Putting his team on his back, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had another MVP moment. The Oklahoma City Thunder avoided disaster in their 114-110 overtime win over the Detroit Pistons. Against a team that was cool with punting this game, the reigning NBA champions almost lost all their ground for first place.

Down seven points with four minutes to go, Gilgeous-Alexander had enough. He finished with 47 points on 12-of-19 shooting and shot 21-of-25 on free throws. That included 21 points in the fourth quarter and overtime. At one point, he scored six straight points to get them back within one point in the final three minutes of regulation.

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Even with his stepback 3-point game-winner wiped away due to an offensive foul at the end of regulation, Gilgeous-Alexander quickly got over the call and shifted his attention to overtime. Just an unreal MVP performance that’s up there as one of his best scoring games ever.

Afterward, the MVP race was a hot-button topic. With Victor Wembanyama right up there, the award will be handed to one of those two. Here’s what the Thunder said about Gilgeous-Alexander’s case and whether they want to campaign for him:

Mark Daigneault

“The voters understand that they are documenting history and that players’ legacies. In some cases, their contracts are impacted by these decisions. I think the voters take that really seriously and look at it really hard. They watch all the players more than I do. I watch one player. I obviously have spoken many times about how I feel about him, but it’s out of our control. He goes out there, he plays, he focuses on what he can control. He stays inside the team and then the chips fall where they met.”

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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

“I think it’s good for the league. I think it’s good chatter. It gets people something to talk about. There’s a lot of good players in this league. A lot of guys in the conversation because of that. Nah, I’m good. Thanks for asking, though. I’m good. I’ll let my game do the talking.”

Alex Caruso

“Just watch the games. Got a game-winner against the No. 1 seed in the East called off tonight and then had 47. His game does a lot of talking. There’s not much I need to say for him.”

“If it’s a narrative-based thing, then you just let the media and narrative take course. If it’s about games and who the best player is, then I think that speaks for itself with the play on the court. If it’s not, then there’s not much else that we can do about it. People want to create the drama because that’s the NBA and that’s what we do. That’s kinda out of our control.”

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: OKC Thunder give thoughts on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP campaign