{"id":664229,"date":"2026-03-18T04:32:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/664229\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T04:32:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:32:21","slug":"thunder-clinch-spot-in-nba-playoffs-become-first-team-to-punch-ticket-to-2026-postseason-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/664229\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder clinch spot in NBA playoffs, become first team to punch ticket to 2026 postseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

While there\u2019s still work to do, the team is off to a pretty good start there.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

With OKC\u2019s 113-108 win<\/a> over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday, the Thunder became the first NBA team this season to clinch a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an accomplishment worth celebrating, even if making the playoffs is a low bar for the defending NBA champions.<\/p>\n

The Thunder, of course, are in position to 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

[Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem: Make your picks for $50K in total prizes<\/a>]<\/p>\n

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

Advertisement<\/p>\n

There are reasons for that. Oklahoma City lost reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for nine games in the middle of the season 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

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

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…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,364,6,8123,11,475,179,76,25977,209],"class_list":["post-664229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-jalen-williams","tag-nba","tag-nba-champions","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\/116248310134917738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664229","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=664229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}