Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads OKC Thunder to rout of defending NBA champion Nuggets
There would be no final tango.
No breath being held, no meteoric late run, no necessary solo that required Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s best Michael Jackson impression to stutter and stop into the spots he knows best.
There would be no sign of the defending champion Denver Nuggets in Oklahoma City’s 119-93 Friday night win, or the boyish team stumbling from 40 wins to resemble their process. At all.
Only the team full of ambitious 20-somethings trying to upend them.
After needing to put Peyton Watson on an island a couple weeks ago for a win, Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t leaving a second trip to chance, or in the hands of the world’s craftiest big man.
There was no adequate box for the All-Star guard, who delivered 40 points (14 for 20), four rebounds, three assists, two 3-pointers and an everlasting, daunting presence.
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The pace, the touch, the unguardable flow and impossible-to-defend hotspots. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.
Gilgeous-Alexander has elevated himself beyond being a basketball savant into wizardry. He’s manufactured this helpless reality, forcing victims into a time loop in which they repeatedly stumble short of his jumpers — a storyline as old as Betty White was.
Maybe his next act will be to force the hands that cast an MVP ballot.
It was his hands that helped frustrate two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, adding two steals while harassing him until he finished with seven turnovers and just 10 shots.
For as much as coach Mark Daigneault has formulaically, almost robotically spewed his virtues of competitive fire, of five-man defense, and of connectivity, his young Thunder played the tune like a symphony on Friday.
Rookie Chet Holmgren, who finished with 24 points, six rebounds and two blocks, spooked drivers and roamed into lanes. With Lu Dort tailing him and gnawing at screens, Denver’s Jamal Murray finished with nine points on 4-for-15 shooting — just his second single-digit scoring game of the season. In the first he’d played just 10 minutes.
Jalen Williams flexed the weight he added in the offseason. Jaylin Williams completed what might’ve been the best defensive sequence at the rim of his career. The Nuggets scored their third-fewest total points in a game this season before losing by the largest margin of their season.
And in the end, there was no tango. Only a hotshot team showing off on its date with destiny.
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Things aren’t normal in OKC
For every statement win, every jaw-dropping sequence and well-matched meeting, it feels like the Thunder will plop down to reality. Like it’ll hit a wall the way young teams do. Only this season, that hasn’t quite come yet.
After Friday’s win, OKC advanced toward the NBA’s best road record at 9-4. It’s uncommon, and anyone who pleads that they saw it coming is either Dr. Strange or is owed a polygraph test. The level of maturity, the ability to generate good possessions late into games on both ends or just simply blow a good team out of the water like it did Friday has been strange.
Part of what’s seemingly worked for OKC — just as much as it’s been used as an argument — is ironically its lack of postseason experience. Outside of the few games when teams went out of their way to leave Josh Giddey alone on offense, there hasn’t been a set way to defend the Thunder.
Perhaps it’s because no team has properly dug into an obsessive game plan on the Thunder the way they would in a playoff series. Denver has now played OKC three times, and after smacking OKC around in its home opener, it’s seen different results and added its second and third losses at Ball Arena this year.
Regardless of personnel, regardless of scheme or any brain behind a clipboard — when the Thunder plays like it has this week, how much can you actually do?
Outside of Holmgren and Gilgeous-Alexander, who combined for 35 points then, the team was 9 for 27 and 1 for 14 from 3 at the half. Two days removed from a career-high in points, Jalen Williams seemed only able to facilitate for a while. And once again, OKC was unimpressive in Denver’s non-Jokic, non-Murray minutes.
The Thunder still delivered a hefty third quarter to not just win, but eventually dominate the Nuggets.
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JWill … block shots?
Jaylin Williams, primarily deployed to draw charges and add another physical, more traditional body for a center, did something wild Friday.
It might’ve been the craziest defensive sequence of his career.
With OKC ahead 10 with 6:21 left in the third quarter, Williams slid toward the rim on a fastbreak. Williams tends to be grounded and sturdy, to fold his arms across his torso before he’d ever raise up with them airborne. But when he saw Michael Porter Jr., he changed his stance.
Williams shot up as Porter Jr. did, leaping with one hand to swat the shot. It didn’t end there. When Jalen Williams — yes, the other one — kept the ball alive by tossing it behind him, Peyton Watson immediately stole it and charged back toward the rim. He should’ve known what would come next.
Jaylin Williams shuffled his feet together to draw a charge, the Thunder began to stack its run, and Williams continued to play a sound role in Jokic’s quiet night.
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Thunder tip-ins
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 40 points, his fifth game of 40-plus points this season, second most in the NBA.
Chet Holmgren’s 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the first quarter, were (unsurprisingly) a career high for points in a quarter. Holmgren got out to a wildly efficient and effective start Friday. In three meetings, the rookie is averaging 20 points, 7 rebounds and 3.3 blocks against Jokic. Maybe Holmgren won't need that extra burger after all.
The Oklahoman's well-celebrated columnist, Joe Mussatto, pointed out a box score from two years ago to the day Friday. In a 115-97 loss to Phoenix sans Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC started Isaiah Roby, Ty Jerome, Aaron Wiggins, Lu Dort and Paul Watson. Jerome had a 24-point, 22-shot game. Every starter but Roby played at least 35 minutes. Scotty Hopson played 18 minutes, his one and only game with the Thunder. And in two years, fans have gone from ripping their hair out to wanting to give Sam Presti a Nobel Prize for the way this thing is unfolding.
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Thunder vs. Nets
TIPOFF: 6 p.m. Sunday at Paycom Center (Bally Sports Oklahoma)
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder routs Nuggets behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's 40 points
