The Oklahoma City Thunder, despite a valiant effort, fell short of winning the NBA Cup, losing to the Milwaukee Bucks. This defeat highlights the team's ongoing struggle to establish itself as a force in the league and earn the respect it aims for.
The Paycom Center in downtown Oklahoma City is a little sparse. The hometown Thunder have collected a handful of division titles and there's that prized 2012 Western Conference finals win commemorated up there, but the old Seattle SuperSonics championship history was left behind during the relocation 16 years ago and the reborn franchise is still working on its own.
That made Tuesday night a special opportunity, a young Thunder team trying to establish itself had a chance at raising another one by winning the NBA Cup in Las Vegas. It didn't happen. The Thunder had their worst offensive night of the season at an inconvenient time and the Milwaukee Bucks got the hardware, the bonus money and the right to raise a pennant in their rafters with a 16-point win. The result is emblematic of the Thunder's ongoing battle to win some respect, something they don't demand almost as a team rule. But it's something they are very much trying to earn, living through the ups and downs of the process along the way.with the cheerleaders and mascot that used to open their local broadcasts in their first seasons in Oklahoma, the Thunder have used the same rallying cry.It's a perfectly fine and useful little slogan but, like anything born in the 2000s, it could use some updating. The current version of the Thunder has probably earned a different one. Perhaps a phrase their coach, Mark Daigneault, unwittingly branded them with during their NBA Cup run would be more appropriate. Two weeks ago, with point differential becoming a factor in the Thunder's final group play game and facing a possible tiebreaker situation to ensure advancing, Daigneault put his starters on the bench to start the fourth quarter because he had a 20-point lead over the'You got the angel and devil on your shoulder,' Daigneault explained.'But we're going with the angel.' #GoingWithTheAngel. It doesn't sound all that menacing but, well, it's how the Thunder actually rol
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