OKLAHOMA CITY — Three thoughts on the Jazz's 109-106 loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder from KSL.com's Utah Jazz beat writer, Andy Larsen.

1. Thunder get improbably hot from three

See that 3-point margin? By sheer coincidence, that also happens to be the difference in tonight's game in another way: the Thunder's improbably hot shooting from distance that somehow won them a game they wouldn't have won otherwise.

The Thunder are the very worst 3-point shooting team in the league. They are last. So naturally, it was the Thunder who were the first NBA team since 1998 (the Seattle Sonics, a team that doesn't exist anymore, and no, the Thunder are not the Sonics) to make 12 consecutive threes to open the game. If they make, say, 11 threes to begin the game, the Jazz probably win.

I can't stress enough how improbable this is.

One in 300,000! That's ridiculous! It's more likely that you're killed by lightning in your life (about 70,000 to one).

Now, truth be told, that probably overstates the odds a little bit. The Jazz were trying to defend the paint, opening up the 3-point shot for the Thunder. And of course, there are many 12-shot stretches of 3-point shooting, though it's more notable that it was to begin the game. The Thunder finished shooting 68.2 percent from beyond the arc, which is the NBA's third best shooting performance by any team this season.

But no matter how you adjust the variables, we witnessed such a weird and statistically improbable thing tonight, and it made the difference in the game. That's a harsh reality for the Jazz, who are fighting for home court advantage in the playoffs.

A quick aside: Googling these sorts of odds led me to find out about Littlewood's Law. Littlewood's Law, proposed by Cambridge professor John Littlewood, states that a person can expect to experience an event with odds of about one in a million at a rate of about one a month. This was slightly more likely than that, so adjust your perceptions accordingly.

2. And yet, Jazz still had, and lost, the chance to win

And yet, despite the above, the Jazz had the chance to win if they could have just made their own open threes late in the game. Gordon Hayward had a wide-open look with 20 seconds left that would have given the Jazz a four point lead, and George Hill had a great look with 10.9 left that would have earned the Jazz the lead again. Neither shot went down.

That was unfortunate, because it came at the end of a 25-8 Jazz run that got them back into the game in seven minutes' time. The bulk of it came on the back of the small-ball George Hill/Rodney Hood/Gordon Hayward/Joe Johnson/Rudy Gobert lineup that's been so successful for the Jazz all season long.

But getting into the final minute of the game benefitted the Thunder, because it allowed them to play one possession at a time and substitute different players in for offense and defense. Enes Kanter and Alex Abrines came in for the Thunder on offense, giving them spacing and offensive rebounding, then they could be removed on defense where the Jazz could easily hurt them.

The biggest possession of the game for the Jazz went poorly, though. With 5.7 seconds left and down two points, Joe Johnson caught the ball in the corner, then drove on Steven Adams. He looked to have a clear look at a reverse layup, but instead passed the ball to Jerian Grant.

I like Johnson, but he needs to be sure there, and making an interior no-look pass with two seconds left seems unwise. It was a surprising mistake from the veteran scorer.

3. Taking care of the ball

More irony: despite the last possession ending in such a bad turnover, the Jazz overall did an excellent job of holding on to the ball all night. They finished with just seven turnovers. Meanwhile, Russell Westbrook had eight by himself, and the Thunder finished with 14.

That's a nice turnaround for the Jazz after they had 24 giveaways against the Washington Wizards Sunday afternoon. In particular, while the bench wasn't incredibly productive tonight, all of the Jazz's bench players combined for just two turnovers.

The starters deserve credit too: Hayward and Favors didn't have any, Gobert had just one inside, and Hill and Hood had two each. That two turnovers for Hill actually eclipses his season average: he averages just 1.6 turnovers per game. Given that Hill touches the ball 76 times per game, according to NBA SportVu data, and passes it 56 times per game, that's a pretty incredible number.

Give Hayward credit for holding onto the ball far more frequently this year too: he's turned his average from 2.5 turnovers per game to 1.9. Certainly more spacing this season has certainly helped, but Hayward's holding onto the ball in big situations this season.

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