Thunder suffer a razor-thin loss and a concerning Jalen Williams injury as the Heat's shot volume overcomes OKC's efficiency.
The Oklahoma City Thunder lost its eighth game of the season on Saturday night in Miami, falling to the Heat 122-120. It was close for all 48 minutes and ultimately came down to a couple of clutch buckets. Andrew Wiggins drilled a three to put Miami up two, and Oklahoma City couldn’t cash in on its final two possessions to tie or take the lead before time expired.
The most interesting part of this game was the way these teams arrived at their points. In a matchup where you’d assume shot-making would decide everything, shot accuracy and shot volume were wildly different. The Thunder attempted just 77 shots compared to Miami’s 111, a differential you almost never see in today’s NBA. Yet Oklahoma City shot 54.5% from the field while Miami shot 36.9%. The Thunder was nearly 20% better on its attempts, but the Heat took 34 more shots, and when you balance those two things out, you get a two-point game. Both teams ended up with the same number of free throws, but Miami launched 20 more threes and made seven more than Oklahoma City. It was a weird math game from start to finish.
Maybe the biggest takeaway is Jalen Williams going down with a leg injury. The Thunder labeled it as thigh soreness, but Williams was unable to return after being sidelined in the first half. Now it’s less about what happened in this one and more about the severity, whether it’s something that costs him time or if he’s back sooner rather than later.
Even without Williams for most of the night, Oklahoma City still got contributions. Ajay Mitchell scored 15 points, Aaron Wiggins added 18 off the bench and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the way like he usually does with 39 points on 12-of-19 shooting. For Miami, Bam Adebayo had a breakout game with 30 points and 12 rebounds, finishing as a game-high plus-11.
It’s hard to take a ton from this one because of how uniquely it played out. Miami didn’t have Tyler Herro and the Thunder didn’t have Jalen Williams for the majority of the game. Just an odd January matchup. Still, it’s a good win for the Heat, one Miami really needed, and the Thunder now sits at 35-8 on the season.
Next up, Oklahoma City heads to Cleveland for a road matchup against the Cavaliers on Monday.