Focused on avoiding post-Warriors letdown
Though the Thunder is a veteran team, the implication on Wednesday seemed clear: there’s no room to let up after blowing out the Warriors.
Until Wednesday night, comfort had been discomforting for the Thunder.
Oklahoma City had been casual with leads, had lacked focus in long stretches.
That changed in Wednesday’s 108-91 win against the Golden State Warriors.
The trick now is not letting it change back.
“Even versus Detroit (on Friday), we got to play the same way,” guard Raymond Felton said after the game. “Hopefully this right here starts a run for us. We can’t go backwards from this. The way we played tonight, we can’t go backwards.”
That was a clear postgame message from the Thunder, which entered Wednesday's win against the defending NBA champions having blown double-digit leads in six of its nine losses.
Coach Billy Donovan was quick to point out that, “we won the game, but I still see room for improvement in our team.” Center Steven Adams said, “We pieced it together pretty well, but we still got a long way to go.”
Though the Thunder is a veteran team, it hasn't always handled in-game success well, and the implication on Wednesday seemed clear: there’s no room to let up after blowing out the Warriors.
The Pistons don’t have the Warriors’ name recognition, and they’ll enter Chesapeake Energy Arena on Friday having lost three of their past four games.
But Detroit won five in a row prior to that, is 11-6 overall and owns wins this season at Golden State and Minnesota.
“We can’t come this far tonight and then have slippage on Friday against Detroit,” forward Carmelo Anthony said Wednesday. “We got to learn from this, we got to build on this and hopefully we can move forward from this and start something.”
New in blue
The Thunder will debut its navy blue “Statement” uniforms against the Pistons. The new look was unveiled at a Nike/NBA event in Los Angeles in September but makes its first on-court appearance on Friday.
Nike’s uniform concept was inspired by Thunder fans’ “Loud City” reputation. The “OKC” stitched across the chest in the Thunder’s “sunset” orange is uneven, as if it’s rumbling, and the back of the jersey features two-tone blue stripes, meant to evoke an image of sound waves.
The uniforms and other apparel in the “Statement” collection will be available for purchase beginning Friday at OKCThunder.com and the Thunder Shop at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
The Thunder Shop will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday in addition to its in-game hours for fans with tickets.
Thunder-Warriors scores for ESPN
ESPN’s telecast of the Thunder’s win against the Warriors drew a 2.2 meteredmarket rating. That means an estimated 2.2 percent of TV viewers in the nation’s largest markets watched the game.
That’s the highest-rated ESPN NBA telecast of the season, according to a release from the network. It’s ESPN’s largest audience for a regularseason non-Christmas game since the Warriors beat the Memphis Grizzlies on April 13, 2016, to set the NBA regularseason wins record.
The 2.2 metered-market rating was up 144 percent from last year’s Spurs-Hornets game on the night before Thanksgiving, according to ESPN. The ESPN telecast drew a 6.8 rating in Oklahoma City and a 2.3 rating in the San Francisco-Oakland area. Those numbers do not include viewers of the teams' local broadcasts.