Jan. 30, 2026, 12:00 p.m. CT
Setting the flare screen for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Isaiah Hartenstein rolled to the basket. He caught the bounce pass and finished through Gobert’s contest for the and-one layup. Welcome back. After a 16-game absence with his second soleus strain of the season, the Thunder are closer to being fully operational.
The Oklahoma City Thunder were straight-up bullied in a 123-111 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. They trailed the entire night and by as many as 22 points.
Hartenstein finished with 11 points on 3-of-6 shooting, five rebounds and two assists. He shot 5-of-6 on free throws.
Under a minutes restriction, Hartenstein came off the bench. The Thunder lost the rebounding battle, but it didn’t even matter in this one. That said, he somewhat helped in that department as he crashed the glass and even caught a few second-chance looks.
Now that a huge piece of the puzzle is assembled back, the Thunder are close to playing their brand of basketball. Hartenstein helped them have an old-school center who can roll to the basket. The constant dunk threat is an element they’ve desperately missed over the last month.
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Let’s see how Hartenstein looks the rest of the way. And let’s hope the soleus strain stuff is finally behind him. But it’s good to see him back on the floor. If the Thunder want to go back-to-back, they need a fully-healthy version of him — ala how he looked at the beginning of the year when he was an advanced stats darling.
“I thought his performance was actually pretty good. He made his free throws. Seems to be right back in rhythm. His conditioning seems to be pretty good for a guy that had a lower-body thing going on,” Mark Daigneault said about Hartenstein. “We’re certainly happy to have him back. We’ll take everybody and it’s great to have him back in the fold.”