Preview: OKC wants to hold onto 7th seed, but Detroit needs a win

Game: Oklahoma City Thunder vs Detroit Pistons

Time: 7PM CST

Location: Chesapeake Arena, OKC

Broadcast: FSOK

Counterpart: Detroit Bad Boys

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The Thunder welcome the Pistons to the ‘Peake with only 4 games left in the regular season, and both teams are studying the playoff seedings. The Thunder are fighting with the Spurs for the right to avoid the Warriors in the first round, while the Pistons are sizing up the 76ers, Raptors, and Bucks. It will be curious to see how Detroit approaches this one.

The Thunder are coming off a rare win at home over the Lakers, winning by double digits despite not really looking like much of anything effective until Russell Westbrook sensed it was time to leave his mark on history.

The by product was an important win, but not necessarily a dominant one as they again struggled to produce consistent offense. Instead of attacking Laker big men in the high pick and roll,far too often they kept hoisting threes, taking 25 in the first half alone and 44 overall, despite making less than 30%.

Westbrook was in full distribution mode, rolling up 21 assists (10 in the first!), but even then OKC’s offense was mostly bad.

If you feel like OKC’s offense typically struggles with their offense particularly early on, well give that man a chocolate fish.

This approach, whatever it is, is not a model OKC can thrive at consistently, so pay attention to how many shots they look for early on, vs using their inside athleticism to battle with Andre Drummond in the middle and Blake Griffin on the wing.

It would be great if OKC got off to a solid start...but I’m not counting on it...(yet). Gotta earn that trust back. Four games left; maybe tonight is the time to try.