Thunder grades: OKC blown out against Houston Rockets

The Oklahoma City Thunder faced what was, on paper, a better test for their talent on Friday against the Houston Rockets than their first game, which was against the Utah Jazz.

And maybe the results do show their talent: OKC lost 124-91 to a team similarly developing young talent and similarly expected by many to be near the bottom of the NBA standings this season.

It was a brutal matchup for the Thunder, who saw star point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander score just 13 points on 6-for-15 shooting and Rockets power forward Christian Wood break the 30-mark.

There were a lot of negatives for Oklahoma City, but let’s dive into couple positives in our grades before getting to the improvements that must be made.

Mike Muscala: A

I told myself I wouldn’t give anyone an A for a 30-point loss at the hand of the Houston freakin’ Rockets, but Muscala did everything he could short of taking over the point guard position himself. He had 13 points in the third quarter on 5-for-6 shooting and was a plus-2 at the end of that frame. He hit a pair of 3s and finished the game with two steals.

If he isn’t careful, the Thunder might end up trading him for a draft pick.

Kenrich Williams: B

Kenrich Williams did all the Kenny Hustle things. He drew a charge, was in the right spot for an offensive rebound and putback, and he made 3s at a time in which no one else could hit them.

He took ten shots, which I like a lot. I think that’s the perfect mark for him as a role player. He had four rebounds and three assists. He was good.

Thunder 3-point shooting: F

Oklahoma City was 2-for-10 from deep at the end of the first quarter and found themselves down 13 at the end of the frame. By game’s end, they were 14-for-33, a clip of 32.6%.

Excluding the aforementioned Williams and Muscala, the Thunder shot 27% from 3. Lu Dort went 1-for-5 and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was 1-for-6.

I must note: Theo Maledon made his sole 3-point attempt. After calling him out for struggling from behind the arc in the opener, I would be remiss to not give him accolades for hitting this corner bucket.

Aleksej Pokusevski's length: A

Look at that, another A!

It’s going to be a long season full of silver linings. In this case, it was Aleksej Pokusevski using his length well. In the first quarter, while defending inside the paint, he twice got in the passing lane of unsuspecting opponents. One of these steals results in the perfect transition play: Pokusevski got the ball, turned his head upcourt, passed it over defenders to Darius Bazley, who caught it in stride, dunked and got an and-one. That’s the perks of an agile lineup.

Pokusevski had seven rebounds, two offensive, and showed off his length when grabbing the boards.

In general, it was a good game for Pokusevski, who made two of his first five 3-pointers and finished with 10 points and seven boards in 17 minutes of play. He was a minus-3 over that time span, notable for a game in which the Thunder lost by 11 times that amount.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: D

It feels weird to give Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a D. It takes away from how much defensive pressure was on him, how much OKC relies on him, and from the fact that this is just his second game since mid-March.

But for someone who just signed a max contract, posted All-NBA-level players last season, and is the cornerstone of a team, this performance was not good enough.

Gilgeous-Alexander was 6-for-15 from the field and 1-for-6 from 3. He had five turnovers to just two assists. He was a minus-27, tied with Bazley for the team-worst.

Simply losing games will play little to no role in Gilgeous-Alexander’s grades in these post-game segments. I expect this to be more like Devin Booker’s earlier years: offensive wizardry, plenty of 30-plus point games, but bad/inexperienced teammates ruining chances of victory.

In this game, though, the team didn’t lose despite a crazy Gilgeous-Alexander performance; his performance wasn’t a positive. The star simply still hasn’t yet found his footing, and the Thunder need him to quickly.

Thunder defense: D-

There are two specific plays that raise this from an F: In the first half, the Rockets got out on a fast break. Lu Dort flew in from nowhere for a huge rejection. Later in the half, same situation, but it was Josh Giddey who soared in, won a mid-air tangle with the ball handler who was on his way up for a layup, and impressively avoided the foul. Very nice plays. Very good jobs preventing transition buckets.

But zooming to a broader view: The Thunder allowed the Rockets to score more than 30 points in each of the first three quarters, and I’m not giving them any credit for holding Houston to 24 in the fourth quarter, when the game was clinched and over.

Christian Wood had 24 points at the end of the first half. He finished with 31 and 13 rebounds on 13-for-19 shooting.

If there’s one thing to take away from the Thunder’s first two games, it’s that interior defense will be a challenge. Rudy Gobert dominated in the first game, and now Wood in the second. Both are stars, but the Thunder have put up very minimal pressure.

In the first half of last season, Oklahoma City was fairly strong on the defensive end of the court. Al Horford obviously had a big impact — as shown by the awful defense in the second half of the year — but it seemed like adding another offseason for Thunder bigs and trading for Derrick Favors would allow the team to make up for his absence. That hasn’t been the case so far. They have been very few positives on defense through two games.

Strap in for a long season against the Western Conference bigs.

Thunder starters: F

I won’t single out any more starters in this article beyond Gilgeous-Alexander, who is on a max contract and has earned the right to be praised for his elite performances and talked about for his poor games.

But these starters were simply outplayed by the Houston Rockets, a team who trailed the Minnesota Timberwolves by 28 points at the end of the third quarter on Wednesday before cutting that deficit below 20 in garbage time.

The five Thunder starters combined for 35 points. Only Gilgeous-Alexander scored double-digits. They shot 13-for-42 from the field (31%) and 2-for-17 from behind the arc (11.8%). Three Rockets starters scored more than 15 points, and sixth man Eric Gordon had himself a night with 22 points off the bench, much of the time against the Thunder starting unit.

The first loss of the year wasn’t unexpected. The Jazz had the best record in the league last year and are pushing for a championship run. The Rockets, though, are tied with the Thunder for the most players under 20 years old. They’re not good. Oklahoma City should have been confident coming into this game.

But it was a blowout, just like Wednesday, just like much of the second half of last year, and it isn’t a promising start.

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