Oklahoma City Thunder manage to edge out ahead of the New York Knicks 101-98
One of the important games of Saturday was the Oklahoma City Thunder playing host to the New York Knicks. The match took place at the Oklahoma City Thunder Arena with around 18,000 fans coming to witness the match. The match lasted for two hours and twenty
three minutes with lead changing hands 12 times while the scores were tied on 9 occasions.
New York Knicks were looking to end the five games losing streak while the on the other hand Oklahoma City Thunder was looking to recover from their loss in the previous match.
Kevin Durant didn’t have a great start to the match. However, despite the slow start to the match Oklahoma City Thunders was able to pace up their game with the passage of time. There were several misses by both teams when the match started.
New York Knicks considering the fact that they were playing away and had lost the previous five games in the season made a great start defending and attacking very well. Their strategy worked very well which was of stopping Kevin Durant from scoring. This
is exactly what they did but other players on the Thunder roster were able to deal with the challenge.
During the course of the quarter, New York Knicks were trailing by just one point. The score was 31-30 in favour of Oklahoma City Thunder.
The second quarter started off brilliantly for the Oklahoma City Thunder but they failed to capitalize form the start they got. Regularly missing opportunities and at times losing the ball easily. On the other hand, New York Knicks were very tight in every
department from the start to the end of the quarter.
The Knicks led by Amare Stoudemire gave the Oklahoma City Thunder a tough time. The New York Knicks led at half time as they scored 30 points compared to the 22 points scored by Oklahoma City Thunder. The scores at the end of the second quarter were 60-53
in favour of the Knicks.
The third quarter saw both teams come out defence minded which resulted in the game drying up on points. New York Knicks maintained a decent defence but the Oklahoma City Thunder came up with an even stronger defence which didn’t give the opposing team any
space and suffocated them as they neared their basket.
During the course of the quarter, Oklahoma City Thunder scored 22 points but the important thing was that they restricted the New York Knicks to just 17 points during the course of the quarter. The score was very tight with just two points between the two
teams with Knicks leading 77-75.
The final quarter of the match was much the same as the third quarter with both teams looking to defend. However, this all changed as the match was ended with two minutes of play remaining; the scores were level on 98-98. Both teams missed a chance each
with the later by New York Knicks.
With six seconds of play remaining, Oklahoma City went on the attack and scored a three point buzzer through Kevin Durant to win the match 101-98. Oklahoma City Thunder scored 26 points in the quarter while New York Knicks scored 21 points.
Kevin Durant, after a slow start to the match was the top scorer of the match with 30 points followed by New York Knicks Danilo Gallinari on 23 points.
Scott Brooks, Coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder at the end of the match said, "Every win is a good win but the first half was an embarrassing performance. They got anything they wanted. The second half was much better we came out with intensity and some
fight."
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