If one time is chance, two times is coincidence and three times is a pattern, the Oklahoma City Thunder have reached that final phase: With a 132-108 loss to the Detroit Pistons, they have suffered three bad losses in a row.
Without any active players from the preferred starting lineup, this is starting to become a trend.
The Thunder lost to the Phoenix Suns by 37 points on Friday. The next night, they fell by 48 to the Portland Trail Blazers, two shy of the organization’s worst deficit in team history. They couldn’t recover Monday despite playing against one of the worst teams in the league.
Svi Mykhailiuk faced the Pistons for the first time since they traded him to the Thunder. He had 17 points and a career-best four steals, showcasing some of the skill that Detroit had wanted to see more of from him before trading him, but he couldn’t get revenge.
The Thunder are now 10 games below .500 for the first time this season.
Oklahoma City cut it close in the middle two quarters, but they couldn’t sustain any runs. After falling behind by 24 in the second quarter, they cut the deficit to seven before slipping just prior to halftime. Detroit extended its lead back up to 15 early in the third, but OKC cut it down to nine.
None of it was sustainable. The Pistons shot 52.1% from the field and 46.4% from 3 while Oklahoma City made only 41.2% of its looks and shot a mere 18.5% from behind the arc.
“We didn’t play really good defense,” Mykhailiuk said. “We scored enough, we scored 100 points, I feel like that’s enough to win a game, but on defense we let them score 130.”
That’s the third game in a row the Thunder have given up more than 130 points, and the third game in a row they lost by a huge margin.
