Digging Out of the Hole: Semifinals Bolts

The Oklahoma City Thunder, who have orchestrated insane comebacks all season, lost a stunning Game 1 meltdown to the Denver Nuggets at home: missed free throws, poor clock management, and failure to stop the desperation playmaking during the game's final minutes. Down 0-1 in the series, they now lack home court advantage until if and when they can steal a win in the Mile High city.

Darnell Mayberry (The Athletic) on OKC's late-game decision-making between players and coach. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But we’ve been in that situation before, we’ve fouled, and we’ve won the game. And (Monday), it didn’t go in our favor."

Daigneault takes responsibility but is essentially saying this is a process over results choice, not a mistake. Joe Mussatto (The Oklahoman) on the same end-of-game sequence: “I take full responsibility for everything we did in that sequence,” Daigneault repeated. “(We) fouled quickly, that’s something we’ve covered in the past, obviously you can’t go second-by-second in every situation when you cover that stuff, but again, (we) executed what we said to execute. Jokic being out of the game, I get the point, but I would say on the last possession they raced down the floor — Jokic never touches the ball.” 

"Don't choke" should be in the Game 2 game plan. But stopping Nikola Jokic is a more pressing, difficult assignments for the OKC defense.