After A 42 Point Ass Whooping, It Will Now Take Something Never Done Before In NBA History For The Thunder To Win The Title

Jesse D. Garrabrant. Getty Images.

It's not exactly a stretch to suggest that the Timberwolves season was on the line in Game 3. Finally returning home after being outplayed in both games in OKC, if the Wolves lost Game 3, that's it. That's their season. It's already a tall task to beat the historic Thunder team 4 out of 5 times, which the Wolves have to pull off. You're not going to do it 4 straight after falling down 0-3. 

Thankfully, the Wolves didn't go down sad. They fought back and then some. Who knows how many games they'll end up winning in this series, but Game 3's ass whooping certainty looked like a very much needed sign of life

For Wolves fans, this looked like the team they probably remember from the regular season. Tough defense, good rebounding, Ant going crazy making a billion threes and the team as a whole stopped missing every shot they took. People often try and overcomplicate things when a team struggles, but sometimes things really just come down to whether or not they're cashing in on their open looks. The Wolves generated great looks all throughout Game 1&2, but everyone was a collective brick, especially the bench shooters. In Game 3, those role players played better. Suddenly, Ant's pull up 3 is dropping left and right, guys like DVV and Naz Reid are making their open 3s. The team is getting stops and forcing turnovers. The way they jumped out of the gate and never took their foot off the gas was exactly how a desperate team plays. High energy, high effort, better execution and boom, you win by 42 fucking points.

Understanding that part of this challenge is also winning Game 4, at least for the moment, the Wolves gave us the impression that perhaps it's not crazy to start hoping for a long series. It's damn hard to beat this OKC team twice in a row so we'll see what happens the rest of the way. You imagine they'll now have added motivation and it wouldn't be surprising if there was some shooting regression on the Wolves side. That's what makes Game 4 so intriguing.

But before we get there, there's also the reality of what Game 3 tells us in terms of NBA history, which given the Thunder's current situation is pretty interesting

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If you've been reading the blog for long enough, you know that my stupid idiot brain is very easily manipulated by fake statistics that are probably just coincidences but help me push my agendas, so I put all my stock into them. The 40/20 Rule, The MVP Curse, the top 3 eFG% Club, SRS over +3, point differential etc. I think it all matters when navigating an NBA season and trying to predict who will win the title. Trends are trends for a reason.

What makes the current Thunder playoff run so fascinating is that they are putting these things to the test. They are a 40/20 team which is a big box to check, but weren't a top 3 eFG% team. At the same time, they hit the SRS and point differential benchmarks. They are also dealing with the 10-year MVP curse, where no current MVP has also won the title in that same season since Steph did it back in 2014-15.  

Now we have this additional bit of information, which basically tells us that if the Thunder go on to win the NBA title, they will truly be making history. Either they are going to be the team that finally defeats the MVP curse, in addition to this new apparent 40-point blowout curse, or the Pacers/Knicks winner will become a champion as a non-40/20 team, something that's basically only happened 4 times in the last 50+ years. 

Here's the good news for any OKC fan out there if that 0-30 record has you a bit concerned.

Like all statistics, it's easy to pick and choose where to start and stop. In 2022, the Golden State Warriors lost Game 5 on the road to MEM by the score of 134-95. It's not quite the 40-point cutoff, but right there at 39. As we know, those Warriors went on to win not only that series in 6 games but also the NBA title that season (sigh). 

So I guess it comes down to what do you believe? Do you believe that 39 is basically the same as 40, and the Thunder have a blueprint on how to still win the title despite getting your doors completely blown off to the tune of a 40+ point loss? Or, do you believe that 39 is different than 40, that one makes the cutoff and one doesn't, and if you don't make the cutoff, then NBA history says you do not win the title? Something's going to have to give.

The beauty of winning the first two games was that it bought the Thunder some margin for error. They didn't have to sweep both of these games on the road, really they just need one. If they suddenly drop Game 4 and we head back to OKC tied 2-2? Well then we're having a different discussion, but as of now, 3-1 is still on the table. Part of the journey up the playoff mountain is not playing with your food in a series and not letting things spiral. The entire direction of this series basically now comes down to whether or not OKC lets that happen.