Date: Dec. 11, 2019Tip-Off Time: 9 p.m. CTTelevision: Fox Sports OklahomaRadio: 98.1 FM WWLS the Sports Animal and the Thunder Radio Network
1-on-1: Walk and Talk with Steven Adams
Thunder Status Winners of five out of its last six games, the Thunder is aiming to guarantee a winning record on this road trip with a win against Sacramento tonight. After sweeping a pair of road games on Sunday and Monday in Portland and Utah, the Thunder will face the Kings for the first time this season with the chance to get back to .500 and maintain its spot of seventh in the Western Conference.
Opponent Breakdown Right on the Thunder’s heels in the standings, in ninth place, are the Kings (10-13), who are also coming off a pair of road victories. The first came against the Dallas Mavericks, when fifth-year Serbian forward Nemanja Bjelica racked up 30 points in a 110-106 win. One night later, Bjelica made magic again with a 33-foot, buzzer-beating three-pointer to defeat the Houston Rockets. For the season, he’s shooting a team-best 42.6 percent from behind the arc.
For the season, the Kings have been in the middle of the pack on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball but feature a handful of extremely talented players that the Thunder will have to account for all night long. In particular, fellow Serbian Bogdan Bogdanovic is a sharpshooter off the bench, knocking down 37.7 percent of his threes coming into the game.
Matchup Focus
With Terrance Ferguson and Hamidou Diallo still out with injuries, the Thunder will again be without two of its very best wing defenders yet still must deal with former University of Oklahoma standout Buddy Hield. The fourth-year Kings guard is scoring 21.4 points per game on 37.2 percent shooting from behind the arc in addition to 85.2 percent from the free throw line.
While the Thunder has used bulldog defender Lu Dort, a rookie two-year player, in matchups against downhill drivers like Portland’s Damian Lillard and Utah’s Donovan Mitchell, Hield is a completely different type of assignment. Look for a slitherly, feisty defender like Dennis Schröder and second-year guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to also get a crack at Hield throughout the night.
“If we get a guy in the two point range we need to just stay under him,” said Head Coach Billy Donovan. “(We) just need to be the second jumper off the floor. When guys get into that area of the floor it’s a natural tendency to want to get a hand up.”
Stat to Watch Coming into this contest, the Thunder ranks eighth in the NBA in bench points (39.3 points per game) and are going up against a Kings team that ranks 23rd in that category (33.4 points per game). OKC’s reserves are not just scoring effectively, but efficiently, knocking down 46.2 percent of its field goal attempts, and the result has been that the Thunder has outscored its opponent in 19 of its 23 games this season.
On 10 occasions this year, a Thunder bench player has scored 20-or-more points, and nine of those were Schröder’s scoring outbursts, including one in each of the Thunder’s last three games. The German point guard racked up 27 points on Monday in Utah, outscoring the Jazz bench single-handedly, and is now averaging 16.7 points per game this season.
"He's a bucket, so I'm not surprised,” quipped Abdel Nader, the other Thunder player to score 20 off the bench this season. “He's a great leader. He brings tenacity and effort every night.”
Thunder Trend In order to finish off yet another road win, the Thunder will have to complement its scoring with another stout defensive effort. So far this season, OKC has been one of the very best in the league at closing out games by getting stops on demand. The Thunder is holding opponents to just 24.2 points per fourth quarter (2nd in the NBA), on 41.3 percent shooting (4th), including 31.1 percent from the three-point line (3rd), and is allowing just 5.4 free throw attempts (4th) during the final frame.
“There’s going to be a challenge. In those moments, can we stay true to who we need to be with an identity on both ends of the floor?” Donovan asked rhetorically.