It took an extra five minutes of game time to decide the victor in Monday’s hard-fought, foul-heavy matchup. Neither team amassed a lead greater than 10 points and an offensive rhythm was hard to come by, but OKC hung tough to force overtime.
The Thunder came into Monday’s matchup with sizeable momentum after a convincing victory over Utah on Saturday to open up its regular season. However, for the first five minutes of the Thunder’s game against Denver, there didn’t look to be much carryover. The defensive physicality and energy that set the tone on Saturday didn’t play much of a factor against Denver who rattled off an early 8-0 run behind the efforts of Michael Porter Jr.