Thunder’s Paul George: “We’ll Clean Whatever We Need To Clean”

There is something definitely wrong with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the last month or so. Westbrook and the boys dropped 5 of the previous 6 events, and that is something the harsh competition in the Western Conference won’t forgive.

OKC is third in the standings, but the Nuggets and the Warriors are four games ahead, while on the other hand, the Trail Blazers are almost leveled with them, and there is a long list of teams with one or two games behind the Westbrook and the crew.

To be more precise, the ninth places Jazz has 25-21, while the Thunder stands at 26-18. If they continue to play like this for several more games, not only would the home-court advantage be endangered, but also the playoffs in general.

Last night, OKC lost to Lakers, 138-128 who were playing without LeBron.

Once again we could see the pale defensive performance of Billy Donovan’s boys. It is like they didn’t have any motive and passion when defending.

Charles Barkley: "OKC Thunder is not a legit contender. They're like the pretty girl who's dumb." https://t.co/86S6gsavPH

— OLDSKOOLBBALL (@Oldskoolbball1) January 18, 2019

Jeramy Grant was speaking about that after the match.

“Like you said, the defense is the most important thing,” Grant said, agreeing on what one of the reporters said about the defensive effort being bad in this match.

When asked what his team needs to improve in the game against Philadelphia this weekend, Grant again mentioned the same thing.

“Just gotta go back to playing defense the way we’ve been playing throughout the majority of the year.”

OKC is not a role model for a good defense, so don’t take Grant’s words for granted. But when looking their season average and compare it with the one in the past six games, the difference is more than obvious.

In 44 games Thunder played this season, they have been allowing 108.9 points. Over the past six, 130.2. That is almost 22 points more per contest, and you have to admit, that it is a huge difference. It would be impossible for any team in the league to have a winning percentage with such a high number of allowed points.

Their rebounding is also worse. OKC records 44 boards during the negative span, comparing to 48.2 which is the average for the whole campaign, including this interval we are talking about. Without it, the figures would be higher.

Thunder was losing games against much weaker teams than themselves, like the Atlanta Hawks, Washington Wizards, and Minnesota Timberwolves. The franchise from Georgia dropped 142 points on them, which is too many, especially when having in mind their record.

https://twitter.com/EyeAmTruth/status/1086167145149579264

The 5-time All-Star Paul George isn’t afraid that this might hurt OKC in the long run and believes that his crew has the power to deal with all the problems they have been experiencing at the moment.

“It’s a marathon. We’ll clean whatever we need to clean up. It’s going to be good.”

Russell Westbrook thinks that it is a great situation to test the strength of the team and the players in it. The 2017 MVP, cited Martin Luter King after the loss against the Lakers.

“The real measurement of a man is where he stands in adversity. So, when adversity hits, there’s nothing better, in my opinion, to see how you act and to see what you do as a team, as a unit, as a man.”

Russell Westbrook with a nod to Martin Luther King Jr. in regard to the Thunder’s recent struggles: “The real measurement of a man is where he stands in adversity.” pic.twitter.com/Gm4E7MoGqw

— Erik Horne (@ErikkHorne) January 18, 2019

Westbrook was obviously pointing towards the next few games OKC has, which are going to be extremely important for them. They are already heading for Philadelphia, to meet the 76ers tomorrow, and after that, to move ahead to New York on Monday night. After that, Thunder has three consecutive games at home, which they need to win all, but the task is not simple at all. The first rivals are the Trail Blazers who are a direct rival for the third spot as we mentioned earlier, then the Pelicans, and eventually the league-best Milwaukee Bucks.

We shall see the true strength of the OKC in the next two weeks. They don’t have too many choices, either they win and emerge to the surface, or lose and go down.