Big Nights From Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & Jalen Williams Lifts The Thunder Past Pelicans

Oklahoma City, OK – It’s game four of the six game homestead for the Thunder who welcome the Pelicans to town for an ESPN game appearance. This was supposed to be a premiere matchup for ESPN but both teams come into the game extremely injured with the Pelicans missing Zion Williamson, Herb Jones, CJ McCollum, DeJounte Murray, Jordan Hawkins, and Jose Alvarado while the Thunder are missing Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso, and Jaylin Williams.

While the Thunder come into the game as by far the more talented team, it wouldn’t be that easy of a game because the Pelicans will still play hard and push the Thunder for as long as they can which was evident by the start of the game. Pelicans came in on fire and got whatever they wanted for half the quarter jumping up by 12 and it caught the Thunder off guard a little. It seemed like the they weren’t expecting the Pelicans to play as hard as they did to start.

After a timeout and a few substitutions from Mark Daigneault though, the Thunder settled in and got things going with a 20-5 run to end the opening quarter. And it was their defense that was responsible for the run. Catapulted by Kenrich Williams who was an absolute menace, the Thunder started playing with a lot more energy and effort on defense. The point of attack was on point, got into the passing lanes more, and increased their physicality. Those things really helped get their offense going as they were able to beat the Pelicans up the floor and get easy looks which helped them gain control of the game and take a 33-28 lead after the first.

Thunder built their lead by as many as 10 in the second frame but the Pelicans wouldn’t go away. The big thing for the Thunder in the second was their lack of consistency.

“Challenges present themselves and you can either rise to it or let it beat you.” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander mentions when asked about the consistently 

And Thunder let the challenges of being consistent beat them a little to start the game and a little in the second quarter.

Not as consistent in the with their physicality, overall defense, and weren’t as consistent trying to create offense by getting to the paint. Pelicans did a good job of taking advantage of that lack of consistency also which helped them get back into the game and we’re only down four going into halftime.

Shai continued, “We tried to obviously rise to them. We try to not use them as excuses. With disadvantages comes advantages so we like to focus on the advantages and impose our will on them that way.” 

The consistency wasn’t an issue in the third quarter though.

Cason Wallace led the way defensively with how he pressured the ball handler creative havoc and the rest of the team followed along. Just like Kenrich Williams did in the first quarter getting things going for the Thunder. It was like Cason saw that and took it to the next level. They don’t need their stars to be the guys to get everyone going on either end of the floor.

That aspect of the Thunder is really something special for them to have. And it”s even more special that the stars are willing to be “followers” in these instances. Not many teams can say that but the really good ones can.

When speaking on Kenrich and Cason after the game Mark says, Everybody has a full opportunity to impact the team inside the role that they’re on and everybody has gained a lot of respect as a result of that. Kenrich is the longest standing [him and Lu] member of that club. I thought he really lifted the energy of the game tonight. Him and Ajay [Mitchell] went in there with great intensity. They amped up the physicality of the game. They changed the total tone. 

And then Cason I thought after, defensively in the first half, I didn’t quite think he was himself. In the third quarter he was outstanding. He went to another level. Which again is a skill. It’s hard to stay at an optimal level, a level of excellence for 82 games in all of your minutes. The recognition when you’re not, either as an individual or as a team, and then the ability to get on that in game is a skill. Cason did that tonight. Our team did that tonight.”

For the Thunder, especially without Chet and everyone else they’re missing, things are simple. Play consistent basketball on both ends of the floor and things will handle themselves. Even with all of the guys out due to injury, they will still have a lot of talent on the floor and will be able to at the very least compete with any team in the league. On a lot of nights they will have the most talent on the floor and that was the case again the Pelicans. Once the Thunder grabbed full control of the game in the third quarter they didn’t relinquish it from that point.

New Orleans tried to stay in the game but they just weren’t as talented as the Thunder and it was extremely evident. It’s one thing for the Thunder to be the more talented team but being the more talented team plus playing consistent basketball makes them much harder to beat. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” is a saying for a reason.

It does really help when your talent shows up though. And the Pelicans found that out the hard way as Jalen Williams and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander showed up in a big way. It was a great night from Shai and we’ve seen him have plenty of nights like this so it’s kind of an expected thing at this point. He filled the stat sheet with 29 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks and 2 steals. Jalen Williams is the story for the night though. Yes he’s had great games in his short career so far but tonight seemed a little different.

He was so good that Mark Daigneault, unprompted, wanted to give him a lot of praise during his post game presser.

“That guy was everywhere tonight. Literally everywhere.” Mark Daigneault when talking about Jalen Williams. 

There was nothing on the court he didn’t do tonight. He guarded the ball. He guarded the rim. He blocked the shots. He ran. He created plays. He made shots. He beat everybody down the floor on both ends. The energy that guy played with, the competitiveness. When you have a guy like him out there doing that, it checks a lot of the boxes.”

He was truly everywhere on the floor. Every time you looked up, he was making some kind of play for the Thunder. The Pelicans couldn’t escape him and it was special to watch. This is just the beginning for him too. We could be witnessing the birth of a really special player.

Led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams who both had very strong nights, the Thunder were able to get a 106-88 victory and move to 10-2 on the season. They will have a day of practice and then get ready to welcome Devin Booker and the Suns in their first NBA Cup game Friday night.

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