The Oklahoma City Thunder are just three wins away from advancing to their first NBA Finals since 2012 after defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander had one of the best seasons in the history of the Thunder this season.<\/p>\n
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Not only did he lead the league in scoring, but he also helped lead the Thunder to the NBA’s best record and home court advantage through every stage of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander makes NBA history after award announcement<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander was a crucial part of the Thunder’s Game 1 win. Despite struggling from the field early, he scored 20 of his 31 points in the second half to help the Thunder run away with the win.<\/p>\n
They’ll have Wednesday night to rest before going back at it for Game 2.<\/p>\n
The Thunder and Gilgeous-Alexander received fantastic news Wednesday when Shams Charania reported that Gilgeous-Alexander was officially named as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.<\/p>\n
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As a result, he helped make NBA history as only the second Canadian-born player to win the award, joining Steve Nash.<\/p>\n
While Steve Nash’s stats from his two MVP seasons may not stand out compared to the numbers Gilgeous-Alexander recorded, those who watched him knew he was something special.<\/p>\n
Nash helped lead Mike D’Antoni’s revolutionary seven-second or less offense. He was more of a traditional point guard, with his primary goal being to set up teammates for the best looks possible.<\/p>\n
But one area of Nash’s game people may not remember is that he was a downright lethal shooter from deep. From 2005-2010, Nash shot 44.5% from deep on 3.9 attempts per game.<\/p>\n
While the award is a nice accolade on the season, the primary goal is still the same: bring home the Larry O’Brien Trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder are just three wins away from advancing to their first NBA Finals since 2012…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,623,152,6,1220,4815,179,209,2543,3460],"class_list":{"0":"post-49049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-gilgeous-alexander","10":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nba-finals","13":"tag-nba-history","14":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","15":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","16":"tag-steve-nash","17":"tag-western-conference-finals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114549601332667777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49049","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=49049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}