Thunder lose the game at the buzzer! 105-103

1st Quarter: Thunder starts off the 1st quarter with an amazing start, with Westbrook making a quick 2 point and 3 point plays to have the lead 5-0 in the first minute of the game. Shortly after that the Thunder get back to back blocks on the Nuggets to help them get a lead as high as (17)-(6) early in the first quarter. Westbrook kept making shots for most of the 1st quarter going 5-9 FG with 15 points to end the first quarter and Thunder leading (29)-(26).

 AP Photo/David Zalubowski

                             

                                                 
   

2nd Quarter:  The Thunder bench started the 2nd quarter off playing very poorly, they were not playing good  defense at all and shooting too quickly and not passing the ball, one of them being Fisher, shooting an air ball 3 pointer. This led to the Nuggets out scoring the Thunder (11)-(0) before the Thunder could finally score which didn't happen till 8 minutes into the 2nd quarter. Russel Westbrook had an outstanding performance the first half shooting 7-13 from the FG 2-2 from deep and 7-7 FTM one of them being a 35 ft shot at the buzzer to end the first half but that wasn't enough. Thunder only scored (18) points in the 2nd quarter compared to the (29) they scored in the 1st quarter, which led to the Nuggets winning at halftime (56)-(47).

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

3rd Quarter: Thunder start off the 3rd quarter to a (12)-(3) lead within the first 2 minutes of the 3rd quarter. The Thunder offense has played much better already in the first 2 minutes of the 3rd quarter than all of the 2nd quarter, hopefully this will lead to Thunder getting the lead back once again. Thunder failed to take the lead in the 3rd quarter even though Kevin Durant tried hard to gain the lead going 3-5 FG 6 rebounds 1 assists and 2 steals in the 3rd quarter. Nuggets lead going into the 4th quarter (85)-(75).

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

4th Quarter: The start of the 4th quarter Thunder finally started to play like a team again (aside from the 1st quarter) to lead the 4th quarter (28)-(20), but that just wasn't enough. Thunder ended up losing (105)-(103). Thunder had trouble getting points from the bench, the bench only scored (11) points compared to the Nuggets bench scoring (71) more than their starters. Thunder also had 19 turn overs... that just isn't acceptable for a playoff team, I've said this over and over they need to fix that if they're wanting to get a ring this season. Thunder shot 24-34 from the free throw line, one of the worst free throw games of the season of the OKC Thunder and not to mention Russel Westbrook shooting 12-17 from the free throw line when he's a 80%+ free throw shooter this season.

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

You can watch the Thunders buzzer beater loss here.



Thunder Essentials:

Protect the paint - F

Thunder allowed the Denver Nuggets to score 60 points in the paint, that just isn't acceptable. The Thunder is a playoff team and they need to act like it in all their games, including this one. The Denver Nuggets are a western conference team so the Thunder are going to want to play much better. Next time they might play against them in the playoffs and they can't afford to let them score that many points in the paint again.


BBB(Big Bad Bench) - F 

The Thunders bench tonight vs the Denver Nuggets was just... atrocious. I mean you can't have your bench only scoring 11 points and expect to win when the Denver Nuggets bench pulls out 71 points, that's just insane. Granted Westbrook had a great game and Kevin Durant did well also but they can't do it all on their own.


Finish strong - B 

Thunder came back in the fourth quarter from being down (75)-(85) going into the 4th quarter and out scoring the Denver Nuggets (28)-(20). Thunder would have gone to OT and had a chance to win the game but Ty Lawson said a big NO to that making a last second buzzer beater with .2 seconds left in the game, which led the Thunder to lose (105)-(103).

Thanks to Chris Adcox for the game recap. You can follow him on twitter here.