Oklahoma City dropped the front half of a back-to-back in Portland, and its outside shooting was a reason for concern.

On Tuesday night, the Thunder began their back-to-back set in Portland with a 123-103 loss to the Trail Blazers. While the Blazers have proven to be a tough matchup for the Thunder, this game was more of an example of a bigger issue for the Thunder. 

Portland won just about every important battle throughout the game. Portland won the turnover battle and drew nearly even in the rebounding battle, leaving Oklahoma City needing to compensate in other areas. 

The most obvious place for the Thunder to try and combat those other areas is the 3-point shot, and the Blazers dominated that category. Portland shot 19-of-50 from deep, while Oklahoma City managed a mark of only 8-of-22. 

A hot night like that from Portland makes any team tough to beat, but that kind of volume discrepancy made a hot night nearly impossible to recover from. Well over half of Portland’s shots came from beyond the arc, but Oklahoma City’s outside looks barely accounted for a quarter of the team’s shot attempts. 

After a season-low 22 attempts from beyond the arc in Portland, the Thunder sit at 29th in the league in 3-point attempt rate, taking only 34.7% of their overall shots from 3-point range. For context, the league average is 43%, and Portland ranks second at 50.3%. 

Obviously, taking more threes isn’t necessarily correlated with winning more games, but it certainly makes winning the math game much easier against a team like the Thunder. This isn’t a new problem for the Thunder, who have been prone to a shot diet that consists of low 3-point attempts, but it is a more prominent problem this season, given Oklahoma City’s injuries. 

Without the extra firepower of Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren, the Thunder are putting a lid on their offense by not allowing themselves an opportunity to get hot from three and ride that to a win. 

The league average for 3-point attempts per game is 37.8, and Oklahoma City has surpassed that mark only once in 11 tries this season. Part of that can be attributed to the team’s pace, which ranks in the bottom quarter of the league, but the 3-point volume problem is apparent at every turn. 

This isn’t an easy fix for Oklahoma City after losing three of its most willing 3-point shooters in the offseason, but a solution needs to come to keep the Thunder from losing that battle so often.