to a 10-point lead for from a five to a nine-point lead before these guys came in back into the ball game. You didn’t do that tonight. It’s a that’s another controllable thing that you just did not do. Even though you can get up in arms about the final 11 seconds of this game and you can rightfully do that, but when you miss wideopen threes, when you have poor half court offensive output, when you see Alex Cruso and like he’s not the only one, but you know, miss layups, it’s all interconnective. It all builds upon itself, when the Thunder aren’t turning you over, when they’re aren’t being able to push the pace after misses and Denver’s able to get back in transition, which they buckled down on in the second half compared to the first half. Like these are all things the Thunder themselves have to take care on. And this was a game in which Denver uh I think kind of looked around and was wondering at times why they were even in the contest. And a lot of it was the Thunder left the door open for them. A lot of it was, hey, Denver should feel good about the guys that they have in that locker room because you see it tonight and you see why I was trying to talk Ryan Blackburn off the ledge in our crossover of like, dude, the Nuggets should feel great about this series. I’m still picking the Thunder in seven. And I’ll stand by that still today because to to win in seven, you got to lose three times. So, you know, it’s game four. If the Thunder win game four, all of a sudden, everyone’s feelings about this series and this season change because you feel good about game five in the paycom center. So, I’ll still stick by Thunder and seven. But when when Ryan and Lockdown Nuggets and and even the Denver Post with Bennett, I mean, Denver Post was picking Thunder and five. when people were picking vendor and five, I just didn’t understand it because of moments like this where it’s like what happens when you get a bad Shay game and a bad Yokic game or what happens when those two guys are both out of this world great who helps aid them? It can go both ways and you really trust Michael Porter Jr. who showed out tonight. You really trust Aaron Gordon who’s an absolute dog and has reinvented his game in more ways than one. And you really like the effort from Christian Brown who Christian Brown Jay-Hawk legend by the way no big deal. Christian Brown had incredible resilience for a let’s say mediocre at best to be nice first half from Christian. Second half he played with immense force, immense aggression and it was the little things that he did. Nothing like extremely loud but it was flying in and tapping out rebounds. was being able to to find crevices to be a connective passer for the Thunder. I mean, for the Nuggets who didn’t who didn’t have Gotti assist totals, but if you go back and look at some of these actions that Denver got into, he was swinging the ball around. He was playing really good defense once he settled into this game, he was a plus six overall, like he wasn’t spectacular, but his ability to rebound from what was a bad game from him individually, you know, 37% from the floor, 33% from three. Like, that stuff is what I think that you can gain. whenever Christian was a few years, you know, a few years ago when he was in the fire as a youngster and now having that experience to lean on, I think helped him in this series so far. But yeah, I mean, Denver has the the more proven collective cast of characters and their depth has not shown up yet in the sense of hurting them. It’s another quick turnaround. These teams don’t get two days off in a row until a possible game six to game seven situation. So you look at the body of work and Denver has won the the the kind of first three games because they were up 2-1 but also because you just kind of throw out game two and really look at what happens when you get close games and Denver has that edge in close games. But that’s kind of what we have on the bigger picture of the game. Let’s get into some individual performances including just two polar opposite nights. Jaylen Williams was insanely good. And SGA had his worst game of his career. We’ll talk about that coming up. But first, I want to say right now, my good friends over at Door Dash, go check out Door Dash today because NBA fans, you know what time it is. Playoff season’s underway. And when you get big performances and even bigger rewards come your way for Door Dash in those scenarios because Door Dash is bringing the heat with a slam dunk deal from Dash Pass. 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You’re with teams every day. Jay Dub was special in this contest for the Oklahoma City Thunder. He he just was. There’s no sweeping this under the rug. Jayd Dub was out on a mission from the word go and he did it in versatile ways. And he he looked like the regular season form of himself in the postseason. And that’s the hardest thing for young guys to start to translate when the lights get brighter, when the defense gets more intense, when the pressure is on you. Jub’s done that. and you take a step back as I love to do and you survey the body of work from from Jaylen Williams this postseason and it’s exactly why you preach patience and I know nobody wants to hear that after the Thunder blew another clutch time game but if if you’re someone who is just so far out on this team after two bad clutch opportunities I think you should really take a take a beat today get away from basketball don’t even watch the Celtics next week you probably should because it’s a great game but don’t even watch it just take a step back because you know you have to evaluate these things as they come and with reality. And I get that it’s extremely hard to do. A lot of you have been fans of a long time. I I I have the privilege of like just having this bird’s eye view of not being as emotionally invested as and as a fan that you guys are. You know that this that’s not my job to fan. So I’m not going to discount your job to be a fan. But Jaylen Williams is living proof of the patience that the Thunder organization preaches because he was awful in the playoffs last year as a as a totality against Dallas. He was just a nothing offense offensive player against Dallas for the large majority of that sixgame series that was decided in the margins. And he had a lot of questions coming into year two. But this is how fast it changed. It took one season. It took one opportunity for Jada in the postseason to to learn the lessons of the playoffs and apply them to this year. And I say that because now that you get to take a step back from game one, he was dominant in that Memphis series. He looked every bit the all-star. He looked every bit the number two option. He looked every bit the co-star of a title contending team. Just point blank period. And we went through in that and you can go back and listen to those podcasts for all the different ways that that was true. Game one, he had the worst playoff game of, you know, this run. He had one of his worst playoff games of his career. And the Thunder had a heartbreaking loss. And everybody’s calling for for JDub. Everybody’s now out on JDub after game one because in the moment it feels like this has been brewing a long time. It really hasn’t. It’s really been four games against New England, six games against Dallas, four games against Memphis, and then at that time one game against Denver. Now, Lton didn’t teach us a lot of math, so you’re gonna have to tally that up for yourself. But that’s a short amount of time. And then how does he respond to that with everybody? I mean, people in in these comment sections, you know, I I think that we have the most rational podcast out there that covers one single team. And even I couldn’t talk you off the ledge to not just throw him away after game one like like he’s Woody with Andy after the Yet Buzz Lightyear. And then in game two, he responds with with a great forceful game and the thunder of a blowout win. And then in this game, had you won this game, the only thing people are talking about right now is Jaylen Williams and how he saved this Thunder season. That’s the only thing people are talking about. And the stuff that went wrong largely out of his control. That’s how fast the switch can happen. You have a body of work now of, you know, four Memphis games, seven now Denver games to show you he’s a playoff player. He’s a playoff player and he’s capable of this because he he was great off the ball as a great and forceful cutter to start this game. He was great in transition both as a scorer but also through through that transition lob to chat. Threw a lob in the half court to chat to get the Thunder easy buckets. The three ball was falling for him. He was able to hit these tough mid mid-range jumpers bumping off contact from the defender, bumping his defender off a spot, and these awkward floaters uh through the lane that you just have to hit. Like these are shots that everyone recognizes is hard this time of year, but also everybody expects that of your number one, your number two option of your main guys. This is the expectation while everyone grants that it’s hard to do. And he’s lived to that expectation for five of the of the seven games this postseason. He’s lived to the expectation level. And you take a step back and you realize how quickly that’s happened where he has this elite step through with fancy footwork through the lane. And then you see what you’ve s seen all regular season that he’s vastly improved his handle. He’s vastly improved the ability to create for himself. And you saw it show up in this game against Denver where he’s creating off the dribble for his own shot with an offense that’s laboring, with an offense that needs saving. And he does it. He hits the massive three to put OKC up 100 to 99. That’s a high pressure shot. That’s a shot that has a lot of weight to it, a lot of gravity to it on the road. And he steps up and does it. He had a massive two for two trip to the free throw line right after it becomes 199. And he finishes with 32 points, three rebounds, five assists, 52% shooting from the floor, and 43% shooting from three with seven for eight from the free throw line. And I know that nobody wants to hear about the future right now because all of you just want to live in this misery that was game three, but the reality is no matter how the this season ends because we don’t know. I mean, for all we know, the Thunder get game four, get game five, and win the series and then they’re in the West Finals and you see what happens from there. But even if this Thunder team ends in a second round exit, I’d be really cautious with making sweeping judgments, especially about the top guys. Now, we can have conversations about how to fill out the roster and how to improve on the margins, but these top guys. The improvement has been stark from them and I do think that they have the right guys in place and you can pick apart certain aspects of all three of them, but they’re going to be really good really fast. It’s only taken one failure to get them to be this level of good. How do they respond to this this if this ends anything short of a title? Frankly, the the team internally as the players in that locker room, right or wrong, no matter how the season ends if it’s not hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy will feel that same hurt and heartbreak of last year 10fold because last year again they wanted to win. Obviously, the players in the locker room wanted to win and you saw that with the response that they had this summer. But, you know, this was different. This was like a season where you feel like you could win a championship legitimately and that was just a fun story. So, I don’t think that the Thunder are going to lose this series still. I’m going to stick with Thunder and Seven for now, but I would really hope that no matter what happens, you’re able to see what one year’s difference makes and that this Thunder team is still in the infancy of what they’re trying to do. But SGA was not good enough tonight. And and if you want to point to anything, and I think that Shay would be willing to tell you this, if you want to point to anything, you point to Shay. 18 points, 13 rebounds, seven assists, two steals, seven for 24, uh seven for 22 from the floor, one for six from three, and three for five at the free throw line. You can’t have an 0 for two trip in a close game like this as the guy is an elite free throw shooter. And you know, he’s a way better player than this. He has the ability to to respond and and even in this game, he was able to make some situations happen uh to help this Thunder team. It wasn’t all negative. you you saw the post up uh that he had on on an overloaded side of the court to dish one off to a cutting l for an easy bucket. Uh again, where buckets were hard to come by for this laboring offense. But if there was one critique of SGA’s game, and we’ve talked about this before on this show, so it’s nothing new. It’s nothing reactionary to this game. And the way that we’ve explained it before is these kill shots that he goes for where he tries to throw these knockout punches early and often. And he tries to to just end the game with four minutes left instead of staying the course and the and staying with the offensive flow that that the Thunder used to get to that spot. Like that happens way too much for him. And we’ve explained it away in a way that’s like, well, if he hits those shots, right? If he hits those step back threes, then all of a sudden we’re doing cartwheels on the street in Oklahoma City. But what happens when you’re not hitting those shots? And sometimes he doubles down on them. It’s one thing to have a heat check every now and again. The four-minute mark, you know, 13 seconds on the shot clock, step back over Jamal Murray, like, okay, you can try that. You you can do that. You you’ve you’ve earned the right whether you’re having a great game or a bad game to try that. But then the double, triple, and quadrupling down on trying to land this haymaker was puzzling and I think was a little bit out of character for SGA. And I think that, you know, it looked as though he was really trying for that signature moment. He was trying for that that play that will be played for the entire loop of his career. And I would just say that, you know, Shay’s one of the best players in this league. Shay’s a for my money a top three player in this league. Those moments are going to come organically. You just got to keep playing your style. And I get that this is a very hard thing. And this is like the hardest thing to improve on. And this is where I do think that NBA players are judged unfairly in a way because had Shay stopped shooting for all of you crying right now about well give the ball to JW, he’s hot. Had he stopped shooting uh and the Thunder still lose. The talking point is well Shay just didn’t want the moment. Shay didn’t want the moment and he does. He wants every moment. He wants to embrace every moment. Had these shots had had one of these shots gone in that Shay’s trying to get this kill shot. Then the narrative is what a killer mentality that Shay has. What a clutch gene that Shay has and what a way to to help out his his great teammate with Jub and and and pull out this game on the road and a gutty performance. So like the the thing that that that the players get put behind the eightball is we just play the results on this. We just are like, “Well, you know what? You know, if if it goes in, it’s awesome. if it goes out it it’s terrible and you should stop shooting shooting but if you do stop shooting then you’re shrinking from the moment and like we just have all these different ways to pick them apart uh that is kind of unfair to them. My only critique would be, you know, if the first if the first couple don’t go down on your step back kill shots, maybe try to get to the rim, may maybe try to pass the ball a little bit, maybe try to orchestrate some better offense, and then the the gather at the end, the final possession of the game where he’s gathering clearly looking for a foul and and misses the shot, doesn’t get the call either. you know, you you to me, you’re too good of a player to be looking for a foul there in a spot where the odds tell you that the refs aren’t going to try to decide this game on the last Thunder possession of the game. They’re not going to try to decide that, especially with the narratives around Shay. They’re not I don’t think that they’re going to blow the whistle there. No matter how much contact that you felt to where you’re so good at making tough shots, you’re so good at creating tough shots and hitting them with your shoulder separation, with your step back in the mid-range, with your stop and stop deceleration and acceleration and burst to the rim that you should really lean on that lean on that stuff more than a gather at the elbow that you try to swing through and get the foul. Uh but you know, that’s that’s one shot that I that I think you would have liked back from Shay. a couple of the threes you would have liked back from Shay. Uh but you know, this was just not good and and he’s gonna respond to this. Jokic will respond to this. Like like these guys are going to be really stellar. You don’t really have any concerns about either one of them. That’s just the only consistent trend that Sheay has to figure out. And that’s an incredibly hard thing to do. That’s what that’s what takes so long for these number one options to get right. It took LeBron a long time. It took Jordan a long time and everybody down the list a long time. Like those are the those are the apex players in this league. whoever’s your number one goat, those are the apex players in this league. Look how long it took them to win a championship. Look how long it took them to shake the the narrative that they can’t win. Yes, even Michael Jordan dealt with that narrative, but you especially can hear it with LeBron uh you know, after that Dallas series and and in series prior to that, like you have to go through these things if you’re the caliber of player that Shay is, he’s going through it right now. I’m sure that the takes will not be very reasonable for him. Uh I I tried to do a very reasonable job here talking about Shay, but uh that’s kind of the where the things land for SGA. Coming up, let’s talk the big man in the post, Hartinstein and Homegrren and Yic and how this game wrapped up for OKC. But first, I want to say right now, my good friends over at Amazon Fire TV, go check them out today because Amazon Fire TV is great and you want to be able to use it with not only streaming your shows, but here, get this. You can turn that Amazon Fire TV Stick into a gaming hub. It It’s the Amazon Fire TV 4K stick that makes it not only easy to stream shows, but with no console required, you can just grab a paired controller and subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with EA Play included and you’re ready to play with thousands and hundreds of thousands of of titles from Xbox, including EA Sports Clash Ball 25, my personal favorite game where I’ve already won Tennessee six national titles. Go check it out today uh at amazon.com/firetvlockdown. To get started, Xbox Game Pass unlimit uh ultimate subscription and compatible controllers are available with select devices including Fire TV Stick 4K second generation, Fire TV Stick 4K Max first and second generation and Fire TV Cube third generation at amazon.com/firetvlockdown. And the biggest kicker for this to me is that they have a great system in place to to avoid latency. I know a lot of gamers worry about that. And then also the travel aspect of it. It’s so much easier to travel with this Fire TV uh stick than it is with an actual console. So go check it out today at amazon.com/firetv lockdown. We’re back on the Lockdown Thunder podcast on the Lockdown podcast network. Your teams every day. Chad Homegrren had the good and the bad in this game. He starts with an elite defensive stop on AG ripping the ball away from him after a block. He hits a three and he’s running the floor exceptionally hard and putting himself in propos position and running the floor on both ends. Like he’s running the floor uh on the fast break in transition to clean up plays and be a trailer. He’s running the floor on botched plays in the half court offense for the Thunder and getting stops on the defensive end. And then in the second half, he missed some shots. He turned the ball over. Uh the the defensive uh intensity waned for a few possessions. Not it’s not a granular thing, but it was a few possessions where you felt like Chuck had been a little bit better. And then he ends the game with more great defensive output in the closing minutes of this fourth quarter. So, it was kind of an all things at once game from Chad. And I think that that’s if you want to point to experience like the learning consistencies and how to produce for 48 minutes uh at this stage is part of it. 18 points, 16 rebounds, a steal, three blocks. The one for six from three hurts. The seven for 19 overall kind of is attributed to the one for six from three, 0 for eight in the game in total. And Nicole Yokic tonight, 20 points, 16 rebounds, six assists, two steals, two blocks on 25 shots from the floor and 0 for 10 from three. And you know, the the first opportunity that Jwell got as J was again the first player off the bench that Jwell got to defend Yic is how the night I think should have gone for Yokic the rest of the way, but it didn’t. You know, he he gets the ball on the low on the low block. He turns. He turns and has this beautiful post fadeaway over Jwell. Jwell is like leaning all over his chest. He’s basically in his jersey and it doesn’t matter cuz Joic is that good. But from that moment on, Joic is missing clean mid-range jumpers. He’s bricking and bricking and bricking wide openen threes. Uh he picked up two fouls early in this game in the first quarter. He’s missing lightly contested threes. He’s missing he’s missing wide openen threes. Uh but every time the ball left his hands, you’re thinking to yourself, it’s going to go in. And then it just it just didn’t. And that’s where I wonder as Yokic is a non-nonsense kind of player like he you know he he complains to the officials. You can you can dislike that whatever but he doesn’t make excuses post game whether he had a great game or a bad game. I do wonder about the elbow if the elbow is hampering him because some of these shots man they should have been going in for Yokic and they just didn’t. Uh and and that was the case for both superstars tonight at times. But the question becomes what’s going to give? Because if either one of these stars, SGA or Jokic parlays what’s been a slow starting series in totality for them into a epic closeout of this series, then it changes the entire chess board for both sides. But tonight, I thought the the defense on Joic uh for the Thunder was good enough. I thought I thought that it was the best you could do because he’s still going to get open looks. he’s still going to get shots in the mid-range that yeah, you’re there, your hands in his way, but you don’t know how much of that really altered a shot. Uh so I I thought that this was a game where uh if you’re Denver, you live with those Yokic shots and he just so happened to miss. And uh for OKC, you’re glad that they missed, but you also live with you live with your defensive output on him because it those shots, some of them in mid-range would have been really tough to hit. Much like that Jay Will example where Jwell like you live with that Jay Will shot that he that he hits turning away from Jay Will in the post in the low block and throwing up uh a beautiful post fade. Like that’s a shot that Joic is going to hit consistently at some point in this series. you have to imagine and that’s a shot that the Thunder can’t freak out about and they didn’t to their credit and they just stayed the course and continue to defend Joic pretty well uh all things considered because Joic was awesome in game one but two bad games from him in game two and game three Hartstein had it for three with floaters in overtime and it’s going to really sting him at times he was part of the Thunder defensive waning but ultimately 10 and tonight on 14 shots like he’s got to improve at that part of uh consistent offensive output but he had elite plays as well. The elite lowman rotation to deter Gordon at the rim. Uh Nuggets lost their mind thinking that that was a foul and it got Gordon a T. Uh you know, sure you can call it a foul, but you put him say he put himself in a good position to contest the shot, foul or not. Sometimes you do foul when you’re trying to play good defense. Uh but but for a large chunk of this game, you play really good defense. You just got bit by the floater. I mean, the floater didn’t go down that high enough clip. And Hart and Sign is another one of those what ifs. What if he hits a couple of those floaters down the stretch of this game as as the safety net? He just wasn’t uh the net had holes in it, so to say. In this game, I thought that Wiggins gave you pretty good minutes, uh, you know, splitting the defense on a drive to the bucket, hitting an open kickout three on a second chance point. Uh, getting a huge block at the rim and cutting to the rim off of a Caruso open corner three was brilliant at the end of the first half where it’s like Cruso has a wide open three in the corner and most guys just stand around, watch the ball, let him shoot his three. Wiggins kept himself alive, cut to the basket just in case, and to Kruo’s credit, he passes up the wide open corner three to Wiggins for an easy finish at the rim because it’s a much higher uh percentage shot. Uh so he was able to get that done. But I you know, it’s tough to keep Wiggins out there if if you’re someone who’s wanting more Wiggins minutes, you know, I I am a big proponent of of Wiggins minutes, but this is just not a matchup for him where the Nuggets have size at every single position, and he and he really struggles to defend against bigger players. He he admits that himself from his own mouth. So, if you’re a big Wiggins fan, like it’s not it’s not just me saying that. Like Wiggins himself is uncomfortable uh playing bigger matchups and and the Nuggets have the size to to to force that issue uh with their rotation. So, it’s tough to find the exact recipe to to have him play heavy minutes uh in this series, but I thought in the first half he’d give you some good stuff. And then Lou, it just simply comes down to three-pointers. I mean, he battled his butt off defensively. He made life in exceptionally hard on Jamal Murray. And to Jamal Murray’s credit, he hit very tough shots. Uh, but he went 0 for four from three. Big game Lou Thunder three-point shot laboring. You you need better than over four. I will give Lou credit. You know, he can he consistently this year has been a more active relocator and cutter off the ball and it’s paid dividends like that play we talked about from Shay earlier. But, you know, on the next show because we’ve already ran long on this one, we’ll talk about how does this Young Thunder team respond again. They have their backs against the wall. what feels like their season on the line, but this time on the road and is this team capable of winning in the clutch? I think that that answer could surprise you tomorrow. So, make sure you tune in for that uh on Lockdown Thunder. Subscribe anywhere you see podcast, including on YouTube. Until next time, uh, go check out Lockton NBA and be good and be good to one

Can the Oklahoma City Thunder overcome their clutch time woes? In a thrilling NBA playoff showdown against the Denver Nuggets, the Thunder’s late-game execution faltered, raising questions about their readiness for high-stakes moments. With standout performances from Jalen Williams and a surprising off-night for Nikola Jokic, this game was anything but predictable.

Host Rylan Stiles breaks down the Thunder’s strategic decisions, highlighting Jalen Williams’ impressive 32-point game and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s struggles. The analysis dives into the implications of these performances for the Thunder’s future, offering insights into their evolving strategy and potential for growth.

Explore the dynamics of this intense matchup and discover what it means for the Thunder’s playoff journey. Tune in for a comprehensive breakdown of key plays and player performances that could shape the series.

0:00 Intro: Thunder falls late in clutch again
5:06 Thunder’s shooting woes cost them the game
10:11 Jalen Williams’ impressive playoff performance
15:49 SGA struggles, Thunder offense labors
21:55 J-Dub’s 32-point night nearly saves Thunder
27:30 Analyzing Shai’s shot selection and mentality
32:34 Jokic has rare off night, misses open shots
37:08 Looking ahead to Thunder’s must-win Game 4

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