THE GRAHAM JAM

Finally, fans, the Thunder are back.

No, they didn't go anywhere. Technically. But let's face it — when they are missing Mark Daigneault, Josh Giddey and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, are they really the same Thunder?

So it was a relief as the calendar turned to 2022 to see the players slowly returning. And finally, after five games away, Daigneault was back on the sidelines on Jan. 7 versus Minnesota.

If the Thunder were inspired by returning home and getting their coach back, however, they sure didn't play like it that night.

Oklahoma City fell 135-105 to Minnesota on Friday, hanging tough through the first quarter but gradually letting the game fall away after that.

The other two Thunder losses last week were not blowouts, but they were losses nonetheless.

OKC started the week up north Wednesday in frigid Minnesota, taking on the Timberwolves two days before meeting them again at home. Minnesota outscored Oklahoma City 30-10 in the first quarter of that ballgame, among the worst frames that OKC has played all season.

The Thunder practically dominated the rest of the game, but couldn't overcome those first few minutes and fell to Minnesota 98-90.

The story was similar on Sunday night when Denver visited the Paycom Center. The first-quarter margin wasn't as drastic — Denver led 36-23 after one — but still put the Thunder behind the 8-ball right away. At one point, less than 6 minutes into the ballgame, the Nuggets led by 18.

That was their biggest lead of the night, and Oklahoma City briefly took the lead in the fourth quarter. But it couldn't hold on. OKC couldn't overcome the teams' massive disparity in 3-point shooting, with Denver nailing 36.1% of its long-distance shots to OKC's 23.7%, and the Nuggets held on 99-95.

The loss left Oklahoma City at 13-26 for the season and still searching for its first victory of 2022.

The new year has continued OKC's first-quarter struggles. The team is constantly fighting from behind — which isn't all bad. The Thunder have displayed grit and character throughout the season, and many of their 13 wins are dramatic come-from-behind efforts.

But the trend is alarming. Oklahoma City is being outscored, on average, by 4.6 points in the first quarter this year, which is by far the largest margin of the four. OKC has led after only 13 of the 39 first quarters it has played — a stat that, perhaps not coincidentally, exactly mirrors its overall record.

The team has recently taken steps to address this problem by shaking up its starting five, which gets a majority of firstquarter minutes. But the team will need better efficiency from its stars, and better shooting in general, to keep pace with other teams' best players at the start of games.

After Sunday's Denver loss, Daigneault attributed that slow start to bad shooting luck but praised his team's attitude. "I thought in the first quarter we played the right way to start the game offensively," he said, "and just didn't make shots that ended up falling, at different points in the game, for us. For them, they were drilling shots early. We were maybe a step slow."

The Thunder will look to turn around their first-quarter woes this week and notch their first win of the new year. They traveled to D.C. for a matchup with the Washington Wizards on Tuesday, Jan. 11, before traveling to Brooklyn to take on the powerhouse Nets on Thursday.

The Thunder return home on Saturday, Jan. 15 against Cleveland and will cruise down I-35 for a game with Dallas on Monday. Hopefully, OKC won't have to claw its way back into each of those games after more slow starts.

Until next time, Thunder Up!