Oklahoma City to Rebound Against Minnesota in Game 4

The Oklahoma City Thunder's Game 3 loss in the Western Conference Finals will be its worst performance of the playoffs, and that can be said confidently.

This team rarely encounters a time where they cannot learn from a loss—sometimes it's even necessary, almost like a wake-up call. The Thunder is scary good, and they know it. But even the best teams can lose sight of the path best taken when taking their opponent too lightly. This seems to be the situation Oklahoma City finds itself in at this moment.

Bearing a 42-point loss straight to the chin, the Thunder won't let the Game 3 outcome knock them down without getting up.

in the regular season, Oklahoma City only dropped two consecutive games twice on the year, illustrating the team's resiliency and optimized approach following a loss. That can largely be attributed to the meticulousness of head coach Mark Daigneault—he hates to lose just as much as the players on the floor.

That's why a sense of optimism, more than most would have in this situation, is trailing along with Oklahoma City heading into Game 4 despite getting smashed the way the team did on Saturday night. A wildly poor performance such as that will not find them twice in this playoffs run, let alone twice in a row.

Now, Daigneault, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and co. will need to make some drastic adjustments heading into Monday night's bout, but they know what they need to improve on.

Excessive turnovers, lack of pace and control of the game, not making shots and having an outright bad game with a lack of effort is the product Oklahoma City fielded on Saturday night, and it was certainly atypical. Gilgeous-Alexander, mic'd up in Game 3, noted that himself.

Though, with only 14 points as the team's high scorer, Gilgeous-Alexander will have to hold his own self accountable as much as the entire team—and he knows that.

It'll be an interesting game on Monday night to see how the Thunder respond, but they won't field a product like they did on Saturday night regardless.