Shai Gilgeous-Alexander danced on Olivier-Maxence Prosper before slamming on the brakes, stepping back and selling a pump fake.
The move froze Prosper midair. Gilgeous-Alexander spun off it, flicking the ball off the backboard to himself. His instincts proved right. The ball caromed back into his hands and swung the ball to Brendan Carlson for a wide-open 3-pointer.
Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t help but laugh as he jogged back down the floor.
Teammates, stunned by the Harlem Globetrotters-esque sequence, then shared a laugh with him near the bench.
“I was actually shocked,” Thunder guard Lu Dort said. “I didn’t expect that. In my head, I wondered what was going to be next. I knew he wasn’t going to go and dunk it, but that was a great pass — and (Carlson) made a big shot.”
The OKC Thunder led from the second quarter on to secure a 119-103 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday at Paycom Center.
The Thunder tied a franchise record in the win, now standing 14-0 in home games this season. They remain the only team in the NBA without a home loss.
OKC (26-3) was led by Gilgeous-Alexander, who racked up 31 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in 36 minutes. After guiding the Thunder to a 15-point first half lead, SGA scored 12 of his points during the fourth quarter to help eliminate any hopes for a Grizzlies comeback.
The night marked SGA’s 100th consecutive game with at least 20 points, joining Wilt Chamberlain as the only other player in league history to accomplish the feat.
“That speaks to his consistency,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said.
“He is ruthlessly consistent in the invisible spaces that I see and that you guys don’t. There’s probably 100 more that I don’t see that he’s taken care of. But it’s no accident that he’s the player that he is. He’s chiseled himself into this player.”
Here are three takeaways from the win:
Order new book on Thunder’s run to NBA title
SGA, J-Dub punctuate victory down the stretch
On a night when Oklahoma City was down eight players, its two All-Stars closed the door.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander met his familiar 30-point standard, finishing with 31 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in 36 minutes. When the game tightened late, the MVP delivered — scoring 12 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter.
The Paycom Center crowd spiked noticeably loud toward the end of the first quarter following a rare alley-oop dunk by SGA on a pass from Kenrich Williams.
That slam marked just the second time Gilgeous-Alexander caught an alley-oop dunk in his career.
“You’ve got to get Shai the ball,” Williams said. “We’ve been playing with each other for a while, so we’ve got some synergy there. I feel like he wouldn’t make me feel bad if I threw it — so shoutout to Shai.”
Jalen Williams provided the early separation. His timely buckets to close the third quarter helped balloon the Thunder’s lead back to double digits after a brief 9-3 Memphis run. From there, Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams took over, answering late possessions with back-to-back scores in the fourth to seal the win.
Williams ended the night with 24 points and six rebounds on 10-of-20 shooting.
“We moved the scoreboard down there down the stretch,” Daigneault said. “Credit Memphis. They kept playing cause we had a pretty good lead there that we could’ve held and we let them scrape back into the game. To the credit of our team, we got it back on the road there pretty quickly.’
How did OKC respond to size disadvantage?
Without its stable of big men — Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein and Jaylin Williams — the Thunder held firm defensively in the paint.
Memphis’ rotation of 7-footers loomed as a potential difference-maker from the opening tip, but OKC didn’t flinch. The Thunder won the rebounding battle 20-19 at halftime and finished tied at 46 by the final horn.
Second-year forward Branden Carlson stepped into the void, contributing 11 points and three rebounds while filling minutes normally occupied by Holmgren and Hartenstein.
“When you have guys out like that, you need the guys to very quickly be able to calibrate to that and provide something different,” Daigneault said. “I thought we scrapped and flew around, got our hands on the ball and gang-rebounded. We did some really good things there to compensate for having some bigs out.”
Kenrich Williams shines in just ninth game
In just his ninth game of the season, Kenrich Williams delivered his most complete performance yet.
The eighth-year forward was everywhere, tallying 11 points, six rebounds and four steals in 24 minutes. He disrupted passing lanes, boxed out relentlessly and cleaned up on the help side.
OKC capped the first half with a 15-2 run, highlighted by two Kenrich Williams 3-pointers that shifted momentum.
When the Thunder needed grit most, ‘Kenny Hustle’ lived up to the nickname as he always has.
“The year we made the play-in we played great basketball right before the All-Star break, and a lot of that was him at the five,” Daigneault said.
“He was giving us a huge lift in that role. We learned all the way back then that that was a weapon for us and something that he was capable of. He’s just got a certain ethos to him that’s great to our team. His presence on the court brings a lot of soul to the team.”
Jordan Davis covers high school sports for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Jordan? He can be reached at jdavis@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @thejordancdavis. Sign up for The Varsity Club newsletter to access more high school coverage. Support Jordan’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com