OKLAHOMA CITY — There are things that you want to do against Oklahoma City, then there are things you’re just going to have to accept when playing the Thunder.
Things such as Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook handling the best laid defensive plans with relative ease. Things like knowing Oklahoma City is going to be devastating on the fast break.
The trick is to limit what Oklahoma City does well as much as you can. If not, you’ll get blown out of Chesapeake Energy Arena, as happened to the Nuggets here Sunday night, 117-93.
Red flags about how the Nuggets were playing began early. The Thunder opened up a huge rebounding edge. The Nuggets struggled to get up good shots. They couldn’t get out in the open court to get easy buckets and alleviate some of the defensive pressure. And the Nuggets weren’t able to capitalize on the few turnovers they forced.
Despite all that went wrong the Nuggets were only down eight points at halftime.
But, at the start of the third quarter, Oklahoma City, which debuted their orange ‘Sunset’ uniforms, turned the lights out. It sprinted out on an 18-4 run and were never challenged the rest of the way.
“The third quarter is where we lost the game,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “We were in it, we were competing. But the third quarter, they just turned it into a blowout pretty quickly.”
Said rookie guard Emmanuel Mudiay: “We didn’t come out ready to play in the second half. We were just being too selfish with the ball, one-on-one basketball. That’s not going to cut it.”
On top of all that was going wrong, the Nuggets lost starting center Joffrey Lauvergne in the third quarter. He aggravated a strained lower back and did not return.
Lauvergne was one of the few players who was finding consistent success. He had 11 points, seven rebounds and three assists in 20 minutes. The Nuggets lost reserve big man Nikola Jokic in the fourth to a lower right back strain. Both Jokic and Lauvergne will be evaluated on Monday.
The Nuggets starting five struggled throughout. Danilo Gallinari scored nine points in the first quarter but just six more in the final three quarters and was 3-of-13 from the field. No other starter outside of Lauvergne and Gallinari were in double figures by the time the game was out of hand. Mudiay had six points on 3-of-14 shooting.
Durant led five Oklahoma City players in double figures with 25 points. Westbrook flirted with a triple-double before settling for15 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.
“We just have to go out and be more aggressive,” Nuggets forward Darrell Arthur said. “We’ve got to take care of the basketball, take care of the paint and play inside out.”
Christopher Dempsey: cdempsey@denverpost.com or @dempseypost
