{"id":664023,"date":"2026-03-18T02:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T02:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/664023\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T02:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T02:03:16","slug":"thunder-clinch-spot-in-nba-playoffs-become-first-team-to-punch-ticket-to-2026-postseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/664023\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder clinch spot in NBA playoffs, become first team to punch ticket to 2026 postseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Oklahoma City Thunder faced major expectations after going 68-14, securing the top playoff seed in the West and winning the NBA championship last season. An encore was going to be tough.<\/p>\n<p>While there\u2019s still work to do, the team is off to a pretty good start there.<\/p>\n<p>With their <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/oklahoma-city-thunder-orlando-magic-2026031719\/\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:113-108 win;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" target=\"_blank\">113-108 win<\/a> over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday, the Thunder have become the first NBA team this season to clinch a playoff spot.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an accomplishment worth celebrating, even if making the playoffs is a low bar for the defending NBA champions.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder, of course, are in position to once again lock up a high seed in the Western Conference. After Tuesday\u2019s win, Oklahoma City improved to 54-15. That\u2019s the best record in the NBA at the moment. The Thunder are arguably playing their best basketball right now, riding a nine-game winning streak.<\/p>\n<p>For all their success this season, Mark Daigneault\u2019s team looks far more vulnerable compared to last year. After losing just 14 games in the 2024-25 regular season, the Thunder have already lost more games this year.<\/p>\n<p>There are reasons for that. Oklahoma City lost reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for nine games in the middle of the season <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp yahoo-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/nba\/breaking-news\/article\/thunders-shai-gilgeous-alexander-reportedly-cleared-to-return-after-missing-9-games-with-abdominal-strain-231352939.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:due to an abdominal injury.;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" target=\"_blank\">due to an abdominal injury.<\/a> The team has also been without Jalen Williams for much of the season. He\u2019s played in just 26 games due to a hamstring issue.<\/p>\n<p>While Williams\u2019 status remains up in the air as the playoffs approach, Gilgeous-Alexander returned from his injury without missing a beat and continues to produce at an MVP level.<\/p>\n<p>As long as Gilgeous-Alexander remains healthy the rest of the way, the Thunder will be a threat to make yet another deep playoff run. Repeating was always going to be difficult, but \u2014 even after being battled-tested much of the season \u2014 the Thunder are still in excellent shape to keep that dream alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder faced major expectations after going 68-14, securing the top playoff seed in the West&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,364,6,11,475,179,76,25977,209],"class_list":["post-664023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-jalen-williams","tag-nba","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-orlando-magic","tag-playoff-spot","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116247724308380359","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664023","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=664023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}