Matching up against Cedric Coward, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander handed the impressive rookie a valuable hands-on lesson. A couple of power dribbles created enough space to get to the basket. Wells was forced to help and reached in for the desperate steal attempt. Instead, it gave the reigning MVP an and-one layup.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 35 points on 11-of-22 shooting, seven rebounds and six assists. He shot 3-of-9 from 3 and went 10-of-11 on free throws. He also had two steals.
The Oklahoma City Thunder completed a 19-point comeback in their 114-100 win over the Memphis Grizzlies. As cliche as it is, it was a tale of two halves for the reigning NBA champion.
Experimenting more with his outside jumper, Gilgeous-Alexander had another slow start. As the Thunder fell behind by 19 points, he looked like somebody who was going through the motions. But if you watch enough OKC games, you start to sense a pattern with how his 30-point burgers play out.
Everybody knows by now Gilgeous-Alexander is a second-half player. He loves the high-stress situations. With thousands of people hoping for your failure, he loves to install a library-esque silence in road arenas and see the visual of the lower bowl slowly getting emptier.
Gilgeous-Alexander had 22 points in the second half alone. He found a flow. Once the Thunder realized he had that look in his eyes, they gave him the ball and cleared out. The foul-happy Grizzlies had nobody who could slow him down as he slowly chipped away from their double-digit deficit.
Entering another clutch situation, Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t need long to put this away. This time, the three-level scorer did it from beyond the arc. A couple of stepback 3-pointers were soul-crushers. An and-one drive to the basket vanquished any hope of an upset.
Being around him for five-plus years, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said Gilgeous-Alexander loves these situations. When the game is on the line, he wants the ball in his hands.
“He knows what time it is. He’s got an appetite to be in those situations. He was outstanding down the stretch, but again, I thought the group that started the quarter did a nice job fending off a little bit of a run,” Daigneault said about Gilgeous-Alexander. “I thought it was just a great 48-minute effort by the whole team, but yeah, he was outstanding in that stretch.”
Even Gilgeous-Alexander quieted his own teammates with his outside makes. Hunting for his outside shot in crunch time, Chet Holmgren pleaded with him to put his head down and drive to the basket. Not a bad plan. After all, he’s led the league in drives for six straight seasons. And the Grizzlies were foul-happy. But the reigning MVP’s plan worked with two straight stepback 3-pointers after the timeout.
“He shut me up. He missed the two 3s right before that, and I was saying in the timeout, ‘We got to put some rim pressure and give them a chance to mess up.’ Then he comes out and bangs two. He shut me up,” Holmgren said. “That’s what he does. He took the game over. Made big plays down the stretch. Nothing new, nothing surprising. That’s Shai.”
At this point, this is your standard Gilgeous-Alexander outing. Even when it looks like he won’t reach his patented 20 points, he does so within a few possessions. There’s no other scorer out there who can put on a lab coat and dissect an opposing defense like he does. This was just the latest example as he makes the Ja Morant debates half a decade ago continue to look sillier.