The Oklahoma City Thunder avoided a letdown with a 118-102 win over the short-handed Philadelphia 76ers. It was a crawl to the finish line for OKC in an otherwise strong four-game East Coast road trip.

Despite most — this beat writer included — assuming that the Sixers would have their doors blown off by the NBA's best team defense and individual scorer, the nine players donning red, white and blue played with absolutely no expectation that they were going to be on the wrong end of a blowout.

The Oklahoma City Thunder took a little longer than they needed but escaped with a 118-102 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday. The Sixers waved the white flag before the game even started. One by one,

The Philadelphia 76ers came limping into tonight's game against the Western Conference's best team, the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Sixers had only nine players available and none of them included their three stars Joel Embiid,

The struggling Sixers take on an Oklahoma City Thunder team that has won 17 of their last 18 games and currently leads the Western Conference.