The reigning champs suffered a huge loss at home against the young Hornets squad
After a stunning 124-97 blowout loss against the Charlotte Hornets right in front of their home crowd, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander offered intriguing words about whether he and the OKC Thunder feel added pressure from teams looking to make a statement against them as the defending champions.
"Not really," he said. "It doesn’t feel different than it did last year. Teams are good, players are good in the NBA. The league and players are always getting better, just like how us as a group have gotten better, and you’ve got to grow with that or you get left behind.
"It doesn’t feel any different than it has before. We’ve just had a bad string of games as of late."
Monday night is simply forgettable for the Thunder as they absorbed their worst loss of the season.
The young Hornets group came to play in Oklahoma City and stunned the entire Paycom Center crowd, pounding the reigning champs by as early as the second quarter. The Thunder shot just 37 percent from the field and went 11-of-39 from the three-point distance.
Gilgeous-Alexander endured a passive 21-point performance in 33 percent shooting.
This marks the second consecutive loss of the Thunder. They have gone 6-6 over their last 12 games.
They appeared invincible after a historic 24-1 season start, but are now stumbling with a 30-7 record.
"Everything’s a work in progress," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "We are not who we want to be at the end of the season. We’re far from that, and we’ve got to be a lot better if we want to achieve our goals, just like last year at this point."
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