The Blazers' plan rolling into Oklahoma City was simple: keep on keepin' on with respect to offense, and makeanybodybut Shai Gilgeous-Alexander beat the Blazers.

The plan went all right…

…Except for the part where a bunch of guys stepped up for OKC and together just put their team over the top. The final score was 121-123.

Recaps

• BEdge recap
• BEdge analysis
• Associated Press recap
• Previous analysis侯:游戏30,107 - 95 W
• Next analysis: Game 32 at OKC, L 98-101

Make no mistake

The Thunder lineup wanted this win more than the Blazers' lineup did. That's not to say that the Blazers on the courtdidn'twant the win. Their opponents just wanted itmore.

At a human level, it make sense. Christmas is almost here, there's a bragging-rights game coming up, and this game opened up a five-game differential between road and home games so far this season. We don't profit by speculation, but whateveritis, the men of the Portland Trail Blazers ballclub are sick—and tired—ofit.

How Portland lost this game

It's not much surprise: the game down to turnovers and especially rebounds for Portland. For all intents and purposes, the Blazers got out-hustled, because relative to the Blazers the Thunderdo notpossess the size advantage that even Minnesota can bring against the Blazers.

If you go back and watch the highlight and summary clips, you might notice something: what Oklahoma City did was not so different than what Portland was doing at the beginning of the season. They wanted it, and they wanted it more, so they reached out and seized it.

Nurk or no Nurk, a team with the likes of Josh Hart and Jerami Grant and Justise Winslow aboard only gets out-hustled if they allow it. The Blazers allowed it.

How Oklahoma City won this game

Aside from the hustle entirely of their own creation and execution, the Thunder kept their eyes open. Creating turnovers out of thin air from not-quite-perfect passing requires a cognitive load, but the Thunder shouldered that load rather than get ground up in transition. The Blazers' total wasn't particularlydepressing, but it was enough to create those two extra points.

For its part, the box score yields only one clue: most of the difference in hustle was on display when the second units played. The overall quality of Oklahoma City's second unit is best left for later consideration, but Portland's has been kind of stinky lately.

The numbers look better, but…

Anfernee Simons is still the corpse of an albatross tied around the Blazers' proverbial neck. He got the best plus-minus of the starters onbothteams, but that only reinforces the idea that he carried the second unit offensively more than was good for them.

The short version is that Simons needs to be hidden or put aside on too many defensive possessions, and it's fair to suspect that people are losing their enthusiasm for carrying his water.

What gets to this writer is the way he conducts himself off the ball. Pay attention to his body language: he wants the ball in his hand. If he can't have the ball in his hand, he wants to be defending against the ballhandler one-on-one. From time to time it's almost amazing that there's no slobber-puddle at his feet, when he stands banished to zone defense in the weak side block, gazing at the ball longingly.

It requires little imagination to appreciate what a chore it is to construct defensive schemes when one of your players behaves like that.

In any other line of work, guys who go after it likethattend to get fired on account of only doing half the job.

That is what we've been seeing all season, that's what got people annoyed, and that's what makes these analyses so painful to write.

As this is being written the following game has already been played, a contest which the Thunder won by a score of 98-101.