Is OKC Thunder’s depth catching up with Nuggets in playoff series?

A struggle of attrition fittingly tilted in favor of the workforce with extra rations.

Perhaps it was inevitable, because the Nuggets and Thunder clanked 3-pointers, as fatigue contaminated their capturing types, that brisker legs would prevail. Positive sufficient, 36 hours after an exhausting additional time affair ended, the most important distinction between these groups illuminated itself as one other grueling recreation spiraled towards the end line.

Cason Wallace made a 3-pointer. Aaron Wiggins adopted swimsuit. Wallace drained one other.

And the Thunder rode off into the Rocky Mountain sundown with a 92-87 win, powered by that 11-0 run. It occurred at an important juncture in an endlessly stirring second-round playoff collection, after the Nuggets led 71-63 early within the fourth quarter of Recreation 4. Denver’s plucky underdogs had been on the verge of seizing a 3-1 lead over a 68-win Loss of life Star, till their comparative lack of depth emerged as a decisive issue.

“It kind of was a role player game,” Nuggets interim coach David Adelman mentioned.

And Oklahoma Metropolis’s position gamers triumphed. Wallace, Wiggins and Alex Caruso every scored in double figures on a day when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren went 0 for 13 past the arc. Denver’s bench mixed for eight factors.

Adelman’s beginning lineup outscored the Thunder 41-26 in 19 minutes on the ground collectively in Recreation 4. When any considered one of them was seated on the bench, the Nuggets misplaced by 20.

“We made a very intentional effort to use our depth today and get everybody going,” OKC coach Mark Daigneault mentioned.

This was at all times the looming menace of the Thunder, a workforce on the rise, starring a number of rookie contracts and unburdened by Denver’s pile-up of chunky salaries. Daigneault is comfy routinely going 10-deep. Adelman can barely play seven guys, however his hand feels compelled to maintain trying to find an eighth.

All through the playoffs, he has pulled straws between Jalen Pickett, Vlatko Cancar, DeAndre Jordan, Julian Strawther and Zeke Nnaji. Not one of the choices have been notably convincing, and but Adelman questioned himself anyway for not aiming for 9 on Sunday.

“We just have to get more from more people. And I have to maybe play more than eight guys,” he mentioned. “I felt like it was, once we pushed (the lead) to eight, I really stayed with a short rotation thinking that we had a chance to kind of push that and take control of the game. Because both teams were so exhausted at that point.”

Exhaustion is a component that’s inherently advantageous for the deeper workforce in a collection. The Thunder can ship succesful perimeter defenders at Jamal Murray by means of a revolving door, permitting Lu Dort to recharge after heavy battery utilization. Wallace is as much as the duty. Caruso could be guarding Murray as a starter for nearly every other workforce within the league.

Identical goes for guarding Nikola Jokic, who’s contending with two Oklahoma Metropolis huge males virtually each minute he’s on the ground. It’s not simply Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. Daigneault’s ninth or tenth man, relying on the night time, is Jaylin Williams, who had three triple-doubles this season and who “gave us really good minutes on Jokic,” Daigneault mentioned Sunday, “so we can keep fresh guys on him.”

As Denver’s stars develop grey hairs all through a recreation, their defenders seem ageless.

On the opposite finish, Adelman runs out of dependable SGA defenders fairly rapidly after Christian Braun, who logged a team-high 44 minutes in Recreation 4. No one performed greater than 38 for OKC.

That’s the truth of the Nuggets’ scenario on this matchup. It’s why they had been just about a consensus underdog. It’s why their uphill climb is just going to steepen late within the collection.