Thunder 121, Nets 92: The Day After Report

Box Score | Play-by-Play

Nuggets & Notes

• The Oklahoma City Thunder is very good. The Brooklyn Nets are very bad. The Thunder has the league's best defense. The Nets have the league's worst offense. The Thunder is the grizzled, tested, NBA champs. The Nets are the league's youngest team. The Thunder has the reigning (and likely back-to-back) NBA MVP. The Nets do not.
• That just about sums up this one.
• The Nets almost couldn't score in the first half. OKC allowed just 24 first-half points, tied for fewest allowed in a half for the franchise. So, yeah, when the score is 60-24 at the half, probably means the game is well in hand.
• After the break, the Thunder did build a lead as large as 42, but mostly just played with its food. In fact, Brooklyn won the second half 68-61.
• I think the real issue for Brooklyn was that they couldn't make shots, and they also kept giving the ball away to the Thunder. It culminated in a total of 16 steals for OKC, 23 turnovers, leading to 31 Thunder points.
• Hot take: The Thunder and SGA should be given a sportsmanship award for this one. This is the exact kind of setup where Shai Gilgeous-Alexander could go all Bam and try to score 100 points. But nah, the MVP just casually gets his usual 20 points and takes most of the second half off.
• Shai finished with 20 points, 6 assists, 3 steals, 0 turnovers in 26 minutes.
• SGA makes it easy to gush about him every single night. My note of last night was just how good of a passer he's become. The perfect example is that sweet dime to Aaron Wiggins with about 1:40 left in Q2.
• Speaking of Wiggins, Aaron showed what he's capable of last night: 17 points, 7 boards, and 3 assists.
• Kenrich Williams somehow racked up 5 steals in 21 minutes. Classic Kenny Hustle game.
• You want to see people meltdown? Post Jared McCain's stat line on r/sixers. McCain was cooking last night: 26 points on 9-of-16 shooting and 5-of-9 from three.
• McCain is just such a smooth operator. His go-to midrange step back at the nail is unguardable.
• Noah Clowney of the Nets had to check out early with an injury, but I had an early note that this guy was hunting for his shot from the jump. Felt like he wanted to score 80.
• Ryan and Cray did a live podcap after this one:

One Key Takeaway

On a night against an overmatched opponent, there's not a lot to break down. But there was one very nice moment: Payton Sandfort scored his first NBA basket.

The rookie from Iowa was inked to a two-way contract back on March 2, and the blowout game Payton the chance to get his first NBA action. He wasted little time trying to get that first bucket, hoisting up two shots that failed to drop before nailing a 3-pointer with 47 seconds to go.

He was jazzed. The bench was going nuts. A very cool moment.

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