OKLAHOMA CITY — The manner in which the Oklahoma City Thunder clinched their spot in the NBA Finals seemed fitting.
It was a blowout.
Those have been the story of the Thunder season.
There hasn’t been a team in NBA history with at least 12 wins by 30 points or more in a season — or with four such wins in a single postseason — until now. The Thunder are putting together one of the most dominant years in league history in terms of outscoring opponents. The most recent entry on that list: a 124-94 romp over Minnesota to clinch the Western Conference title, a score that probably could have been a lot worse if the Thunder were so inclined.
“This isn’t our goal,” Thunder guard, NBA MVP and West finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We didn’t start the season like we want to win the West. We want to win the NBA championship. Now we are a step closer to our goal and we’re happy about that. But it’s still four more games to go win, four really hard games to go win and we have to be the best version of ourselves for four nights to reach the ultimate goal.”
The league scoring champion did his part and now he’s got a shot at an NBA title. It was another example of how playoff basketball appears to have slowed down for him. He forced things at times in the first round against Memphis and in the second round against Denver. Against Minnesota, he was back to making the game look easy. He made 14 of 25 shots and committed just two turnovers in Game 5.
“I think he does a great job of playing aggressive and then letting the game tell him what the right play is,” Thunder forward Chet Holmgren said. “Sometimes that’s score, sometimes that’s to pass. But you never really feel like watching him or playing with him — you never feel like he made the wrong read.”
For the series, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 31.4 points, 8.2 assists and 5.2 rebounds per game and received the Magic Johnson Trophy for MVP of the Western Conference Finals.
None of that will matter when the Thunder play either the Indiana Pacers or the New York Knicks in the Finals, starting June 5. The Pacers lead the Eastern Conference finals series 3-1 with Game 5 in New York City on Thursday night.
“We have to be the best version of ourselves for four nights to reach the ultimate goal,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We understand that, we know that, and that’s what we’re focused on.”
The Thunder have a week off before playing again — raising some concerns about the layoff hurting the team’s momentum.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault expects his young players to handle the situation just like they’ve handled everything else that’s been thrown at them this season.
“They’re highly professional, consistently professional,” he said. “They’re high-character people. They come from high-character circles. They’re unbelievably competitive. They put the work in behind it consistently through the ups and downs. And most of all, they are team first.”
The Thunder have had long breaks between games during the playoffs the past two years, with mixed results.
They swept the New Orleans Pelicans in last year’s first round, then beat Dallas 117-95 at home in Game 1 of the conference semifinals after waiting eight days between games. The Thunder eventually lost that series 4-2.
After this year’s series against Memphis, the Thunder were in a similar situation. Denver’s first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers went seven games, so Daigneault gave the players some extra rest since there were nine days between games. The focus for the team was less on an opponent at first and more on fine-tuning his team’s issues.
“I mean, really just reinforcement of fundamentals,” he said heading into the Denver series. “The game defensively is going to come down to transition D (defense), it’s going to come down to individual D, help D, coverage, communication, closeouts, rebounding. So we’re looking at the series through that lens. And then offensively, (we’ll take) all the fundamentals on that end of the floor that transcend each coverage and pull it up.”
The Thunder lost to Denver 121-119 at home in Game 1 of the conference semifinals, but came back and won Game 2 131-80 and eventually won the series 4-3.
Daigneault’s team learns well on the fly, so no experience is wasted for the squad that posted a league-best 68-14 record in the regular season.
“This team, as they’ve always done, they just internalize the experience,” he said. “They strip the emotion, they learn the lesson and then they compete presently in the next moment. And that’s why we improved at the rate that we have.”
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