SUMMARY:  The Thunder use stifling defense, a re-built roster and Paul George excellence to blow out the Utah Jazz

• The final score was a nine point game but it was not close. The Thunder lead by 29 points after scoring 42 3^rd quarter points to blow the game out.

• This is Jazz centric but before we go there let me say the Thunder are a considerably better team than the team the Jazz played in the playoffs. Jerami Grant is much better than Carmelo Anthony and Dennis Schroder is an enormous upgrade to Raymond Felton.   Nerlens Noel is a much better back up center than whomever they stuck in to that role last year.  A team plays 240 minutes a night and they are better in significant way at 75 of them.  That is a big deal.  They haven’t played many good teams yet but there is a reason they are 13-1 against sub .500 teams.  They are much better than sub .500 teams.  This is a homecourt advantage team in the West.

• The Jazz have been turning the ball over and the Thunder are the best in the NBA at forcing turnovers and sure enough the Jazz turned it over 20 times tonight.

• The game was 12-10 when Rudy Gobert got called for a questionable 2^nd foul and the Thunder took over the game on an immediate 8 to 2 run and the Jazz never got back in the game.

• To score on the Thunder you have to get off the ball and really move it. The Jazz had 30 assists tonight and shot 51%.  As the night went on they got more and more comfortable scoring and figuring out how to get shots.

• Paul George was great . He took 10 shots and scored 31 points. He was 5 of 6 from three.  He was 10 of 12 from the line.  I was a little confused to why our guys continued to give him space to shoot the three point shot.

• Westbrook couldn’t shoot tonight at all. He was 4 of 18 and at one point didn’t hit the rim on a 15 footer.   He stopped shooting for a while at that point, Then he was passing for assists.  He finished with a triple double.

• Steven Adams is a beast, he had 6 offensive rebounds.

• Thunder looked like the far better team tonight. They are playing well and taking advantage of a soft schedule to get confidence.  The Jazz haven’t had many nights were anything but 100% is going to be sufficient and they seem a little rattled in the confidence department.