Against Oklahoma City, the Wizards were the bug

Oklahoma City Thunder broadcaster Michael Cage summed up this game perfectly: “In this game, sometimes you’re the bug, and sometimes you’re the windshield.” In this one, the Wizards were in the role of the bug.

Washington was no match for the Thunder. Oklahoma City took control early and the Wizards had no answer for their athleticism, execution, and swarming defensive presence.

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The Wizards converted just 29.6% of their field goal attempts, including 7-43 from three-point range. That’s 16.3%. Which is bad. Very bad.

Positives for the Wizards were scarce. Among them — Alex Sarr grabbed 14 rebounds in 28 minutes. Bub Carrington shot 3-3 from deep. Bilal Coulibaly defended Shai Gilgeous-Alexander pretty well in the first quarter — SGA had two points on o-3 shooting when Coulibaly left the game. He immediately started scoring and finished the game with 30 points and 9 assists.

For Washington, it’s a third consecutive loss — their first three-game skid of the season. Before the game, head coach Brian Keefe talked with reporters about the team figuring out their formula for success. The team would be wise not to over-index on this game. It was a bad result, and the team looked awful.

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Despite missing Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren (in some order, their second and third best players), OKC is a special case. It’s a championship-level team with something to prove. The Wizards need to learn to compete at that level, and the lesson of their last three games is that they’re still not close.

That’s not the end of world 10 games into the season. But they need to internalize that lesson and do the work to become competitive against high-level opponents.

From the Notebook

Kudos to the OKC stadium operations team — when the Wizards starters got introduced, they played Harry Potter theme music. Good job.

The Wizards entered the game with the NBA’s second best “in the paint” field goal percentage (62.2%). The Thunder had the NBA’s second best defensive paint FG% (holding opponents to just 50.2%). Safe to say OKC won that battle.

In the first quarter, the Wizards ran a pick-and-roll option out of a horns…

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Publish date : 2026-11-08 12:00:00

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