Jalen Brunson, Knicks shock Celtics with comeback OT win<\/a><\/p>\nOklahoma City\u2019s fouling and clock management<\/p>\n
With the Thunder leading 117-114 late in the fourth quarter, they played the foul game in an attempt to prevent Denver from tying the score with a 3-pointer.<\/p>\n
The Thunder fouled Jokic with 12.9 seconds left and Gordon with 10.7 seconds left. They made all four free throws, and with Oklahoma City ahead 119-118, Thunder big man Chet Holmgren missed two free throws with 9.5 seconds remaining, setting up Gordon\u2019s game-winner.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the decision extended the game and allowed Denver to stay within a possession of taking the lead. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault defended the strategy, saying it\u2019s worked for Oklahoma City previously.<\/p>\n
3-point shooting<\/p>\n
Early in the second quarter, Denver and Oklahoma City were a combined 3-for-23 on 3-pointers, and Denver ended up 2-for-15 on 3s in the first half. Both teams found more success from that range in the second half but were still a combined 25-for-75 on 3s.<\/p>\n
Rest<\/p>\n
Having swept Memphis and not played since April 25, the Thunder faced the rest vs. rust question. Well, the Thunder showed rust especially down the stretch of a game in which they led by 11 points with 4:31 left.<\/p>\n
Denver\u2019s minutes<\/p>\n
Two days after playing in a Game 7, four Nuggets players logged at least 39 minutes, including a game-high 44 minutes by Murray and 42 minutes by Jokic.<\/p>\n
We will see how the minutes weigh on Denver throughout the series, but to win this game showed the Nuggets are more than ready for the challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thunder look to take down experienced Nuggets team USA TODAY Sports’ Lorenzo Reyes breaks down the second-round matchup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[740,7,6,11,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-13139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-playoffs","12":"tag-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114460596933250245","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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