Oklahoma City Thunder: Streak is over, time to move on to next game

“I think we wish it would have held all the way to the Finals and (we'd) just win it all,” Jackson said before turning serious. “But we understand. It's the game. In 82 games you're going to win some and lose some. We definitely wanted to keep the streak alive. But we're going to start from square one again Just get back, watch some film, try to get healthy and just prepare for Miami.”

The mind-set Collison mentioned is one that makes Durant confident his teammates can put the shocking setback past them and focus on the highly-anticipated NBA Finals rematch with Miami on Christmas day.

“We had a nice winning streak going, and I think we did a great job of just staying down and never getting too high about it,” Durant said. “So with a loss we just got to be the same way and just keep improving.”

A slow start Thursday proved costly and, as much as anything else, contributed to the loss. OKC trailed by 14 in the first quarter, two points shy of matching its largest deficit this season. It was the latest in a long line of subpar stretches the Thunder had during its streak, as the team either started slow or finished poorly in several games.

The difference Thursday was the Thunder couldn't close.

“Sometimes you have nights like that,” said Russell Westbrook. “We had a few, I think, during the streak but we were able to get over the hump. But (Thursday) was one of those nights where they always got the extra rebound or made the extra shot. It caught up with us.

“But it's one game. We're still in a good position. As a team we're still playing good basketball.”