How did Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC Thunder hold off Timberwolves? 'Lot of grit'

MINNEAPOLIS — No two wins in the NBA are the same.

Some are remarkable. Some are baffling, some strange. Breathtaking. Ugly. Uglier.

There’s the rare occasion that a win is all the above. That kind of win, like the Thunder’s 102-97 victory in Minnesota on Saturday, can show a team a glimpse of who it really is.

“We’re able to figure out, when adversity hits against one of the best teams in the NBA, what we’re made of,” Thunder forward Jalen Williams said.

A win that was out of reach and yet a hair away. An off day turned résumé win. A win with gut wrenching stepbacks, fouls that nearly negated them, and missed free throws to make it like the late push never mattered.

Wins like that produce vibes — which hip, 38-year-old coach Mark Daigneault has become an expert on. Sensations that gravitate giddy teammates into group postgame interviews and shared camera time.

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Screen time filled with mischievous background characters like what Jalen Williams, Jaylin Williams and Chet Holmgren were to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on Saturday. Nodding and cheesing and pitching SGA’s MVP case when he wasn’t looking. The pressure, the anxiety, the gall required to win a game like Saturday’s seemingly only strengthens what they’ve built.

“When you have the close-knit kind of chemistry we have as a team, it has no choice but to jump onto the court with us,” Jalen Williams said. “We do a good job of constantly accepting that role with each other. I think the best teams are some of the closest teams. … I think that goes a long way with how we’re kind of able to withstand runs.”

Runs like the 18-2 slide Minnesota turned in after OKC’s hot start. The Thunder endured a storm, stuck in the mud by its own eventual shot selection. So much of what it went on to shoot was what the Timberwolves would allow.

Minnesota’s defense acted like a straitjacket dipped in honey, coated with adhesive, nailed to any livable, breathable window of offense. And in the third quarter, the Thunder went 6 for 20 (1 for 6 from 3). The Timberwolves piled it on by drilling 14 of their 37 3-point attempts.

Gilgeous-Alexander has likely never turned down a jacket in his life. But he freed the Thunder from Minnesota’s bondage, helping force seven of its 21 turnovers and dictating the flow of quarter OKC needed him for most. The Thunder went on a 23-8 run to end the game — a game it won while shooting 39.5% against the league’s best defense.

Down the stretch, the Thunder found out all it cared to about itself.

“Lot of grit,” Jalen Williams said of the team’s makeup. “Very competitive. Very together. Thunder-esque. We’re a very close group. I think games like this, win or lose, bring us really close together. We lean on each other during these road trips.”

They see themselves in each other. It adds meaningful context to the two, three, sometimes four-man postgame interview link ups. If one moves, so do the others. If one speaks, they'll all be around to deliver the adlibs.

“We win together,” Daigneault said. “We lose together. We struggle together. We come together in adversity. They just do everything together, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

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SGA’s perspective

He limped in Oklahoma City a week earlier. He looked off in Los Angeles days later. On the verge of a similar path Saturday, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander changed his fate.

Eleven points, 4-for-6 shooting, an antidote for what Minnesota had been doing and one final stepback to put the nail in the coffin. Gilgeous-Alexander, a manipulator of human motion, worked up a night of trips to the free throw line (12 for 13) to set up plays like the one that gave OKC an upper hand.

Jaden McDaniels, by then terrified of SGA lulling him to sleep before bursting toward the cup, stepped back. Way back. SGA did the same. McDaniels, backpedaling rapidly, froze with both his feet just above the free throw line. Gilgeous-Alexander only need a dribble to glide back outside the arc and hit the biggest shot of the night.

He finished with 33 points and six assists. He’d had a questionable week considering the standard he’s built halfway through the season. Daigneault, who isolates every game, quarter, sequence and possession, didn’t put much stock into SGA’s uncharacteristic outings to start the road trip.

"This is a month,” Daigneault said. “The travel, the opponents. The tightness of the games. ... No one's feeling great. No one's feeling great in the NBA. I just thought we showed great toughness tonight. It was mind over matter, (SGA) included.”

SGA, who battled games with defenses pushing him out of his comfort zone, didn’t seek answers. He had his all along.

“I know success is a rollercoaster,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s not gonna be sunshine and rainbows 24/7. You’re gonna have ups and downs. I prepare for nights where I’m not making shots like I usually do. … I know, to get to where I want to be as a player, there’s gonna be ups and downs and learning experiences.”

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Road trippin'

January has been a telling month. Faced with a log jam of games, the Thunder has stared at its flaws. It dealt with late arrivals and back-to-back blues and all the things serious teams have to win through.

So far, it’s kept its grip on the second seed in the West. It’s taken some revelations along the way. Like the Clippers’ celebration after pushing OKC overboard being a sign of the times.

After defending the likes of Karl Anthony-Towns, Lauri Markkanen, LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard all on the same trip, Jalen Williams learned how much ice is required after a week like this.

The Thunder four teams’ best punches this week. They walked away .500 and with better perspective.

“They're understanding the effort that it's gonna take to win against us,” Holmgren said of the Timberwolves. “We have to have that same mentality every single night, knowing that teams are juiced up to play us. We can’t come out expecting to win any game, we have to make wins happen.”

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Thunder tip-ins

• Part of Saturday’s peculiar finish was Lu Dort’s foul as Anthony Edwards leaned into a 3. Daigneault noted that he’d hoped to foul the Timberwolves in the backcourt, but that the way they advanced the ball was too funky to execute the design. “Lesson for us,” Daigneault said.

• With his 33-point performance Saturday, SGA became the eighth player in NBA history to record 30 or more 30-point games through a season’s first 41 games. The rest of the list? Wilt Chamberlain (5x), Michael Jordan (2x), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nate Archibald, Rick Barry, Elgin Baylor, and Luka Doncic. For attendance purposes, that’s the guy who plenty believe is the G.O.A.T., a crop of players who played before TV had color and one of SGA’s greatest contemporaries.

• Saturday marked the Thunder’s 25th double-digit comeback win since the start of last season, tied for the most in the NBA in that span.

Thunder vs. Trail Blazers

TIPOFF: 7 p.m. Tuesday at Paycom Center (Bally Sports Oklahoma)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads OKC Thunder past Minnesota Timberwolves