No Big Easy win
Thunder falls to Pelicans, 114-107, in New Orleans.
NEW ORLEANS — The buzz saw was back on Monday night.
The seesaw too. In what’s become a familiar script, the Thunder dazzled early and looked frazzled when it mattered most, blowing another big early lead in a 114-107 loss to the Pelicans.
It was the sixth time
this season that Oklahoma City (7-10) has lost a game in which it led by double digits. On Monday at the Smoothie King Center, it was a 19-point cushion in the first quarter, but the game played out much the same way as last Friday, when the Thunder led the Spurs by 23 in the second and lost.
“The games that we lose, it’s the same story, it’s the same thing,” said forward Carmelo Anthony, who had 19 points on 7-for-19 shooting. “I feel like I’m telling y’all the same answers. It’s the same storyline, every single game.”
And it seems to be weighing on the Thunder.
After Monday’s game, Anthony, Russell Westbrook and Paul George spent some time talking among themselves in a corner of the visitors’ locker room.
Asked their approach as leaders, Westbrook gave one of his longest responses of the season.
“You can talk. Talking don’t do anything at this point,” Westbrook said. “You got to go out and play. You can talk as much as you want to, but guys got to take personal
pride and understand how important it is to go out and compete and not take it for granted. I think as players, you go out on the floor and sometimes you take it for granted and don’t realize how important it is and embracing the moment. Each individual guy has to do that every night.”
Early on, the Thunder is doing it.
It led 25-6 in the first quarter of Monday’s game, then watched (again) as its opponent chipped away. It didn’t take long. The Pelicans rallied to lead 38-37 at the 8:39 mark of the second quarter, rallied back in front 65-57 at the half. But the Pelicans outscored OKC 30-21 in the third quarter, shooting 53.2 percent from the floor in the period.
“For some reason we’re not able to kind of sustain it for a full game,” Anthony said. “We come out and do the same thing that first quarter, sustain it a little bit, but we give teams momentum in that second quarter, and then third quarter teams keep their momentum and we’re trying to fight back every time.”
As much as the offense, though, the defense betrayed OKC.
The Pelicans scored 58 points in the paint to the Thunder’s 36. New Orleans shot 51.2 percent in the second half, the Thunder 33.3.
“In the second half, it’s just our ability to sustain the defensive level and us being able to sustain getting and generating really good shots,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “We got to be able to play the first half and the second half somewhat similar, not to say they’ve got to be exactly the same, but somewhat similar. We have not been able to do that.”
Donovan said it’s “different things” that are contributing to the Thunder’s troubles, but said he doesn’t think the blown leads are creeping into his team’s mentality, nor does he think his players are waiting for the opponent’s run to come.
The story’s getting repetitive, but is it giving the Thunder a here-wego-again mentality?
“It could,” Westbrook said, then added that, as a player, “It’s really up to you.”