Losing 111-86 to the Brooklyn Nets, this is how bad the Oklahoma City Thunder were imagined they’d be without Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. Reggie Jackson was back, but that only seemed to make things worse, while Brook Lopez made his return to lead his team on their home debut.
The Thunder had a nice little winning streak on the road against the Nets going before this game, but for the first time this season as they fell to 1-3 they were never close at any stage, with the Nets opening a 13-point lead by the end of the first quarter. They led by as many as 35 points as the Thunder shot just 39% from the field, with Reggie Jackson and others mostly trying to get the ball in the basket without moving it through their teammates.
Lopez, missing most of last season, scored 18 points for the Nets, playing alongside Kevin Garnett in the lineup. Garnett has looked better than expected so far this season but with Lopez on the floor, the ball didn’t move too much through him, scoring six points in 20 minutes. In this game, the Nets really didn’t need anything else from him. It was Garnett’s 1380th game in his NBA career, moving him to eighth on the all-time list, tied with Cliff Robinson.
Five other Nets players scored in double figures: Deron Williams in an excellent performance with 17 points and 9 assists, Alan Anderson with 18 points off the bench, Joe Johnson scoring 13, Bojan Bogdanovic scoring 12, playing in the lineup, and 10 points from Mason Plumlee. During the fourth quarter, the Nets played an all-international lineup with Kirilenko, Karasev, Jorge Gutierrez, Jerome Jordan and Bogdanovic playing at the same time, a first for the Nets in franchise history.
Sebastian Telfair was pushed back to the bench with Jackson returning, but that didn’t help the Thunder a whole lot. Jackson did score 23 points but he also turned the ball over seven times and shot just 2-of-8 from beyond the arc. Petty Jones with 16 points, Telfair with 16 off the bench and 15 points from Serge Ibaka all did a reasonable job for the Thunder, but when these three don’t significantly step up their game offensively, the Thunder don’t have much of a shot against anyone, including the less impressive teams of the NBA.
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