The Thunder reaches the homestretch of the NBA season with a 43-30 record. Not as good as we all figured when the season started but better than when the Thunder was 8-12 heading into December.
The Thunder actually has the seventh-best record in the NBA, and it would be the sixth-best, better than Cleveland’s, without the last-20-seconds-meltdown against Boston on Tuesday night.
But the Thunder ranks even higher in a metric that lots of analysts deem more important than record. Point differential. The Thunder is tied with San Antonio for the NBA’s fifth-best point differential, plus-3.3.
The theory goes that over the course of a season, the best indicator of success is point differential, not record, because a bounce here or there can be the difference between victory and defeat without having any real actual value.