After playing their fifth game in eight nights, the Thunder came out rather flat on Saturday night during a 105-98 loss to the Nuggets.
The team mustered only a season-low 42 points in the first half as they trailed by as many as 25 points and, at one point, shot just 29.2 percent from the field.
Paul George led the Thunder with 24 points, while Dennis Schroder scored 18 points and Russell Westbrook chipped in 16 points after shooting just 6-of-23 from the field and 1-of-12 from three-point range.
The performance prompted Westbrook to sit in his locker stall still in his jersey for nearly 90 minutes after the game had finished before he hit the court at Chesapeake Energy Arena for an impromptu shooting session.
While Westbrook didn’t entertain a question for his late-night shooting drills, he simply said that he’ll ‘look at the film and figure out how I can be better’ as he eventually addressed the media around midnight in Oklahoma City.
“You miss shots that you usually make, it’s fine,” Westbrook said. “We made them the other night; tonight we didn’t make them. For us, we still have to defend. We’re not a team that leans on our offense, it’s the reason why we are the No. 1 defensive team in the league because we defend at a high level and we lean on our defense every night. Regardless of miss or make shots, that’s a part of basketball there will be nights you make shots, you may miss them, but we got to defend.”
The Thunder are currently first in the NBA in defensive rating after surrendering 102.6 points per 100 possessions. The team has been successful this season when they can create offense off of defense as they lead the NBA with 21.7 points scored off of turnovers.
They scored 17 points off of 18 forced turnovers by the Nuggets but could have done better had more shots fell for them in the game after struggling to shoot from the field.
The Thunder managed to cut the lead down to five points with just 1:30 to go but ultimately could not get any closer after some questionable shots down the stretch.
The team will have the next few days off before returning to play on Wednesday so they will surely be hoping some time off will help reset their approach.
