The Oklahoma City Thunder closed out their road trip Wednesday night, cruising to a 136-109 win over the Phoenix Suns behind a near-flawless performance from Jalen Williams.<\/p>\n
Williams poured in 28 points on 11-of-12 shooting, adding five assists and four rebounds before exiting with what the team described as a right hamstring injury. At one point in the third quarter, he was 11-for-11 from the field with 26 points in just 19 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he was cooking,\u201d head coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cThat was impressive. He was in a great flow. I thought he had a great blend of attacks, including some passes that were really, really good. It was an unbelievable, complete game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isaiah Joe added 21 points off the bench, knocking down six of his eight attempts from beyond the arc. Kenrich Williams chipped in 15 points, and Chet Holmgren finished with 13 as Oklahoma City improved to an NBA-best 42-13 record.<\/p>\n
Seven Thunder players scored in double figures, and Oklahoma City shot 58.4% from the field, including 11-of-18 (61.1%) from 3-point range in the first half. The Thunder led 75-52 at the break and never looked back, pushing the margin to as many as 37 in the third quarter. OKC led by at least 20 points for the entire second half and finished with 74 points from its bench unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been in a great rhythm,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cWe shot the ball exceptionally well, obviously. But guys have done a great job sharing the ball, making the right plays. We\u2019re doing a great job playing through the bigs right now. They\u2019re making really good decisions and keeping the floor connected.\u201d<\/p>\n
As has been the case throughout much of the season, the Thunder answered every push from Phoenix. After the Suns tried to chip into the lead, Oklahoma City responded with an 11-0 run to stretch the advantage to 92-60.<\/p>\n
Daigneault credited his team\u2019s adaptability amid injuries and lineup changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to have some diversity to your menu, so to speak,\u201d he said. \u201cThis particular situation, we need it. And the guys have done a great job shape-shifting. It\u2019s kind of changed the way we\u2019re playing right now, but it\u2019s providing us a pretty strong option.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Thunder were again without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (abdominal strain), who missed his fourth straight game. Ajay Mitchell also sat out with an abdominal strain.<\/p>\n
Phoenix was shorthanded as well, missing Devin Booker (ankle), Jalen Green (hamstring) and Grayson Allen (knee) on the second night of a back-to-back. Dillon Brooks led the Suns with 23 points, while Royce O\u2019Neale and Jordan Goodwin each added 12.<\/p>\n
Daigneault called the performance one of Oklahoma City\u2019s most complete efforts of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty good,\u201d he said when asked how close it was to a complete game. \u201cI thought we were on it early defensively. We made them earn everything. The offense was clicking tonight. A lot of that was shot-making, but I thought we created our own positive variance with the way that we played.\u201d<\/p>\n
With one game remaining before the All-Star break, the Thunder continue to build momentum even while missing key pieces.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of season left,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cOur challenge is to continue to get better as we come down the stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder closed out their road trip Wednesday night, cruising to a 136-109 win over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,6,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-598567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-phoenix","11":"tag-phoenix-suns","12":"tag-phoenixsuns","13":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116056888699231190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598567","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=598567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}