The Oklahoma City Thunder have been one of the top teams in the NBA all season long, but even the best of the best can slip up from time to time. That’s precisely what happened on Thursday night, as the Thunder suffered a shocking 132-118 loss to the San Antonio Spurs. After the game, head coach Mark Daigneault had some thoughts on the surprising outcome.
Even with this result, the Thunder’s 41-18 record is good for second in the Western Conference, while the Spurs 12-48 record is the worst in the West. Daigneault believes that OKC took San Antonio too lightly in the beginning, and once they let their opponent get going, they were ultimately unable to slow them down when they had to later in the game.
Via Nick Gallo:
“Mark Daigneault postgame in San Antonio: ‘From our standpoint I just thought the start is the lesson in that game. On the defensive end of the floor I thought we eased into the game a little bit too much and had a hard time turning them off.'”
Chet Holmgren echoes Mark Daigneault’s explanation for Thunder’s loss
Even though they are two teams on opposite ends of the spectrum, there’s no such thing as a free win in the NBA, and the Thunder found that out the hard way against the Spurs. Given all the hype surrounding them, there were a lot of eyes on the Chet Holmgren-Victor Wembanyama matchup in this one, and afterwards, Holmgren echoed a similar sentiment as Daigneault when describing where things went wrong against the Spurs.
Losses like this are bound to happen over the course of the season, but if the Thunder want to achieve their biggest goals this year, they are going to have to do what they can to prevent suffering losses like this as the season enters the homestretch. Oklahoma City will get a few days off before they have a chance to avenge this loss against the Phoenix Suns on Sunday night, and they will surely look to come out with the sort of intensity they were lacking early on against San Antonio in this loss.
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