Perry Jones fractures the Nuggets, 102-91

It was only 12 minutes, and only a 12-point lead, but everyone in the arena knew what it meant.

With only eight available players and missing Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, the Thunder somehow came out strong against a full-strength Nuggets squad, building an improbable 29-17 lead after a quarter. Understanding the moment, and the situation, the crowd stood and poured on an ovation for the team.

“I’ve been around the NBA for 25 years and I’ve never seen what I saw tonight,” Scott Brooks said. “End of the first quarter we were up 29-17 and we got a standing ovation. I thought the game was over.”

It wasn’t. Thirty-six more agonizing minutes to go. Can a team win a game only scoring 29 points? I’m sure the thought crossed Brooks’ mind at some point. Yet, they weren’t done riding the wave. They kept the momentum rolling, going on a 14-2 run to begin the second quarter, pushing their lead to 43-19. At that point it was obvious: This Thunder team, albeit patched together by players like Lance Thomas and Sebastian Telfair, was ready to play, ready to compete. They swarmed every Denver possession as Brooks mixed zone and man looks. They moved the ball methodically around the floor each offensive possession. They hunted good looks, they pounded the ball in the post, they played completely selfless and for each other.

“You guys have been around me long enough to know how I feel about an NBA season. This game was one of 82. But,” Brooks said, lingering on the word, “what we saw out there exemplifies what we are as an organization. That was unbelievable. I’m so proud of our group, I’m proud of the young men that rallied for one another.”

The whole night, it just felt like the Nuggets were waiting to break through. That the lack of bodies and talent was going to catch up to the Thunder. And when Randy Foye cut the Thunder’s lead to three with 2:53 left, it seemed over. Without crunchtime playmakers to look toward and the defense running on fumes, it was going to be an agonizing finish. But Serge Ibaka answered with a corner 3. Then Perry Jones hit a lucky fadeaway 3 at the end of the shot clock. And then Andre Roberson finished a transition layup. Eight straight points, lead back to nine with 90 seconds left, job done.

Remarkable.

“It started off before the game with the speech Troy Weaver gave us and the speech Scotty gave us,” Kendrick Perkins said. “About all being in one boat, either you’re in or you’re out. I thought that speech kind of motivated us to go out here and get this win. Scotty said he’ll take our eight guys against their 15 guys any day, if you look at their roster, we’re all the same players. We came out there and competed and got the win.”

Nick Collison said it following the game: The biggest issue the Thunder will have over the next month is going to be on the offensive end in figuring out how to generate decent shots. They can defend well enough. But you can’t win NBA games in the 60s. It’s going to be about unlikely players finding an offensive rhythm and while Perry Jones’ 32 in Los Angeles seemed like a massive outlier, he followed that up with 23 more tonight. You can see the confidence spilling out of him.

“We’re just sticking together,” Jones said. “Running offense the way you’re supposed to run it and playing defense. Everybody is sticking together as a family. That’s what we preach that every day, every time we break a huddle we say ‘family.’ That’s what everybody is doing, buckling down together and trying to hold the fort.”

People tend to forget that if not for being medically red flagged before the draft, Jones was likely to be a lottery pick. He fell into the Thunder’s lap at 29 and while his first two seasons have been mostly disappointing, he’s never really been presented an opportunity to showcase anything other than playing a specific role. Now his teammates are looking for him, counting on him, and he’s producing.

It wasn’t just Jones, though. Kendrick Perkins scored as many points as he ever has in a Thunder uniform with 17. He had a stretch in the second quarter with three consecutive post-ups, and stabilized OKC again in the third quarter with back-to-back buckets after the Nuggets had trimmed the lead to 12. Ibaka had 23 on 19 shots in 30 minutes, hitting three 3s. Andre Roberson was an absolute menace, scoring eight points with eight rebounds, five assists and three blocks while almost single-handily destroying Nuggets’ offensive possessions. Lance Thomas — Lance Thomas! — stepped up with 12 points and eight boards. Sebastian Telfair played 39 minutes as the lone point guard, dishing out nine assists to only one turnover. Steven Adams had 13 points. Nick Collison did typical Nick Collison things.

If you’ll notice, that’s the entire team in that paragraph above. And that’s the kind of effort it took. It was patchwork stuff, but it was an entire team performance. There wasn’t a single selfish possession.

It’s one win. The Thunder are 1-2. They have something like 20 more games to go before they get back to full strength. It’s going to be extremely challenging to replicate this kind of performance night after night. But, if what we saw Saturday night is any indication, you can’t rule these guys out. I get as tired as anyone listening to Scott Brooks talk about commitment and togetherness and heart and toughness and spirit. After that though, it does mean something to this team. They have an identity and a philosophy that they live by. They’re not just going to take their medicine and wait.

NOTES:

You know things are weird when you start looking up what Kendrick Perkins’ career-high is.

Perk: “I’ve been in that position before. Superstars be out and you going into a game with them out and you tend to loosen up, be happy. I could tell during their layup line they was kind of happy. But they didn’t know that we kind of had something on our mind tonight. We’ve just got to make sure we stay humble and approach every game the same way.”

Perk on his game: “It felt good. Kind of brought me back to my high school days a little bit. Caught a little rhythm.”

There’s just no way to describe the low murmur that builds every time Perk gets the ball in the post. You really have to experience it in person.

The most stunning part of the game to me wasn’t the 23-point lead the Thunder built. It was the fact it got to three with three minutes left and they were able to close out the game. I thought the lead was going to have to finish in double-digits if the Thunder were winning this one. But they executed and hit big shots. Even a miss by Ibaka before his big corner 3 was a wonderfully executed set that left him wide open from the wing.

Maybe it was just me, but this felt so much like a game from 2008. Where it was all about hanging on at all moments, just trying to get through each possession, one by one. I don’t think I’ve stared at a ticking clock that much since that first season.

Obviously Scott Brooks deserves a ton of credit tonight. It’s not just that he managed the game beautifully, it’s that he coached his ass off. He was non-stop instructing, non-stop communicating. He was basically directing each offensive and defensive possession. His team played hard, and he coached hard. Like I said the other night, if this is what it takes for Brooks to gain a little more respect as a coach, so be it. But the guy can get players to buy in and play for him.

Andre Roberson is something else on the defensive end. Brooks said it perfectly tonight: “If you focus on one thing he doesn’t do well, I think you’re missing the point on him.” Roberson defends like hell, rebounds, cuts and blocks shots. Nope, he can’t shoot for crap. But he’s also just a 22-year-old second-year player. He’ll get better at some of that stuff. But on the defensive end, he’s darn near elite already.

The two stats that were really important tonight: Just 14 turnovers and 31 free throw attempts. That’s how the Thunder can generate decent enough offense to get by.

One thing OKC’s limited rotation did inadvertently was take advantage of the Nuggets’ small guards. They created mismatches in the post regularly, exposing the stature of Ty Lawson and Randy Foye. A lineup of Perk, Collison and Ibaka isn’t going to be effective very often, but in the right places and with a good zone to hide them on the other end, they were able to use size to find easy points.

It’s a shame the Thunder blew their lead, because I had this tweet all teed up and ready to go: “Pretty classless for Scott Brooks to leave his starters in during a blowout.”

Real thing I heard a fan say in the fourth quarter: “Wait, why are they taking Perk out?”

The Thunder are now 2-0 in games without Westbrook and Durant.

To recap the Thunder’s 1-2 start: Lost a quasi close game in Portland, then lost by three in Los Angeles to the Clippers the following night. Then beat the Nuggets at home. This win kind of colors those two road games a little differently. Instead of them looking somewhat flukish, maybe they actually were as good as they appeared in those games.

Next up: At the Nets on Monday