Wednesday made for quite the night in the Association.
The Timberwolves made NBA history with a preposterous 13-point overtime comeback to beat the Rockets in a game crucial for playoff seeding. Luka Dončić hit scoring highs not seen since Michael Jordan. And the Celtics beat the Thunder to snap OKC’s 12-game winning streak, as well as provide a tantalizing glimpse at a possible NBA Finals matchup. What an evening of basketball it was.
The best game of the bunch in terms of high-level basketball was the Boston-OKC matchup. It was a true heavyweight bout between two of the best teams in the NBA. It also represented another data point in a potentially troubling trend for the Thunder.
In the big picture the defending champions have been comically dominant again this campaign, leading the NBA in wins with 57. They began the season on pace to break the Warriors’ record of 73 victories. OKC has since cooled off, of course, and will “only” finish with north of 60 wins for the second year in a row. But, interestingly, when the Thunder go up against similar competition, as far as the standings go, they tend to lose.
Of OKC’s 16 losses this year, six defeats have come at the hands of teams just behind them record-wise. The Thunder have played the second-best team in the West, the Spurs, five times this season and lost four of those games. They played the best team in the East, the Pistons, twice and lost once. After Wednesday night’s defeat to the second-best team in the East meant the Thunder split the season series with the Celtics, OKC has a 2-6 record against the three next-best teams in the NBA.
Given the defending champs are 55-10 against everybody else, that number is both notable and not at the same time. The Thunder are beating everyone else so handily that any small aberration in their win-loss calculations can be dismissed as just that— an aberration. But as the best team in the league, the Thunder should have more wins over teams who are winning games at nearly as high of a rate. Shouldn’t they?
How big of an issue is it really?
Context behind Thunder’s six losses to high seeds this season
As noted above OKC is 2-6 against the No. 2 seed in the West and the top two seeds in the East. In those six losses the average margin of defeat was a hair under 11 points. The Thunder scored roughly 109 points per game in the defeats, nearly 10 points below their season average.
Four of the defeats came on the road, and two came without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the lineup. As noted generously this week with the return of Jalen Williams, of all the Thunder’s defeats this year Wednesday night’s loss was the only to occur with a fully-loaded Thunder roster.
Three of the San Antonio losses came under circumstances worth noting. The first occurred during the semifinal round of the in-season tournament. The next two came on the second night of a back-to-back, as did the loss to Detroit.
Thunder’s poor record against similar competition isn’t worth worrying about
The only conclusion one can come to when taking all the above into account is that the Thunder have nothing to worry about—for the most part.
Three of the losses came on the second night of a back-to-back; schedule wackiness has a tendency to even the playing field and losing on tired legs is just a function of the long NBA season. The defeats that came without SGA aren’t even really worth considering. It’s no surprise the Thunder are worse without their best player. More broadly five of the six losses occurred with at least one key player absent due to injury. As OKC appears to be at full go ahead of the playoffs it is not a worthwhile exercise to evaluate the team’s winning capabilities without everyone healthy.
Last night’s loss didn’t come with any of those caveats, but no alarms should sound over a competitive loss to a talented Boston team at TD Garden. The Thunder didn’t run off the floor. They started strong, fell behind and then battled back late to keep it a close game. Nothing to be ashamed of, nor is there anything to worry about. Is it ideal that all of OKC’s key role players failed to hit their open shots? Certainly not. Is it a fatal flaw? It is not. It’s not even unique to the Thunder. Every playoff hopeful needs their non-stars to hit open shots to win big games.
The Spurs certainly look like a team capable of beating the Thunder in a big spot, as they did during this year’s IST. No context should downplay that. But other teams can’t replicate San Antonio’s strategy for beating OKC, because the key to that strategy is a gigantic star center with physical dimensions literally never before seen in the NBA.
The Thunder should take some lessons from all these losses. But there’s no reason to believe those losses are indicative of anything more than the reality that even the best teams have to lose every now and again.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Thunder Loss to Celtics Adds to Troubling Record Against Top Teams—How Much Does It Really Matter?.
