I truly believe that OKC is the best team in the NBA at the moment but they are making some absolutely crucial mistakes in this tournament where it matters most.
They have now twice blown a 20 point lead and in the latest loss vs Denver, I don't know what the hell they were doing in overtime but whatever it was, it wasn't good.
Normally when a game goes to overtime you expect it to be a "tit-for-tat" exchange back and forth where a tiny mistake results in one team getting a slight edge and they really try hard to hang onto that slight 1-3 point advantage by playing very defensively.
I honestly have never seen such a one-sided overtime period in the decades that I have been watching professional basketball.
This was a really exciting game all the way down the line and we looked like we were going to be in store for an absolute nail-biter in overtime but what we got was OKC scoring only a single time in the entire period.
The Thunder just seemed to completely fall apart when it mattered most and this one turnover that you can watch - it's only 90 seconds long - is pretty representative of how all of OT went. OKC just seemed frazzled, if that makes sense, and try as they may, they simply couldn't get their stuff together. By the time Denver went up by 7 with 3 minutes to go, it was basically a decided game at that point .
Here's a stat that is really surprising though and could be a sign that OKC could be in serious trouble going forward. Nokola Jokic, the phenom center that can rain down shots from almost anywhere, went 0-10 on 3 pointers and 8-25 overall in this game and had 8 turnovers, which was many more than anyone else playing on the court. He did NOT have a good game other than his 16 rebounds but let's be honest, when you are that friggin huge getting a bunch of rebounds is pretty effortless.
If Jokic gets hot in a later game, OKC could actually go down despite being favorites to win not just this series, but the entire tournament.
Once again, OKC was heavily favored to win the game in live betting all the way until the final moments of the 4th quarter. OKC was up by merely 5 points at the half, then both the 3rd and 4th quarter were quite low scoring with a lot of strategy that simply didn't pan out in the end.
These crucial moments are of the utmost importance in these games and this is twice now that OKC has completely choked when it mattered the most.
I am enjoying seeing Denver do so well mostly because Jokic is an absolute joy to watch play since he is a generational talent that so few people in the entire history of basketball have ever been like. Only Wilt Chamberlain comes to mind as far as people who have a similar play-style and Jokic is a lot heavier than Wilt ever was. Dude weights nearly 300 lbs but moves like a shooting guard. His abilities defy everything we think we know about physiology and biology.
In other news the other number 1 team in the East, the Cavaliers, pulled out a commanding win that looks more like what we expect from them and the Celtics (my team) played an absolutely brilliant game as they trounced the Knicks by 22 points. I don't think many people are paying much attention to the Golden State vs Minnesota games, but Minny is up 2-1 with the rest of the games alternating home court advantage.
This tournament has been absolutely wild with basically nothing going how the statistics say that it should be going and I am enjoying it a great deal. If OKC doesn't get some sort of team chemistry going on in game 4, they could be going home earlier than anyone really thought they would be.
