Oklahoma City, OK – It’s game four of the six game homestead for the Thunder who welcome the Pelicans to town for an ESPN game appearance. This was supposed to be a premiere matchup for ESPN but both teams come into the game extremely injured with the Pelicans missing Zion Williamson, Herb Jones, CJ McCollum, DeJounte Murray, Jordan Hawkins, and Jose Alvarado while the Thunder are missing Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, and Jaylin Williams.
While the Thunder come into the game as by far the more talented team, it wouldn’t be that easy of a game because the Pelicans will still play hard and push the Thunder for as long as they can which was evident by the start of the game. Pelicans came in on fire and got whatever they wanted for half the quarter jumping up by 12 and it caught the Thunder off guard a little. It seemed like the they weren’t expecting the Pelicans to play as hard as they did to start.
After a timeout and a few substitutions from Mark Daigneault though, the Thunder settled in and got things going with a 20-5 run to end the opening quarter. And it was their defense that was responsible for the run. Catapulted by Kenrich Williams who was an absolute menace, the Thunder started playing with a lot more energy and effort on defense. The point of attack was on point, got into the passing lanes more, and increased their physicality. Those things really helped get their offense going as they were able to beat the Pelicans up the floor and get easy looks which helped them gain control of the game and take a 33-28 lead after the first.
Thunder built their lead by as many as 10 in the second frame but the Pelicans wouldn’t go away. The big thing for the Thunder in the second was their lack of consistency.
“Challenges present themselves and you can either rise to it or let it beat you.” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander mentions when asked about the consistently
And Thunder let the challenges of being consistent beat them a little to start the game and a little in the second quarter.
Not as consistent in the with their physicality, overall defense, and weren’t as consistent trying to create offense by getting to the paint. Pelicans did a good job of taking advantage of that lack of consistency also which helped them get back into the game and we’re only down four going into halftime.
Shai continued, “We tried to obviously rise to them. We try to not use them as excuses. With disadvantages comes advantages so we like to focus on the advantages and impose our will on them that way.”
The consistency wasn’t an issue in the third quarter though.
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