OKLAHOMA CITY — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander looked relaxed.
For the entire fourth quarter of Wednesday’s NBA Cup quarterfinal game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Phoenix Suns, the reigning MVP watched from the bench as his team kept adding to its enormous lead. Gilgeous-Alexander and a few other Thunder starters subbed out at the 3:23 mark of the third quarter and never needed to return as the Thunder’s second- and third-stringers pulled ahead by as many as 53 points.
The Thunder, who zapped the Suns in a 138-89 win at Paycom Center, have a 24-1 record. That is tied with the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors for the best record through 25 games in NBA history. Gilgeous-Alexander scored 28 points in 27 minutes. The Thunder led by 26 points at halftime, then proceeded to more than double their advantage in the second half and dealt Phoenix its worst loss in terms of point differential in franchise history.
“It’s hard to play with leads,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It’s hard to not get distracted by the score. I thought the group to start the third quarter did a great job. They threw the first punch. That energy continued through the third.”
The Thunder’s lone defeat of the season came Nov. 5 against the Portland Trail Blazers by two points on the second night of a back-to-back. Since then, Oklahoma City has ripped off 16 consecutive wins, a franchise record. Daigneault said the key to the winning streak has been not thinking about it.
“You just have to play the next possession. Get better the next day. Win the next quarter. And compete in the next game,” he said. “If you do that and you’re present in that process, you look up and you win a certain amount of games in a row. We certainly need to understand we have a lot of improvement to make. We have a lot of things to sustain. And a lot of competitive challenges ahead.”
In Daigneault’s first season as the Thunder’s coach five years ago, the team won 22 games. Oklahoma City wasn’t much better the next season, winning 24.
The franchise’s fortunes changed in the summer of 2022, when the Thunder drafted Chet Holmgren with the No. 2 pick and Jalen Williams with the No. 12 selection. Both have established themselves as foundational pieces alongside Gilgeous-Alexander.
Williams scored 40 points in Game 5 of the NBA Finals in June. Holmgren averaged 15.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.9 blocks in the Thunder’s playoff run and appears to have leveled up this season. The 23-year-old is having the most productive offensive season of his young career while doubling as one of the NBA’s best interior defenders. Holmgren made three 3-pointers and blocked three shots in the first half of Wednesday’s game. He finished with 24 points and eight rebounds in 25 minutes.
“To me, it’s more about enjoying this with the group of people we have,” Holmgren said. “You don’t want to get so caught up in everything it takes to do it that you lose sight of how special this team is and how special the people we have around it (are). I just want to stay present.”
One of the few dramatic moments in the lopsided game occurred in the middle of the third quarter. The Suns’ Grayson Allen knocked Holmgren to the ground as the Thunder big man came around a screen. Allen was assessed a Flagrant 2 foul and ejected. During the stoppage in play, Williams hyped up the Thunder crowd with his team ahead by 36 points.
“He (Allen) has kind of done it his whole career,” Williams said. “Just make sure I have my teammate’s back.”
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The Thunder advanced to the Las Vegas portion of NBA Cup play for the second year in a row and will face the San Antonio Spurs in the West semifinals Saturday. The winner of that game will play in the Cup championship game Tuesday.
“Winning is never boring,” Williams said. “There was a time when some players on our team were getting blown out. I’m not going to name names, but we lost by 70. I think some guys have it in the back of their minds. Even my first year, we weren’t winning a ton. We were solid. But I think I have that in the back of my mind. You can’t get bored with the process.”
In five years, the Thunder have gone from being a Western Conference punching bag to an NBA juggernaut. They are outscoring opponents by 17.2 points per 100 possessions and are on pace to blow past the 70-win mark.
“We don’t take them for granted,” Williams said. “Winning is winning. We’ll take ugly wins. We’ll take pretty wins. It’s just how much better can we get?”