Jerami Grant earns first start of the season in close loss
Jerami Grant earned his first start of the season Thursday in the Thunder’s 101-95 loss to the Celtics.
The 24-year-old started in place of Patrick Patterson, adding quickness to a lineup that had to match up against the Celtics’ athleticism.
“They were going to come out and play with four guards,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said after the game, “and that’s probably not the best or ideal matchup for Patrick, and we felt like we could do some different things schematically defensively with Jerami at that power forward spot.”
Maddie Lee STAFF WRITER
In his first 6 1/2 minutes on the floor, Grant logged an assist, a steal, and grabbed his own rebound for a put-back dunk.
Grant returned to the game in the second quarter and brought the fans to their feet with a three-point play.
Grant heaved up a shot as he was knocked to the ground, scoring the basket and sinking the following foul shot to put the Thunder up 37-25.
Unlike his performance against Sacramento, when Grant misses all five 3-point shots he took, he varied his approach when he got the ball on the perimeter.
Sometimes he drove to the basket, other times he faked a shot first.
He made one of his three attempts from beyond the arc.
Said Patterson: “I thought he did a good job out there tonight deciding when to put it on the floor and create opportunities and when to let it fly.”
The first 3-point shot he took was an open corner attempt.
When that bounced off the rim, he sprinted back on defense to keep Boston’s fast break points at the time to zero.
The Celtics finished the game with 32 fast break points after a second-half surge.
Grant finished the night with 10 points, six rebounds and two steals.
Patterson, too, got into a groove shooting. He finished the night 3-of-5 from the floor and 1-of-2 from three.
Paul George was done waiting until the third quarter to go on a scoring spree. The only problem was, he cooled off in the second half.
Heading into the game, George was averaging just 6.3 first-half points over three games. His production jumped to an average of a whopping 19.2 points in the second half of those same games.
“You play a first half and you kind of replay plays back in your head,” he said at shootaround Thursday before the game.
“You see plays on film and tape at half. Then you have a better adjustment, a better mindset, going into that second half.”
He started the scoring for the Thunder, with a pull-up jumper to give OKC a quick 2-point lead.
George followed that up with a 3-pointer less than two minutes later.
By the end of the first half, George was leading the Thunder with 13 points, after shooting 4-of-12 from the field.
Sure, it wasn’t a glowing example of efficiency, but it was still an improvement. The Thunder went into halftime up 50-34.
George added just another nine points in the second half to lead the Thunder with 20 points on the night.