The Thunder’s season is over because they missed 6 different shots on their last possession

The Oklahoma City Thunder’s final meaningful possession lasted for 43 seconds. They attempted six field goals — four from behind the arc — and secured five offensive rebounds, including one that was awarded to them after a video review. They missed all six shots, and the Utah Jazz won 96-91 in Game 6 on Friday to advance to the Western Conference semifinals.

With that many chances, it’s unbelievable that the Thunder couldn’t get even one shot to fall. Six different chances! It’s a possession that will surely haunt Oklahoma City long into the offseason, one that starts now — way earlier than anyone must have thought last summer when Paul George and Carmelo Anthony were brought to the team.

Let’s quickly run through this fateful possession:

Westbrook beat everyone to the basket, although there were defenders around him, but pushed the shot too hard off the backboard. It was online, but it bounced off the front rim and fell off. Somehow, Steven Adams gets a hand on it to poke the offensive rebound out, recovers it, and saves it to Raymond Felton.

The ball rotates to George, who is standing 29 feet from the basket — about five steps past the three-point line. He’s 2-of-12 at this point, but he decides this is the ideal time to fire off a three-pointer for the tie. It clanks off back iron, but ricochets straight to Westbrook, who taps it safely to Felton again.

Felton immediately gives it back to Westbrook, and he dribbles the ball out only to step into a contested jumper over Donovan Mitchell. Yet again, Adams gets his hand on the ball, and it caroms just right so that it ends up flying out to the perimeter.

Billy Donovan has had enough, and literally runs past half court to call a timeout.

On the ensuing play, George drives on Royce O’Neale, trying to get the quick two-pointer still with about 30 seconds left in the game. He loses some of his balance while coming to a two-foot jump shot, and his layup is missed long. And there’s Adams again, securing the ball with both hands and immediately tossing it back out to Westbrook.

This was the one. Westbrook hopped into the shot looking like he had perfect rhythm and release, but it rimmed out, flying just a tiny bit too far. The rebound is fought for by Mitchell and Jerami Grant, and replay review shows that Mitchell touched it last.

Oklahoma City gets ANOTHER chance.

The referees blew this call.

They’ve given that call to players repeatedly over the past few seasons. You can’t have it both ways — giving the foul normally, but swallowing the whistle late in games. George didn’t leap into Gobert. He pump faked, Gobert jumped, and then George rose up for a jump shot and was bumped. That’s a foul by definition. His head coach certainly agreed, even while using couched language that was presumably his attempt to not earn a fine.

Still, it’s hard to feel like Oklahoma City was completely robbed when they missed five shots on the same damn possession leading up to this. If the foul had been called, it also would have required George to hit all three and for the Thunder to prevent Utah from scoring on the final possession. There was about 20 seconds left when George released the shot, so it would have been a final possession scenario.

The Thunder had six shots, four of them to tie the game, that would have staved off first round elimination for at least one game, and given them a good chance to advance when you consider Game 7 would have been played in Oklahoma City. Instead, the team’s done before we even hit May.

See you later, Thunder. This will be a fascinating offseason, and who knows what comes next.