Thunder vs Jazz: Pregame Primer

Ryan Woods -

vs.

Jazz (13-23, 6-10 road) vs. Thunder (17-19, 10-7 home)

TV: FS Oklahoma
Stream:  Click here
Radio:  WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM, 1300 AM The Buzz Tulsa)
Time: 7:00 CT

Offensive Rating: Thunder – 104.2 (21st), Jazz – 107.1 (12th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder – 103.5 (9th), Jazz – 110.1 (27th)

Oof. That was rough. The Thunder return home after laying a couple eggs on the West Coast. There are games that you just have to throw the tape in the furnace — Wednesday night was that night.

Oklahoma City returns home for a matchup against the struggling, and beat up Utah Jazz. Enes Kanter, Rodney Hood and Alec Burks will all miss tonight’s contest. The Thunder, let’s face it, need a reset button. After tonight the Thunder will have six days off, will the team use it for rest? Or will tonight be the first night of a midseason “training camp”? Next Thursday night, when the Thunder takes on the Houston Rockets it needs to look like a very different team. And tonight could be the first step in the process.

Three Big Things

1. Ball Movement. So much was said preseason about a new commitment to ball and player movement. So where has that been? Maybe KD and Russ haven’t had enough games on the floor together for us to see it, but it’s time that a more trusting team rears its head. Maybe more minutes for Nick Collison with KD and Russ is the first step in the process. But it’s clear, OKC needs an extra hub to run offense threw to keep the ball moving.

2. Rotations. So with Dion Waiters now in the fold, keep a close eye on where and when he’s used coming off the bench. He’s one of, if not already the best creator in the second unit and he was surprisingly effective on the defensive end on Wednesday agains the Kings. Roberson’s minutes went way down in Waiters’ first contest. Let’s see if this becomes a trend, or remains a matchup-by-matchup thing.

3. Serge. 9 played pretty well against the Kings — finishing the game with seven blocks. Serge the three-point shooter, Serge the midrange sniper have both been a success, but boy was it nice seeing Serge Iblocka look better than ever. His timing was there. His lift was there. And it looked like the Serge we’ve grown used to seeing erasing shot after shot.

Wednesday’s COTN: “Give westbrook his hand brace back already” – @RazvanThunder

that thing had an extra shot of Michael’s Secret Stuff

Tip at 7:00. Go fix it.