[Post Game Thread] Oklahoma City Thunder @ Sacramento Kings | November 10th, 2023

46 comments

1. Absolute coaching malpractice

2. Lindy Waters so quiet, Mark forgot he was still playing.

3. Thoughts on Giddey/our future?

4. That is legit maybe the worst coached okc game I’ve ever watched, and that’s saying something

5. https://preview.redd.it/w4jukt7znnzb1.jpeg?width=407&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8e06654d4e8e345d81e75e24d72c1548c697d9c

   Opposing players when they see shai near the ball

6. Coach was trying to lose.

7. Bad L. But it’s a long season. We’ll regroup and hopefully be better next game.

8. 7th straight loss to the Kings going back to the 2021-2022 season

9. Coaching was trash!

10. Sloppy basketball. Sloppy coaching. I have no clue what I just watched.

11. Mark is getting too cute. Just play the mfs that are actually good. Not Lindy barely on the team Waters

12. First real game I’m worried about Giddey, just looked lazy and not engaged while rebounding and on defense

13. Why did Lindy play 21 minutes

    https://preview.redd.it/wej2v863onzb1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8589a364a3be463bd3b99bc183791d6f319811d6

14. Trash game from Mark.

15. I should’ve just gone to bed…

16. Shai continues to not get calls

17. Rebounding is such an issue for us

18. That Game was 100% winnable.

19. Need a true PF to pair with Chet or we’re just going to be the worst team in the NBA at rebounding and pts in paint.

20. Aaron Wiggins: 00:00

    Lindy Waters: 19:13

21. The team is young but the roster has glaring issues that won’t necessarily be fixed with age.

    The roster is incomplete. And I’m not talking just about changes to the fringes of the roster, either

22. I think it’s time we start talking about our defense. They haven’t been as good as advertised so far.

    Chet bites on every pump fake, and gets absolutely bullied by bigs. The entire team dramatically over helps and leaves their man wide open. They all stand and watch when a shot goes up, no boxing out. We cannot get critical stops to save our lives

23. Everyone not named SGA played like ass but Mark’s rotations were absolutely atrocious. Lindy did nothing to justify his minutes. Giddey’s lack of impact on either end of the court is very concerning, especially since Cason is making a huge impact as a rookie.

24. What the hell were those rotations?

25. Inexcusable 1st quarter

26. I hate it when I free up a whole night then we play like crap.

27. Kings +15 rebounding

28. My money is on Mark talking about “teachable moments” and “different looks out there” in regards to the rotations, but I really feel like the weird Chet sub after like four minutes really set a weird tone for the rest of the game.

    He’s a rookie who wasn’t struggling at that point in the game, why break his rhythm just for the sake of doing so? When he came back in, he felt off, and never seemed to get back in his groove.

29. Wish Bally would have f*cked up for that one

30. My last note, it’s time we get a true center. Rebounding was 52-38, ORebs 16-5. Chet got bullied by Sabonis. On top of that, he’s constantly out of position so he’s not as effective of a shot blocker as he could be. This isn’t reactionary, it’s every game.

    How many more games until we acknowledge his best position on defense is a rim protecting help defender at the 4?

31. Marks had that “Smartest in the room” vibes lately

32. This team would benefit from some role defining. I’m not asking for the “your iso, my iso” offense of the past but maybe have a designated guy that takes the second most shots on the team (Chet or jdub). Right now I feel like if it ain’t a Shai iso, the team struggles to find a play.
    Also, rebounding has been killing us bad these last couple games, last year everyone hustled hard because we didn’t have a center and even though we still were outrebounded frequently it wasn’t as bad as it has been this season. I feel like a lot of the guys just expect Chet to grab everything and even though he does get a lot, he can be easily boxed out and boom we have 15 less rebounds than the other team. Aight, TTFU.

33. Why do we struggle against the kings every year so bad!!😇

34. We left Jdub out for faaar too long in the 4th. The moment we got Kings ran away with it, we should’ve brought him back

35. why did we give lindy the opportunity to do 20mins of cardio?

36. There were several instances where it looked like Giddy just moved out of the way to let someone score. Dude is a turnstyle defensively.

37. Does mark decide to just randomly use one bench player per game in addition to the core guys? Tonight it was Waters, last game we saw Bertans, and Micic played in the GSW game.

    So i guess Tre will play 15 minutes the next game then followed by a Poku game?

38. When you have Wiggins, Tre Mann, Poku, Bertans, Micic, and Waters on the bench, and you somehow choose to give Waters 19+ minutes.

    Lindy was a fun story a few years ago about being the local kid getting a shot, while the team is not actively trying to win, but those days are over. He’s 26 and hasn’t shown that he should be an NBA player.

39. Mark D reminds me of that weasel from ice age.

    Also, why the fuck did he wait till 3:30 left in game to put in our starting 5?

40. Awful L

41. If you think Lindy was the worst player tonight, you weren’t watching the game haha. I don’t want to come off as some staunch Lindy defender, but the discourse around Lindy is ridiculous because it is completely ignoring the fact that 3 of our star players (Chet/Jdub/Giddey) were absolutely atrocious at fundamental things on both sides of the ball tonight.

    At the least, Lindy was a net neutral player on the floor – and was part of the only good lineup we had tonight: Shai/Joe/Lindy/Cason/JayWill

42. Can’t win with -14 rebounding.

    We are like an nfl team that has an all pro QB, RB, and multiple WRs, but a trash Offensive line.

    We HAVE to have a wide bodied physical player in our top 8 rotation. Said player doesn’t need to start…but we HAVE to have someone we can put in who can box out, dominate the glass, and also set some actual screens for our all pro QB, RB, and WRs. We have had chances to do so, but instead, gone after “projects” and “INTERNATIONAL LANKY BOI” and “hey, let’s trade Sengun for extra picks!” with the multiple draft picks we’ve had since 2021.

    Presti has intentionally avoided the meat and potatoes fundamentals of the game, and we’re going to poop around at .500 or below until the end of the season. With a critical vote in OKC in early December to see if the franchise stays in the state.

    We are the worst offensive rebounding team in the league, by a long shot. That won’t cut it.

43. wish rumble the bison was there 😔

44. I ate a mountain of chicken wings and fell asleep on the couch. Missed the entire game. Woke up, came here, and apparently learned I made the right decision by accident. Sucks to see it was another tough night.

45. so far we’re 5-0 against the east and 0-3 against west

46. Major issues that stood out (and hopefully gets addressed) after 9 games in:

    1. Rebound – we lack the size so we’ll obviously get out rebounded but there are also a ton of 50/50 long balls that we were not hustling to get. Those 50/50 long rebound were something our players were hustling to get last year.

    2.Turnovers – last year we were one of the best teams in terms of taking care of the ball, now we are at the bottom half! If we know we’re getting out rebounded then all the more reason to take care of every possession.

    3. Pace – we are currently one of the fastest team in the league in terms of pace. While this is good because we are a young team, the team also needs to learn how to slow things down.

    3.1 There were a lot of cases wherein some of our players are preparing for a fast break after an opponent misses and was not prepared for the long rebound. This gave our opponents extract possession.

    3.2 There were a LOT of turnovers this past 9 games our player committed because they were trying to push the pace instead of letting it come to them.

    3.3 In the games against the Cavs and Pels even though we had a comfortable lead in the 4th instead of playing the clock we were still playing at a really high pace and kept shooting or driving 5 seconds in the possession instead of taking it slow to try to burn the clock while trying to get the best option possible.

    It’s only 9 games in but these are the issues that stand out to me the most. There are also individual problems that our player and coaching staff needs to address but these are some issues that hopefully gets addressed as the season goes on. Regardless, our team and coaching staff are still young and smart so I’m confident they’ll get better and address a lot our issues as a team.