Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s Career & Historic Lifts The Thunder Past Clippers In First Game Without Chet

Oklahoma City, OK – It’s the second night of a back to back for the Thunder who welcome the Clippers to town who have won their last four games and have pushed every team they’ve played this season.

It is going to be a little tougher for the Thunder after Chet Holmgren was injured Sunday night and will be out for at minimum 8-10 weeks due to an iliac wing fracture.

“These are resilient high character people and that’s on display time and time again. It’s pretty routine at this point.” Mark Daigneault when asked about playing without Chet. 

It’s going to be a really tough blow for the team that is already without Jaylin Williams and Isaiah Hartenstein but they do get Enrich Williams back. This changes the way they way they have to play and messing up them really trying to build continuity when they’re trying to win a championship.

It’s the hand they’ve been dealt though and they will try and thrive in the process.

Going into the game against the Clippers everyone knew that the Thunder would have to go really small but I don’t think many people realized just how small they would be. OKC started the game with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Isaiah Joe, and Aaron Wiggins. Their tallest starter was as tall as they’re the second shortest starter. There are certainly advantages of playing small and the Thunder know how to play to those advantages really well but there are also plenty of disadvantages.

We saw both in the opening frame. The positive being the were able to play at even a faster pace than they have been and it really made things tougher for the Clippers. The big negative was the lack of size and the Clippers took full advantage of that going to the offensive glass early. The positive and negative were pretty even to start the game and the Thunder took the early advantage with a 25-24 lead after the first.

It didn’t take long for the Thunder to find a more comfortable groove and exploit the Clippers a little more though. They came into the second quarter a little more decisive on both ends of the floor and it really helped them get going.

“Yea last night [vs. the Warriors] we were just really slow on a lot of plays.” Daigneault on the decisiveness agains the Clippers. 

“We were able to crack their intial defense and then we weren’t off of it early,” Daigneault continued. We weren’t ahead of them really until the last third and fourth quarter. Tonight we were much better. We had our cracks tonight. We still drove it. We still got our advantages but then we moved off early. We got great shots, made our share of them, missed a high number job quality looks as well. But we were able to weather a really good treatment with the possession battle.”

Made quick decisions on their shots and it really helped get their offense get going especially their three point shooting as they hit 7-13 in the frame. Defensively, they were all over the floor and had excellent rotation that threw the Clippers offense off a little.

The Thunder grabbed control of the game early in the second and didn’t really relinquish from that point. Getting whatever they wanted and being pests on the defensive end making things very hard for the Clippers. Getting up by as many as 20 points in the third quarter it looked like the Thunder were on their way to a very convincing win.

Insert Norman Powell and Ivaca Zubac.

Powell and Zubac got going in the third quarter and it wasn’t anything the Thunder could really do about it. Powell just got really hot and was hitting shots all over the court over the really good Thunder defense while Zubac and the Clippers finally realized that he was by far the biggest guy on the floor and all he had to do was be physical down low and there was nothing the Thunder could do to stop him. Those two helped spark a 20-8 run to pull within 3 late in third and it was a close game from then on. At that point it became which team would make the least amount of mistakes for the rest of the game and that was the Thunder.

JDub pushing the pace. Looking at the box score and seeing that the Thunder only had 16 fast break points it wouldn’t seem that way but playing faster doesn’t always result in a lot of fast break points. Especially for this Thunder team.

“Try and get out in transition. We’re small and you never want to play slow when you’re small. That’s just how we play too.” Jalen Williams on pushing the pace for most of the night for the Thunder. 

“You’re a little slow against Golden State and try to pick it up a little here. You’re not trying to play against the set defense as much. When we did play against a set defense we kind of have the same mindset of moving the ball, getting off of it, cutting. Kind of trusting somebody else to make a play.”

SGA getting to his spots leading to a career high 45 points. He was also the first player in NBA history with a 45 point and 5 steal game.

Guys like Lu, Isaiah Joe, and Caruso stepping up and hitting clutch shots. It was all just too much for the Clippers over the course of the 4th despite them pulling within 2 late. The poised from this young squad showed once again and it helped the Thunder pull out a 134-128 victory in their first game without Chet.

Despite giving up 128, allowing the Clippers to shoot 55% from the field and 54.1% from 3, it wasn’t a bad defensive night for the Thunder at all. This is one of those games you have to look beyond the box score. Clippers hit quite a few tough shots but the Thunder defense was pretty good. The 24 forced turnovers is evident of that. Seems crazy to say but this is one of those game where you had to watch and not box score watch.

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