The Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers are set to rematch in the Moda Center on Wednesday for the second night of this same team, same venue, back-to-back set. On Tuesday night, the Thunder were dismantled in the second half by the Trail Blazers to the tune of a 20 point loss.

The Thunder set their sights at a bounce back performance and hope to earn a split to start this four game season long road trips. There are plenty of storylines to follow in this matchup.

3 Critical Storylines to Watch in OKC Thunder vs. Portland Trail Blazers

1) Can the OKC Thunder Get Away with Double Big Minutes?

Perhaps the Thunder's defense would have been better in slowing Deni Avdija and limiting Portland inside the arc by packing the paint and limiting the Trail Blazers 3 point shooting by grabbing more defensive rebounds to eliminate second-chance points. The problem? Not only will this lead to wide-open corner threes, but Oklahoma City may not have enough bodies to pull this off. The injury report for Wednesday's game will come out later this afternoon, but a night ago the team only had two healthy centers in Isaiah Hartenstein and Aday Mara. The Blazers' size isn't letting up and makes it hard to play small ball, which the Thunder would likely need to do if Mara and Hartenstein played stretches together. Beyond that, the team tried double-big in the third quarter of Tuesday's game, and it didn't offer much resistance to a comfortable Portland team that won the frame by 17 points en route to a blowout win. Getting a healthy Jaylin Williams would give them the ability to, perhaps, see Portland rest Robert Williams III, would allow them to if either or both of those things were to happen. It remains an unknown for now.

2) Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Needs an MVP level outing

Yesterday wasn't a bad game for the back-to-back NBA MVP on the surface, but for the standard of arguably the best player in the world, it certainly wasn't good enough. For the requirement of what this short-handed team needs from him to get wins over quality foes, it was beyond subpar. These games are going to happen, especially as the nights compound on themselves as the Bricktown Ballers continue their banged-up campaign. But tonight, for the Thunder to salvage a split in Portland, they need Gilgeous-Alexander to take over the contest and will them to a win. Things will get easier for Oklahoma City over the weekend against the lowly Clippers and Kings, but tonight has to be an empty the clip game for the back-to-back NBA MVP before more being asked of the supporting cast to beat weaker matchups to close the week.

3) Can OKC generate better offense?

The Oklahoma City Thunder shot 44% from the floor, 36% from beyond the arc, and 77% at the charity stripe last night against these Blazers. Those numbers are better than the eye test. The Thunder labored to generate high-quality looks in the second half, no matter if they were searching for triples or just trying to get clean looks inside the arc, it was not a winning formula for the Bricktown Ballers. Can the OKC Thunder figure out a way to crack this long, physical, and tough Portland defense despite being on the second night of a back-to-back? Sure, you can clamor for more triples, but the reality for OKC remains that none of its offense was clean after intermission a night ago. That has to change to have a chance to win.