What an absolutely ugly game in Boston as the Thunder basically gave away what should have been their 7th straight win in route to improving their record to 44-29.
I sat there in numb silence watching this bullshit ending which in essence is a microcosm of what to date has been a season of dysfunction, inconsistency and underachievement in Oklahoma City.
As a Thunder fan you can’t really say it hurts because at this point you expect this at times to rear its ugly head—you just don’t know when it’s going to happen.
This loss isn’t on Billy Donovan. He tightened his minutes considerably in this game. He coached this game like a playoff game as far as minutes. His team was playing a Boston team without Kyrie Irving, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, and Gordon Hayward and still couldn’t get it done in what was a very big game for the Thunder.
Even though you could sift through this game and nitpick some things–the bottom line is the Thunder were leading 99-97 with 8.4 seconds left and Carmelo Anthony was at the free throw line to shoot two free throws and in essence close the deal. Carmelo missed both free throws and left the door open.
Boston’s Marcus Morris then closed the deal for the severely undermanned Celtics by nailing a three with 1.2 seconds left. Westbrook got a decent look on the ensuing inbounds play and missed short.
Ball game.
This is what is called pissing a game away. The Thunder in the most critical stretch of games which will define their season just pissed a game away.
Meanwhile in Portland, the Blazers finally lost a game as the Rockets put an end to their win streak. A marvelous opportunity for the Thunder to actually put itself in a position to possibly contend for the No. 3 seed… in essence just pissed away by a lack of bearing down mentally at the end and not finishing like professionals.
I mean…how else do you want to spin it?
Making free throws in closing close games is about the most basic thing in close games this time of the season. You step up there and make your free throws or you put yourself in a position to lose. Fairly basic.
OKC drops to 43-30 with nine games remaining in the regular season. To win one more game than last year’s rookie contract laden team the Thunder need to go at least 5-4 to do so. I have no view whatsoever if the Thunder will be able to win a minimum of five games or not. You would hope they could focus long enough to get this done.
But who would really know?
The Miami Heat visits Oklahoma City on Friday evening.