Thunder at Jazz
The Oklahoma City Thunder surrendered their perch as the No. 3 team in the Western Conference and are on the verge of surrendering homecourt advantage in a potential first-round playoff series if they can't pull out of a recent funk. The Thunder will try to fend off one of the teams chasing them in the standings when they visit the Utah Jazz on Monday in the finale of a four-game road trip.
Oklahoma City dropped six of its last eight games to fall into fourth place in the West and is coming off a disappointing 118-110 loss at the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday. "We gotta get back to our swag, to our identity," reserve point guard Dennis Schroder told reporters after the loss. "Get stops and just run on the offensive end. Move the ball and just play ours." One of the Thunder's three wins since the All-Star break came in the first game following the break, when they outlasted the Jazz 148-147 at home in double overtime. Utah bounced back from that with four straight wins but has since dropped two of three and enters Monday's meeting 2 1/2 games behind Oklahoma City in the West.
TV: 9 p.m. ET, FS Oklahoma, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain (Utah)
ABOUT THE THUNDER (40-26): All-Star forward Paul George voiced his displeasure with what he felt was one-sided refereeing after fouling out alongside Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams on Friday. "It's just bad officiating," George told reporters. "I'm sorry, just bad officiating. We don't get a fair whistle. We haven't gotten a fair whistle all year. ... Somebody's got to look into this. It's getting out of hand, where we somehow just walk teams to the line. And there's nobody that gets more contact." George, who averages 7.1 free-throw attempts, was fined $25,000 by the NBA.
ABOUT THE JAZZ (37-28): Star guard Donovan Mitchell scored 38 points on 12-of-24 shooting in Friday's 114-104 loss to Memphis but lamented his role in a defensive effort that allowed the lottery-bound Grizzlies to shoot 51.1 percent from the floor. "My biggest thing is I allowed some backdoors, didn't fight over ball screens, missed some assignments - that's where my head is at," Mitchell told reporters. "Points are gonna come; it's just a matter of getting stops, and we didn't get enough." Mitchell's points are coming in larger chunks of late and he is averaging 30.5 points in eight games since the All-Star break.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Jazz PF Derrick Favors slumped to three points on 1-of-5 shooting on Friday after averaging 18.4 points over the previous five games.
2. Schroder is 11-of-52 from 3-point range since the All-Star break.
3. Oklahoma City is looking for a four-game season sweep of the series after falling to Utah in the first round of the playoffs last spring.