J-Speaks: J-Speaks: The Thunder's Striking Four-Game Winning Streak

The Oklahoma City Thunder just missed making the Playoffs after they dropped their Play-In tilt at the Minnesota Timberwolves last spring. Behind their superstar lead guard and the return of their First-Round draft choice in June 2022, the Thunder have started this season with the objective of making the Playoffs this spring outright. They particularly showed that during their current winning streak, which included consecutive victories at the former NBA champions.

The Thunder (9-4) closed out this past week with a dominant 128-109 victory on Thursday night at the 2022 NBA champion Golden State Warriors on NBATV. That was followed by a comeback victory from 18 points down in the third quarter on Saturday night in their 130-123 overtime victory at the Warriors (6-8), giving the Thunder their fourth consecutive win and giving the four-time NBA champions since 2014-15 season to their sixth consecutive loss.

The Thunder also improved to an NBA-best 5-1 on the road (4-3 at home) in the early part of the 2023-24 NBA campaign.

The Thunder’s winning streak, which is a part of their string of six wins their last seven games following a 3-3 start to the 2023-24 NBA campaign began with a 111-99 victory Nov. 12 at the Phoenix Suns (6-6).

Two nights later, the Thunder ran the San Antonio Spurs (3-10) off their home floor in front of a national televised audience with a 123-87 victory on TNT.

The Thunder’s rise to being a team that has put them into the national headlines as a team that will be in the picture of making the Playoffs in a loaded Western Conference this spring is because the continued rise of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is putting himself in the running for Kia MVP and the rising play of former No. 2 overall pick in forward/center Chet Holmgren, who missed all of his official rookie season in 2022-23 with a foot injury sustained in August 2022 during a Pro AM game in Seattle, WA.

The man affectionately called SGA so far this season this season has registered 30-plus points in eight of the Thunder’s first 13 games. That included his 40-point performance with six assists, seven rebounds, two steals, and two blocks on 18/29 shooting on Saturday night at the Warriors.

Gilgeous-Alexander’s performance came on the heels of a 24 points with seven assists on three steals on Thursday night at the Warriors, where he despite going 6/21 shooting overall from the field, went 3/7 from three-point range and made all nine of his free throw attempts.

As great as Gilgeous-Alexander was at the Warriors where he scored 10 of his 40 points in overtime, the Thunder got to OT thanks to Holmgren’s tying three-pointer at the final buzzer off an inbounds pass from Josh Giddey to close regulation to tie it 117-117.

It capped the best scoring night for the No. 2 overall pick out of Gonzaga’s unofficial first season in the NBA where he scored a career-high and rookie franchise-record 36 points with 10 rebounds, five assists, two steals and two block shots on 14/22 from the field.

This was the second straight double-double with multiple block shots for Holmgren, who had 13 points and 10 boards in the Thursday night win by the Thunder at the Warriors.

“Ah man, it’s huge,” Holmgren, who had his fifth double-double on the season said to Bally Sports Oklahoma’s Nick Gallo about the comeback victory.

“Like you said we were down big at points but we stayed together. Really played for each other, you know? We were able to string together enough good plays to give us a chance at the end. Sent it to OT and then you know, No. 2 [Gilgeous-Alexander] took over and does what he does in OT really won us the game there.”

Holmgren’s performance along with SGA’s helped the Thunder overcome an 18-point deficit midway through the third quarter as they outscored the Warriors 66-56 in the third and fourth quarters combined and 13-6 in overtime. That came on the heels of getting outscored by the Warriors 30-18 in the second quarter to trail 61-51 at intermission.

“Yeah, he gave us a chance,” Gilgeous-Alexander said to Gallo after the win about Holmgren’s tying shot at the end of regulation to force overtime.

SGA added saying about Holmgren so far this season, “Kid’s a fighter. Every possession. Every play, he fights and he competes no matter what. And his skill set took over the fight mentality. He gave us an extra five minutes to go get the game, and fortunately enough we did.”

The Thunder closed overtime 11-3 after the Warriors’ perennial All-Star Chris Paul hit a corner three-pointer right in front of the Thunder’s bench to put the Warriors up 120-119 with 3:27 left in overtime.

That surge was led by Gilgeous-Alexander who went from hitting a fallaway jumper to put the Thunder up 126-123 with 1:10 left in overtime. He followed that up by blocking the potential tying three-pointer by the Warriors’ two-time Kia MVP Stephen Curry, which he turned into two points on a breakaway layup over Paul that sealed the win.

The Thunder put themselves in that position to have that finishing kick by what happened before the start of overtime.

Holmgren, after tying the game with said three-pointer at the final buzzer of regulation let out a loud scream while giving high fives to a couple of his teammates. But he and the rest of head coach Mike Daigneault’s squad quickly centered themselves to take care of business in the extra five minutes, continuing their ability while being so young to flip the script and take care of the matter at hand which was complete the comeback from 18 down.

Holmgren referenced a game last season where Gilgeous-Alexander hit a shot similar to what he did at the Warriors on Saturday night, but SGA was “ice cold,” showing no “emotion” because the game was not done. That kicked in for Holmgren after tying the game at the end of regulation with that aforementioned triple and the Thunder as just referenced put the focus back on the task at hand which was to take care of business in overtime which they did 13-6 as previously mentioned.

“After a few seconds, that kind of kicked in and I’m telling everybody like, ‘We’ve got OT.’ So we’ve still got to go win this game,” Holmgren added about that moment. “Obviously, that’s a big shot. But the game’s still going at that point. So, my mind tried to track forward to the next moment and the next play.”

The truth growth of a team that is trying to become a Playoff perennial and hopefully an NBA champion along that journey is being able to not only string together victories, especially early in the season but to register those wins against some of the best in the league, particularly in your conference.

At the start of this month the Thunder kicked of their In-Season Tournament schedule with a tough 141-139 loss versus the Warriors on Nov. 3, their second straight loss. That came on the heels of a 110-106 setback versus the New Orleans Pelicans (6-7) two nights earlier.

The Thunder since have found their groove, which began with that win at the Suns where they outscored them 31-13 in the fourth quarter where they led by as many as 12.

That was followed by a thrashing victory versus the Spurs, where the Thunder outscored their visitors from the “Alamo City” 95-62, the final three quarters, including 33-18 in the third quarter. They led by as many as 40 in the final period.

That night was centered around the matchup of No. 1 overall pick this past June in Victor Wembanyama of the Spurs and Holmgren of the Thunder.

Neither player sparkled in this first of many anticipated tilts for hopefully the next decade plus where Wembanyama had just eight points with 14 rebounds, and two blocks on 4/15 from the field. Holmgren also had just eight points with seven rebounds and two steals on just 3/10 from the floor, including 1/5 from three-point range.

“I just think we have great respect for their people, their players, their program,” Coach Daigneault said of the five-time NBA champion Spurs and Hall of Fame head coach Gregg Popovich. “It’s one game. It’s one of 82. It was our night. It wasn’t their night. But it’s zero-zero next time we play them.”

In the Thunder’s first win of their two-game set with the Warriors on Thursday night, Gilgeous-Alexander and Holmgren played well but they won the game where they led by as many as 21 points because of the play of the rest of their cast.

Isaiah Joe, who joined the Thunder a season ago after being let go last summer by the Philadelphia 76ers scored a season-high of 23 points off the bench going a sparkling 7/7 from three-point range. He played a huge part in the Thunder shooting 50.6 percent from the field (44/87 FGs) and 19/32 from three-point range.

Josh Giddey, the third so-called part of the Thunder’s “Core 3” alongside Gilgeous-Alexander and Holmgren added 19 points with six rebounds, and two steals. Second-year forward Jalen Williams scored 16 points with five boards and two steals. Reserve rookie guard Cason Wallace chipped in with 10 points and four assists.

In the Thunder’s win on Saturday night at the Warriors, as great as Gilgeous-Alexander and Holmgren were, they got good play from the Giddey and the rest of the cast that allowed Gilgeous-Alexander and Holmgren to take of business in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Williams scored 22 points with six rebounds on 8/16 from the field. Giddey added 11 points with five boards and two blocks. Joe scored 10 off the bench going 2/4 from three-point range.

Thunder’s 6-1 mark since Nov. 6 is tied with the Miami Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, and New York Knicks for the best mark in the NBA. The Thunder’s plus-12 point differential in this span is tops in the league. Their 49.6 field goal percentage and 40.3 percent from three-point range during this span is ranked No. 6 and No. 7 in “The Association” respectably.

How the Thunder’s dynamic duo finished was impressive against a Warriors squad that got back their top scoring ace in Curry, who had 25 points with seven boards on 5/11 from three-point range in his return from a two-game absence because of a sore knee.

“It’s impressive,” Gilgeous-Alexander said to Gallo about the Thunder sweeping the two-game set at the Warriors. “It’s a really good basketball team. Everybody knows that. They know how to win basketball games. They were a little short-handed the first game. Their desperate obviously with their losing streak. We knew that they were going to play hard, play together and it’s going to be a 48-minute game. Well in this case it was 53 [minutes].”

“But we knew that we were going to have to fight. We were going to have to compete the whole game if we wanted to get a W [Win]. And we did enough for two nights to get two w’s against a really good team.”

Last season, the Oklahoma City Thunder just missed making the 2023 Playoffs falling dropping their Western Conference Play-In tilt at the Minnesota Timberwolves, who claimed the No. 8 and final Playoff spot.

The Thunder’s start to this season, which includes their two wins at the Golden State Warriors as part of their four-game winning streak has shown they want to be in prime position this spring to earn outright their first Playoff berth since 2020.

If they continue to get the performances they have gotten from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a legitimate Kia MVP candidate and Chet Holmgren, a top candidate for Kia Rookie of the Year, the Thunder will be in 2024 Playoffs as long as they remain healthy and hungry like they were in their two wins at the Warriors.

J-Speaks

Sunday, November 19, 2023

J-Speaks: The Thunder's Striking Four-Game Winning Streak

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