Adams-Noel pairing an untapped option for OKC
DENVER — Out of a timeout midway through the third quarter Wednesday against the New Orleans Pelicans, Thunder coach Billy Donovan finally went to Patrick Patterson at power forward. It was telling that he didn’t go to him earlier.
Less than two minutes into the third quarter, Jerami Grant had picked up his fifth foul, but Donovan instead went to Dennis Schroder, opting to play small by sliding Paul
George to power forward. Nothing the Thunder was doing was working against the Pelicans’ front line in an 118-114 loss, so why not go the opposite way?
“It impacted us but it really didn’t make a difference up front who we had out there,” Donovan said of Grant’s foul trouble.
“Jerami is an important player and certainly I’d like to have him out there, but I thought their frontcourt impacted the game around the basket regardless of who we had out there.”
Anthony Davis and Julius Randle combined for 66 points and 30 rebounds. The Thunder had just 39 rebounds as a team, and gave up 17 offensive rebounds. At times, even Steven Adams and Grant were overrun by Davis and Randle’s combination of skill, size and athleticism.
“The biggest problem just came from lobs and (expletive) like that,” Adams said. “Just take away the lobs and stuff, make them kick out, drive from there, probably might have been a little different, maybe.”
Adams’ indecision about the potential outcomes said it all. Patterson, who’s now struggling on defense in addition to his season-long shooting woes, didn’t stand much of a chance, either.
So why not Adams and Nerlens Noel together?
In preseason, Donovan wanted to explore an Adams-Noel pairing, but it hasn’t materialized. Adams and Noel are two of the best offensive rebounders in the NBA, and playing them together would be a slight throwback to the Adams-Enes
Kanter pairings of old (minus Kanter’s low-post skill set on offense, plus Noel’s rim protection, athleticism and defensive awareness).
Adams and Noel haven’t played a full minute together this season across seven games. Donovan said he’s not afraid to try it, but the Thunder hasn’t had enough time to work on the lineup.
Even with Grant’s foul trouble and Patterson’s struggles in the third, the Thunder was only outscored 32-28.
Report: Peake among league's safest eats
How's the food safety at The Peake? Relative to the rest of North America's sports venues and the establishments in the surrounding area? Pretty good.
ESPN's Outside the Lines researched health inspection reports on 111 professional sports venues in North America from 2016 and 2017, finding that at about 28 percent of such venues more than half of the food services had at least one "high-level" violation, defined as a "potential threat for foodborne illness."
OTL also calculated
the average number of high-level violations per inspection at those venues and compared them to high-level violations per inspection at surrounding area restaurants and food outlets.
What was determined was Chesapeake Energy Arena, home of the Thunder, ranked 27th out of 111,
with only 18.4 percent of its food services cited with a high-level violation over 2016 and 2017, better than the average for the surrounding area in Oklahoma City.
Over that two-year span, Chesapeake Energy Arena was cited for high-level violations in 14 of its 76 outlets, according to OTL.