Quarter by Quarter observations

First Quarter

 What happened to the lights? Oh KD shot them out, okay not really but still 4-4 from the field and 4-4 from the line is impressive. Hill just is not able to keep up with Durant. Collison has rebounded nicely from last nights epic fail performance. The Thunder are out rebounding the Suns 13-7 right now, the result is 5 extra shots for the Thunder and a 5 point lead. The Thunder are doing a good job in transition defense, but they are shooting over 55% so there are not that many misses for the Suns to run on. The Suns still have 7 fast break points to the Thunders 2.

Score to end the Quarter 36-31 Thunder

Second Quarter

The Thunder led this quarter by as many as 15 before ultimately choking away 13 of those points. Harden is off tonight but is making up for it by driving and picking up fouls. Harden went 1-4 but also picked up 5 free throws and made them all. Ibaka has been a dynamo he went 3-4 down low in the second and picked up a couple of rebounds. The Suns matched the Thunder in rebounds for the quarter.

Score to finish the half 66-64 Thunder

Half

The Thunder need to keep up the pressure, when the defense is good the Thunder are able to extend the lead when they don't focus and get lax the Suns run back into the game. The Thunder appear to have a lot of energy tonight hopefully they keep it up in the second half. Maynor has been great in relief of Westbrook despite the lack of experience with the Thunder play book if Westbrook is able to turn it on late it will probably be because he was able to get a rest with Maynor on the floor.

Third Quarter

 The Thunder have gone cold from the floor they went 11-29 in the quarter. The Suns didn't shoot much better they went 10-24 but it was enough to eliminate the Thunder lead. Westbrook is still blowing by Nash but the Suns are doing a good job of clogging the lane. The Suns for the game at this point also are only shooting 27% from three, that's big Nash can pass out of the lane all day but if the shooters can't knock down the open shots it's all for naught.

Score to finish the Quarter 89-89 Tied ugh

Fourth Quarter

Paging Mr. Durant, Paging a Mr. Kevin Durant your quarter is starting. When the Thunder needed big shots hit and big plays made KD and Green made plays. The Suns were in excellent position to win this game. They probably feel like one got away, but when the chips were down the Thunder did an excellent job on defense and made good shots. Maynor made sure that Westbrook had more energy for the fourth quarter, after playing over 40 minutes in the previous two games he only logged 35 tonight.

Score to finish the Game 117-108 Thunder

The Good and The Bad individually

The Good

The Thunder Starters

The only player that did not have a good shooting game tonight was Thabo Sefolosha. Sefolosha only had 2 shots but offense is not his game anyway, he played great defense on Steve Nash all game long. KD and Jeff Green each hit huge monster shots down the stretch and shot good from the field. Krstic was good in the limited minutes he got 4-8 and 6 rebounds in only 17 minutes. And last but not least Westbrook, all night long Westbrook was blowing by Nash, getting to the rack, and making plays.

The Thunder bench

Harden started slow but really picked it up in the fourth quarter, he also did an excellent job of getting into the lane and putting fouls on the Suns. Ibaka is a beast, he fouled out but the way Amare got some of those calls was pretty bad. Same for Nick Collison, Nick picked up a lot of fouls on Amare that just did not look like he was actually in contact with him at any point. Maynor may have only shot 1-4 but he also dished out 5 assists and was able to run the team while Westbrook took a breather.

The Bad

We blew a 15 point lead in the second quarter, it would have made for a much easier game if we were able to carry some of that lead into the second half. All in all a win over a top 4 team in the west on the road there just can't be that much bad.

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