Before you could even settle down, Chet Holmgren already had a couple of outside buckets. Motivated by a poor performance in Indiana, he wanted to wash away the sour taste in his mouth. Fair to say he did that with one of his best scoring games in a while.

Holmgren finished with 31 points on 8-of-12 shooting, 12 rebounds and one assist. He shot 6-of-8 from 3 and went 9-of-10 on free throws. He also had one block and three steals.

The Oklahoma City Thunder had a stress-free 117-100 win over the Atlanta Hawks. They’re now 3-0 in the 2025-26 regular season. And no 2OTs were needed.

Usually, Holmgren teases the Thunder with a hot start. A majority of his points happen in the first quarter. The rest of the game, he fades into the background as a scorer. Instead, he hunted his shot out all game. He had 14 points in the opening frame. The outside shot was as crisp as a McDonald’s Sprite.

After it looked like Holmgren hurt his hand on a block attempt, he returned with his thumb covered in black tape. That didn’t scare him off from looking for his shot. The scoring aggressiveness continued in the second half. This time, the seven-footer attacked the basket.

“We all know what happened. I got dunked on and dislocated my thumb at the same time. It didn’t look too bad. Obviously, my thumb was where it wasn’t supposed to be. I see my thumb every day. It didn’t look like it normally does. It also didn’t look like completely done for,” Holmgren said. “I tried to tell them to pop it back into place during the timeout. Because I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. But they said I had to go for X-rays. That’s why I went to the back.”

Avoiding an injury scare, Holmgren can view his sole trip to Atlanta this season as a successful business trip. He had one of his best scoring games in a while. The Thunder need him to play like this while Jalen Williams remains out. He showed off why so many believe he has room to grow on the offensive side of the game — including Mark Daigneault.

“I don’t want to speak for him, but I think he was disappointed in how he played offensively against Indiana. He came out tonight, teeing up those shots and saw a couple go in. Had a great game flow tonight,” Daigneault said about Holmgren. “Where the other night, he pump-faked a couple he could’ve shot and didn’t seem into rhythm that he had tonight.”

All the Hawks could do was foul Holmgren to slow him down. He enjoyed a busy night at the free-throw line. That helped him reach 30 points to complement his career high of six outside made shots. Scoring in different ways is the next step in his development. This is exactly what you hope to see more often.

“I don’t think this team looks at scoring options. I think we look at it more as throughout the game, we look for advantages. We look for advantages for each other,” Holmgren said. “Last game was Ajay’s game. Tonight, I had more buckets. Next game, it’s going to be somebody else. It doesn’t matter. We don’t look at it that way. We look at it who has an advantage, who has an opportunity to make a play and then we look for them at that moment.”