LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Oklahoma City got tested, which is rare.<\/p>\n
The Thunder didn\u2019t win, which is even rarer.<\/p>\n
There will be no NBA Cup this season for the reigning NBA champions, whose 16-game winning streak ended in a 111-109 loss to San Antonio in the tournament semifinals Saturday night. The Thunder are 24-2, with both losses by two points.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t our sharpest night,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cThey\u2019re a good team. Credit them. They played great. There\u2019s a lot of controllable stuff from that game that wasn\u2019t where we\u2019d like to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no cause for alarm. Oklahoma City has tied the second-best 26-game start in NBA history. Golden State was 25-1 in 2015-16; the Thunder join the 2008-09 Boston Celtics, 1969-70 New York Knicks and 1966-67 Philadelphia 76ers at 24-2.<\/p>\n
They shot a season-low 41% from the field, shot 9 for 37 from 3-point range \u2014 their third-worst effort from deep this season \u2014 and let the Spurs turn 15 turnovers into 26 points.<\/p>\n
And after all that, they lost by one bucket on a night where Victor Wembanyama returned for San Antonio and gave the Spurs a major boost.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think an average team would probably be like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s the Cup, whatever, we lost one,\u2019\u201d Thunder guard Jalen Williams said. \u201cWhat are we, 24-2? I mean, we can go home and just hang our hat on that, or we can look at it as a way to get better and understand that we played against a playoff team that beat us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thunder guard and reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said it felt odd to lose. And what he said next was eye-opening.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I think it\u2019s exciting,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201dIt\u2019s easier to learn when you don\u2019t feel the way you want to feel. It stings a little bit more. We\u2019ll also see these guys a few more times in the next couple games, so it\u2019ll be a good challenge. It\u2019s like an automatic test almost in school; you fail the test, you get to re-test a couple days later. That\u2019s what it\u2019ll probably feel like. Losing is where you find growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, they do play twice in the coming weeks: Dec. 23 in San Antonio and then Christmas Day in Oklahoma City. Those were going to be big games anyway. They might be a smidge bigger now.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying in bigger-moment games, games with a little bit more on the line, they definitely help sharpen a tool for later in the season when the moments matter,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cAll these experiences, you definitely can grow from.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/p>\n
Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 Oklahoma City got tested, which is rare. The Thunder didn\u2019t win, which is even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-344164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}