Thunder vs Pelicans takeaways: Josh Giddey, Jalen Williams lead OKC to 50th win of season

NEW ORLEANS — The poetry didn’t come from Sam Presti, who wasn’t shy in penning his piece when the Thunder turned the page on its previous era. Or Mark Daigneault, OKC’s quick-witted, 38-year-old coach who often flexes his sarcastic muscles.

The ink was spilled by the Thunder’s young core Tuesday night. On the same night it was stripped of a 20-point lead like a gold chain, forced to wrestle it back in a 119-112 triumph in New Orleans, OKC tallied its 50th win of the season.

Only these Thunder could write such a poetic storyline; It finished a wild, anxiety-inducing game with the serenity of a poise that toggled in and out of its grasp.

So much of its season has been unpredictable and yet understandable. Pummeling good teams, falling to a few bad teams, leading the league in comeback wins from double-digit deficits, watching vast leads evaporate before sitting up in its seat.

OKC played a dangerous game on Tuesday and won. Again. And perhaps, by now, nothing can show its young core how the dice rolls quite like games of Tuesday's nature. Not Daigneault, not anyone but the whims and woes of the NBA’s long season.

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"In 82 games, you're just gonna get such a diverse sample of things and you're going to have to play a lot of different types of games,” Daigneault said. ‘You're gonna play with leads, you're gonna play from behind. We'd like to play with leads as much as possible and we'd like to hold leads as much as possible. … But you have to be able to handle a lot of different situations and competition, and I thought our guys just showed great toughness in a pretty hostile environment."

The Thunder got that lead playing the basketball that’s defined its season. By sliding defensively and holding the Pelicans to a first-half stretch in which it shot 2 for 11 from deep. Jalen Williams did a stepback so filthy it sent his defender flying out of the frame.

Williams and friends wrapped up Zion Williamson (29 points & 10 assists) as well as they could. Williamson, the world’s only living bowling ball, spun into his own space and creases in the defense, knocking OKC’s shell down pin by pin. But the Thunder managed to make Williamson commit four turnovers in the second quarter. When Daigneault’s challenge stole a bucket from him and made Bill Kennedy public enemy No. 1 in New Orleans, the lead ballooned.

Giddey blossomed, hitting the Pels in the mouth with a shotmaking display unlike he’s dealt anyone. An eight-point burst to open, a nine-point third quarter without missing a shot. Giddey gave a consistent answer Tuesday. OKC needed one.

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After CJ McCollum hit 3 after 3 in an explosive run, OKC’s offense failed to match, with late-clock blunders any anything but responses for a scorching Pelican quarter.

With three minutes remaining, New Orleans had an inaudible building, playoff-level momentum after a series of unfathomable sequences, and a five-point lead.

Then the Thunder closed the game on a 12-0 run, the kind of switch it has flipped on almost by command this season — and perhaps more times than it’d like.

“I wouldn't say (we’re) comfortable with it,” said Williams, who scored six of his 26 points inside the final three minutes. “I think we just understand basketball is a game of runs. … we're gonna be on the verge of some of them. We're gonna be on the other end. It's just basketball.”

Surviving 30-point droughts, knocking off contenders. Perhaps no team has found such solace in its range of results. Then again, how many teams have floated to the surface, clutching to 50 wins with room for 60, given the Thunder's circumstances?

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Giddey helps carry the offensive load

Turning a corner in practicality after being used in a series of different ways is one thing. But the way Giddey has played these past two games is something else entirely.

Perhaps it's a tad of variance. But there's also a notable shift in confidence that’s helped him stand out to a degree he hadn’t this season up to this point.

“Anytime any player sees the ball go in the rim, you start to get confidence and the rim starts to become bigger,” said Giddey, who finished with 25 points, nine rebounds and five 3s. “Those shots start to feel easier.”

Attempts like his push shot, which appeared wacky early in the year but has felt safe in recent weeks, and especially Tuesday. Or his 3-pointers, which sent the Pelicans out of their zone, then into closeouts, then (in part) sent Jonas Valanciunas off the floor entirely. His final one, a heartbeat during a dead stretch of OKC offense, felt as bold as any.

It even translated to the other end, a realm with less solutions for Giddey.

“A lot of it’s effort,” Giddey said. “I think maybe early in my career, early in the season, it kinda wavered. I let the offensive side impact the defensive side. Just getting out of that habit and playing each possession on its own.”

This version of Giddey, at this point of the season, is an intriguing development. What parts of this stretch are sustainable for him will be the question. On Tuesday, he was the driving force in pushing back on the Pelicans.

“We don’t flinch,” Giddey said.

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Thunder tip-ins

• Daigneault swapped Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams’ typical rotational minutes in the first half. SGA, who typically plays the length of the first quarter, exited halfway through Tuesday’s. Williams, who typically runs the unit to start the second quarter, was replaced by Gilgeous-Alexander. “We need to stay aggressive in understanding all the tools in the toolbox with our team, and that's one thing we hadn't looked at,” Daigneault said. “And we wanted to take a look at it. We wanted to see what Shai looked like in shorter rotations. We want to see what Dub looked like in longer rotations. We wanted to see how that changed our substitution in the beginning of the second quarter, and it continues to make us a moving target for our opponents.”

• Aaron Wiggins, who surely could’ve been used before the Pelicans swallowed OKC’s lead, didn’t play Tuesday. Asked whether it was a matter of rest or preparing for the team’s back-to-back, Daigneault denied either notion. "He was live,” Daigneault said. “I just thought with the start we got off to, with the groups that were out there, I just kind of rolled with them, and it kind of drifted him out of rotation. It wasn't necessarily pre-planned. In fact, I was planning on using him but we were in such a good rhythm."

• The Pelicans did two things that have usually spelled defeat for the Thunder: It won the turnover battle (9 to 12) and edged OKC in fastbreak points (18 to 13). Both aspects have become this Thunder team’s brand, a style that’s sustainability has been questioned come the postseason. It’s a one-game sample size, but a game in which OKC had enough room to earn a 20-point lead, lose it, and still win without two of its identifiable traits is an interesting data point.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Josh Giddey leads OKC Thunder past Pelicans for 50th win of season