Last-Second 3 Lifts Thunder Over Portland

A wise NBA reporter once said: Players don't tank. He meant that no matter how many games a team has lost; no matter how much it wants the shiny new prospect on draft night; no matter how little wins mean or how much losses could help the team's future — players will play hard.

Rarely has this been more relevant than the last week in Oklahoma City Thunder basketball, when the team shut down its best players and handed the keys to the young guns.

Josh Giddey? Out for the season, the team announced last week. Then before Monday's game, Darius Bazley was ruled out for the rest of the year, too, after sustaining a knee injury on Saturday in Denver.

Most notable was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the team's brightest star who'd missed three of the past four games with ankle problems. He's done for the season, head coach Mark Daigneault announced Monday, leaving OKC with an ultra-thin active roster made up almost entirely of rookies and second-year players, with Isaiah Roby the lone exception in his third season.

Rookie guard Tre Mann was all set to be the Thunder's de facto leader on Monday — until he was ruled out, shortly before tipoff, with hamstring troubles. That left OKC with eight guys available.

But the Trail Blazers were pretty much in the same boat. Portland has 27 wins this season, compared to OKC's 22, but that's only because it entered the year with competitive aspirations and didn't start tanking, truly, until it traded CJ McCollum to New Orleans in early February.

Since then, Portland has been in an all-out nosedive to try and secure better draft lottery odds. It had only eight players available, too.

The game got out to a rollicking start, with both teams shooting well, bombing 3s and running up and down the court. Roby scored 12 points on 5-for-5 shooting through just six minutes.

The game became a back-and-forth affair, with OKC getting production from up and down its young lineup. Ultimately, OKC put up one of its most egalitarian showings of the year — three players scored more than 20, seven guys were in double-digits, and six guys hit at least two 3-pointers in the game, including the entire starting five.

But the stars were undoubtedly Roby (30 points, eight rebounds), Aaron Wiggins (28 points, six assists) and Theo Maledon (23 points, 10 rebounds). And with the game winding down, Roby made a play that Thunder fans won't soon forget — for better or worse.

With 8.9 seconds remaining, OKC trailed by three and prepared to inbound the ball in its own half with one last chance to score. Aleksej Pokusevski held the ball for nearly five seconds on the sideline before finding Roby on the left wing just in time.

Roby dribbled to his left, stopped, rose and uncorked a 3 — which went in with about five seconds remaining. Portland wasn't able to answer at the other end and the game went to overtime. The teams traded blows, but Roby came up big again and OKC won 134-131.

Oklahoma City finished with 20 3-pointers made on 45 attempts, a blistering 44.4% clip for the game that made all the difference.

Thunder fans were shocked. Many were disappointed. But as we've established, players don't tank.

And can you blame them? You can't ask a player like Lindy Waters, who scratched and clawed and fought for a chance at the NBA, to sit back and take it easy. You can't ask that from any of the guys who played Monday, most of whom are considered marginal and expendable and are fighting for their futures in the league.

And as it turns out, we got a pretty entertaining game because of that.

"That's why we play," Waters said afterward. "We play to win."

Until next week, Oklahoma — Thunder Up!