A war of attrition fittingly tilted in favor of the team with more rations.
Maybe it was inevitable, as the Nuggets and Thunder clanked 3-pointers, as fatigue infected their shooting forms, that fresher legs would prevail. Sure enough, 36 hours after an exhausting overtime affair ended, the biggest difference between these teams illuminated itself as another grueling game spiraled toward the finish line.
Cason Wallace made a 3-pointer. Aaron Wiggins followed suit. Wallace drained another.
And the Thunder rode off into the Rocky Mountain sunset with a 92-87 win, powered by that 11-0 run. It occurred at a crucial juncture in an endlessly stirring second-round playoff series, after the Nuggets led 71-63 early in the fourth quarter of Game 4. Denver’s plucky underdogs were on the verge of seizing a 3-1 lead over a 68-win Death Star, until their comparative lack of depth emerged as a decisive factor.
“It kind of was a role player game,” Nuggets interim coach David Adelman said.
And Oklahoma City’s role players triumphed. Wallace, Wiggins and Alex Caruso each scored in double figures on a day when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren went 0 for 13 beyond the arc. Denver’s bench combined for eight points.
Adelman’s starting lineup outscored the Thunder 41-26 in 19 minutes on the floor together in Game 4. When any one of them was seated on the bench, the Nuggets lost by 20.
“We made a very intentional effort to use our depth today and get everybody going,” OKC coach Mark Daigneault said.
This was always the looming threat of the Thunder, a team on the rise, starring multiple rookie contracts and unburdened by Denver’s pile-up of chunky salaries. Daigneault is comfortable routinely going 10-deep. Adelman can barely play seven guys, but his hand feels forced to keep searching for an eighth.
Throughout the playoffs, he has pulled straws between Jalen Pickett, Vlatko Cancar, DeAndre Jordan, Julian Strawther and Zeke Nnaji. None of the options have been particularly convincing, and yet Adelman questioned himself anyway for not aiming for nine on Sunday.
“We just have to get more from more people. And I have to maybe play more than eight guys,” he said. “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 an element that’s inherently advantageous for the deeper team in a series. The Thunder can send capable perimeter defenders at Jamal Murray through a revolving door, allowing Lu Dort to recharge after heavy battery usage. Wallace is up to the task. Caruso would be guarding Murray as a starter for almost any other team in the league.
Same goes for guarding Nikola Jokic, who is contending with two Oklahoma City big men almost every minute he’s on the floor. It’s not just Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. Daigneault’s ninth or 10th man, depending on the night, is Jaylin Williams, who had three triple-doubles this season and who “gave us really good minutes on Jokic,” Daigneault said Sunday, “so we can keep fresh guys on him.”
As Denver’s stars grow gray hairs throughout a game, their defenders appear ageless.
On the other end, Adelman runs out of reliable SGA defenders pretty quickly after Christian Braun, who logged a team-high 44 minutes in Game 4. Nobody played more than 38 for OKC.
That’s the reality of the Nuggets’ situation in this matchup. It’s why they were pretty much a consensus underdog. It’s why their uphill climb is only going to steepen late in the series.
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Other than that, the Nuggets are essentially a one-lineup pony, plus Russell Westbrook. He’s been an overwhelming positive all postseason, but like all role players, he shouldn’t be expected to be dynamic and efficient every game. The flaw in Denver’s roster is that when he finally wasn’t on Sunday, the result was an all-encompassing indictment of the bench. Because Westbrook is the bench.
It’s a bench that has been outscored by exactly 50 points through four games.
“We rode our guys throughout the season, for good reason,” Adelman said. “It’s an amazing starting five. But I’ve gotta try to be as creative as I can be to help them have some legs late in the game.”
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