The Thunder's win over the Trail Blazers Sunday night was a wonderful product of an entire team looking like they were on the same page. The Blazers are in a bit of a dead zone these days, having gutted their team in order to look toward the future, but they still have enough talent to compete on any given night. OKC was coming off of a humbling home loss to the Spurs and needed this game as a realignment adjustment to get their wheels all heading in the same direction.

What I enjoyed most about this game was that the Thunder applied the most useful blueprint for tackling undermanned teams - aggressive defense right out of the gates that puts the opponent on their heels early. The Thunder played one of their most complete first quarters of the season, and as a result where able to simply match baskets with the Blazers the rest of the way.