In every game, there are moments that coaches and players can go back and second-guess.
And there was a big one in the Thunder’s 107-100 loss to the Pacers on Wednesday night.
With Oklahoma City trailing 103-100 and under a minute to play, off a Malcolm Brogdan miss, Danilo Gallinari pulled down a rebound, giving the Thunder a possession to cut into the lead, if not tie the game.
Instead of calling a timeout, Billy Donovan let play continue, which resulted in Terrance Ferguson missing an open three from the corner with 17 seconds left on the clock.
It was rebounded by T.J. Warren, Chris Paul had to foul, and Warren subsequently hit both free throws to seal the victory.
After the game, Donovan explained his decision not to call a timeout in that situation.
“Broken floor situation. Had numbers. I thought about calling one when we didn’t get one early, but I thought we could get something early. I give the guys credit, they manufactured a good one. Thought about it, but I said ‘if I call timeout, I’m just letting them set their defense’. They were kind of scrambling at the time. But the way the ball came out, their whole team was behind the ball at that time and Chris kind of had ahead of steam and wanted to give him an opportunity to make a play. I thought we could get off something good. We did, probably took some time off the clock, but we got a good three out of it by Ferg.”
Donovan reiterated that calling a timeout would’ve allowed Indiana to set their defense, and then there was no telling what type of shot the Thunder would’ve been able to get.
Paul told reporters after the game that he was on board with Donovan’s decision as well.
“I don’t think you could draw something up where you could get a better look than we got,” said Paul. “I told Ferg, I want him to shoot that shot every night. That’s what he does for us.”
The Thunder finish the regular season 0-2 against Indianapolis.
Oklahoma City returns to action Friday against the Timberwolves.
