With Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams out injured again, Thunder falls at Pacers
INDIANAPOLIS — Chet Holmgren’s arms waved and flailed. He wore his likely exhaustion and understandable frustration, not just with foul calls but with all it took to move the Thunder’s offensive needle in its 126-112 loss to the Pacers.
Life without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams hasn’t exactly been as inspiring as a gallery of Basquiat canvases. Not since the first 43 minutes or so in Philadelphia, the team’s first game on the East Coast trip without both.
Its offense has only unraveled, stretched into positions it can hardly perform. It's desperately hoped for a closer, or at the least a level of creation that packs such a punch it turns a run into a breakout. Its rare pushes, like Friday’s third quarter of free throws and shotmaking back-and-forth with Indiana, aren’t so sustainable.
As Holmgren sat the final minutes of Friday’s loss from the bench with a towel wrapped around his neck, the effects of life without SGA and Williams sank in. The former played 71 games this season. The latter has played 67. In his first season, all Holmgren has known — all the Thunder has known — is lineups with his Big Three counterparts. Health, wealth, prosperity.
After a week of such stark change, the days likely feel longer than they’ve actually been for Holmgren and Co., with withdrawals of playing off of Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams making the slick, orange NBA basketball look like Wilson from “Cast Away.”
“At the end of the day, there's things that we can’t control, and what we can control is winning or losing this game to an extent,” Holmgren said.
Friday’s loss was self-explanatory; Without its couple of star co-creators, OKC shot just 48.8% from the field and 8 of 30 (26.7%) from deep. It coughed up 15 turnovers, the most during this three-game stretch. The way they came, whether strips on drives mostly necessary in this lineup or bad pass turnovers, felt often like the product of Gilgeous-Alexander’s control on the game being absent.
Holmgren notes that the team still hasn’t had a proper off day to scheme for his absent co-stars. Gilgeous-Alexander played in New York, with both him and coach Mark Daigneault citing he felt good going into the game. Williams was ruled out just before OKC’s game in Philly. Boston was the following day, and Holmgren says the Thunder used Thursday as a recovery day.
In the meantime, the Thunder has hoped to beat teams with connective actions, with excessive dribble handoffs or aggressive cuts. The first quarter was complete with timely backdoor cuts and finishes.
OKC’s available initiators have been stretched beyond their average usage. Lu Dort, who’s thrived attacking closeouts and as a catch-and-shoot threat, was forced to take 15 shots Friday, his second-highest single game attempts this season. Josh Giddey, who Daigneault lauded in Boston as an example of the sort of driving force OKC needs during this stretch, went 6 for 17 before finishing with 14 points, nine rebounds, 12 assists and five turnovers.
Friday marked the Thunder’s first three-game skid of the season. It only took the absence of its two best scorers for it to happen.
“We’re not panicking,” Giddey said. “We’re not flustered or worried as a team. We know what we’ve got here.”
An update on Gilgeous-Alexander
Gilgeous-Alexander's theatrical return in OKC’s game at Madison Square Garden felt like exactly that: a return. Not a setback, not a blip in the road.
Afterward, he said he felt ready. Daigneault noted that Gilgeous-Alexander felt good enough. With each game, the trip to New York begins to look like a strange outlier. The All-NBA guard has missed the pair of games since with the same quad injury, and according to Daigneault, was sent back to Oklahoma City on Thursday while the team finishes its road trip.
“We need to make sure he doesn’t decondition during this time, and gym access on the road is much more difficult to come by,” Daigneault said.
Asked if the team is approaching the final week of the regular season as if Gilgeous-Alexander won’t return, Daigneault denied that notion.
“The timetable is dictated by how (SGA and Williams) respond to the recovery and that whole process,” Daigneault said. “We just gotta let the time table play out.”
Is Daigneault encouraged by Gilgeous-Alexander’s response to recent treatment?
“He’s made progress,” he said. “I’m not encouraged or discouraged. He’s progressing through it.”
The severity of Gilgeous-Alexander’s injury and what a timeline looks like is unclear. As for Williams, who’s dealt with a number of ankle sprains this season and was upgraded to doubtful ahead of Friday, a return could happen sooner than later.
“That’s the NBA,” Holmgren said. “That’s not an excuse, that’s how it goes. Other teams go through, we go through it. This is just the point in the season when we’re going through it.”
More: How OKC Thunder coach Mark Daigneault is trying to 'find opportunity' with stars injured
Western Conference playoff picture
Timberwolves (53-24): Lost at Phoenix on Friday. Up next: at L.A. Lakers on Sunday.
Nuggets (53-24): Lost at LA Clippers on Thursday. Up next: vs. Atlanta on Saturday.
Thunder (52-25): Lost at Indiana on Friday night. Up next: at Charlotte on Sunday.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Thunder injuries mount up in third straight loss at Indiana Pacers
