Nuggets and Notes
The Oklahoma City Thunder moves to 9-1 and gets NBA Cup play going with a victory.
After one game of NBA Cup group games, the Thunder are in second in West Group A, with Minnesota holding the tiebreaker with a +40-point differential. The Suns are also 1-0, and the Kings and Utah are 0-1.
Isaiah Hartenstein went full monster mode: career-high 33 points (14-of-17 FG), 19 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks.
Hart just has a nose for where to be. He is always in a great position to grab rebounds, especially offensive rebounds. He has great court vision and feel, which is why he's one of the best passing bigs in the game. And on fully display last night, he's a master at getting backdoor for lobs and aggressively cutting to get easy dunks.
Domantas Sabonis sat out with sore ribs. It's probably not a coincidence Hart went beast mode with Sabonis out.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was smooth and surgical again—30 points, controlled the pace all night. His shooting was a bit off in the first half, but he was peak SGA in the second half as OKC dominated.
Thunder absolutely owned the paint: 60–34 advantage inside. It's the OKC identity.
Total rebounding edge: 52–38, including 14 offensive boards. The Thunder are legitimately a good rebounding team, ranking 6th in the NBA in rebounds per game.
This is familiar. After last night's dominant performance, Oklahoma City ranks no. 1 in the league in net rating at +13.6. The reigning champs also have far and away the best defensive rating at 104.8.
How about Ajay Mitchell with a team-high 3 steals? Ajay has been really impressive this season at disrupting passing lanes and defending, in addition to his evolution as a ballhandler and creator offensively.
Russell Westbrook led Sacramento with 24 points and 9 assists. Westbrook has been really impressive from deep, shooting 45.7% so far this season. Honestly, I hope the Brodie keeps it going.
Speaking of threes: Isaiah Joe is still hot. He went 4-of-8 tonight.
One Big Takeaway: Doing what good teams do
After a quick start where the Oklahoma City Thunder opened up an early 10-point lead, the Sacramento Kings made a run, and through most of the first half, it looked like the Kings were going to be pesky, even without Sabonis.
But on display was the gap between the Kings–who can pull of wins against good teams like the Warriors and bucks but probably aren't headed for the playoffs–and the reigning NBA champs.
The Kings, down their best player, could only hang so long before the talent and depth disparity became too much to overcome. OKC, dealing with its own injuries, has a margin of error that Sacramento doesn't.
Credit to the Thunder, though. Starting the season 9-1, with the injuries that it's dealt with, OKC could've easily lacked a little focus, absorbed some early losses, and chalked it up to being short-handed. That's not this team, though. Very rarely does OKC not show up.
So here we are, 10 games into the season, and the champs are on a 75-win pace.