{"id":25193,"date":"2025-05-11T12:19:31","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T12:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/25193\/"},"modified":"2025-05-11T12:19:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T12:19:31","slug":"thunder-beat-grizzlies-131-80-in-game-1-5th-biggest-margin-of-victory-in-nba-postseason-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/25193\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder beat Grizzlies 131-80 in Game 1, 5th-biggest margin of victory in NBA postseason history"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 The Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> beat the Memphis Grizzlies 131-80 in Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference playoff series<\/a> on Sunday, the fifth-biggest margin of victory in NBA postseason history.<\/p>\n

The 51-point margin<\/a> was seven points shy of the record and was the largest Game 1 win in NBA playoff history.<\/p>\n

Aaron Wiggins scored 21 points, Jalen Williams scored 20 points and Chet Holmgren had 19 points and 10 rebounds. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league\u2019s scoring champion with nearly 33 points per game, scored just 15. The Thunder still shot 50.5% from the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played to our identity,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cNothing more, nothing less than that. We were who we were all year … and it\u2019s going to be the key to our success, just staying true to who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander had said several times since Oklahoma City\u2019s loss to Dallas in last season\u2019s Western Conference semifinals that he would be intentional about getting his teammates better prepared for this postseason.<\/p>\n

So far, so good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a great group of guys around me, and I know that,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve known that for a long time. … They obviously played amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been two 58-point playoff margins in NBA history: Denver beating New Orleans 121-63 in 2009 and the Minneapolis Lakers beating the St. Louis Hawks 133-75 in 1956. The Los Angeles Lakers beat Golden State by 56 (126-70) in 1973 and the Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks by 54 (120-66) in 2015.<\/p>\n

Ja Morant scored 17 points for Memphis on just 6-for-17 shooting. Jaren Jackson Jr., who averaged just over 22 points in the regular season, scored four points on 2-for-13 shooting. The Grizzlies shot just 34.4% overall.<\/p>\n

The Thunder, who finished the regular-season with a league-best 68-14 record, took control with a 20-0 run that gave them a 55-22 lead in the second quarter. They took a 35-point lead into halftime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt like after that, the energy just kind of wasn\u2019t there and we were just trying to talk to ourselves to get back into the game,\u201d Morant said.<\/p>\n

This was Memphis\u2019 first playoff game under interim coach Tuomas Iisalo. He coached just nine NBA regular-season contests before the play-in games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in a playoff series, it\u2019s a best of seven,\u201d Iisalo said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if you win by one point on a buzzer-beater or you win by 50 points, you get one win. So luckily for us, there\u2019s only one way from this and that\u2019s up. And we will analyze it and learn from it. And then we will fix those things that hurt us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Game 2 is Tuesday, and Thunder coach Mark Daigneault expects a closer game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey played 36 hours ago and had an emotional game, had to turn around and play at noon today, which is a really tough turnaround,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cSo they\u2019re going to be better Tuesday. So I thought we did a good job. But I don\u2019t think we can expect that from them (again). You know they\u2019re going to play a lot better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Memphis Grizzlies 131-80 in Game 1 of their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[1289,7,366,301,294,364,6684,1622,293,177,4070,6,446,11,586,475,179,209,66,575,483],"class_list":{"0":"post-25193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-aaron-wiggins","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-chet-holmgren","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-grizzlies","13":"tag-jalen-williams","14":"tag-jaren-jackson","15":"tag-mark-daigneault","16":"tag-memphis","17":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","18":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-nba-basketball","21":"tag-nba-playoffs","22":"tag-ok-state-wire","23":"tag-oklahoma-city","24":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","25":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-temetrius-morant","28":"tag-tn-state-wire"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114489168076474914","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}