The Thunder have become an average team

Six wins for six losses. This is the Thunder’s record since this semi-final lost to Spurs in the NBA Cup, and last night he was the NBA champion with a 27 point defeat at home against the Hornets. This defeat, the first against a team from the East, does not look like an ordinary failure.

He loses at the last second in Phoenix against a playoff contender can be explained. Being humiliated at home by a team well below the 50% margin of victory, much less. The last few weeks have already hinted at mistakes, but nothing so brutal.

“We obviously did more things wrong than right tonight, so the list of negative points will be longer than usual” recognizes Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. “I don’t think we’re putting energy, effort, intensity at both ends of the floor. From the beginning, we felt like they were a step above us, offensively and defensively. And in general, that’s not a good recipe.”

“work in progress”

Alex Caruso wasn’t there and Isaiah Hartenstein is still in the infirmary, but OKC could always make up for this type of absence. We saw it at the beginning of the season when the team flew through the NBA without Jaylen Williams. But just when everyone saw them closing in on a regular season win record, the Thunder showed signs of weakness.

“We are going through a bad run of games at the moment” continues SGA. “Everything is a work in progress. We are not yet the team we want to be at the end of the season, we are far from it. And we will have to be much better if we want to achieve our goals, just like this time last year. The league is constantly improving, and so are we as a group. We have to evolve with it, otherwise we fall behind,” he said.

from the bench Marc Daigneault would first like to congratulate his opponentCharlotte. “I always give credit to the opponents. I never want to put it down to just us. They came in with the right goal, took the first shot and kept their foot on the gas for most of the 48 minutes. They were obviously the fitter team from the start. We had a little bit of a comeback at the end of the first quarter, but overall the 48 minutes belonged to them.

Then, given his team’s bad luck, he takes it as a test, an ordeal. All teams go through this, and how you react to it allows you to get to know your group better. “There are always times in the NBA season when the wind is at your back and other times when it’s in your face. When the wind is at your back, you have to stay humble and keep moving forward. When it’s in your face, you have to hang in there, show resilience and mental toughness, stay together and focus on the controlled elements of execution to change the trajectory. That’s what we’re always going to do.