<\/p>\nIce cold Shai: SGA’s top moments in crunch time<\/p>\n
Relive Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s coldest moments in crunch time from the 2025-26 season as the Oklahoma City Thunder look to go back-to-back as NBA champions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t look at it as like us trying to be the defending champs going in these nights, like we\u2019re going to these games, just as hungry to win, just like we were last season,\u201d Williams added.<\/p>\n
Discussions of \u201cprocess\u201d and \u201cbuilding good habits\u201d can come off as boring coach speak, but it\u2019s a mantra with the Thunder. Because of that, as a group, they can come off a little like the Tim Duncan-era Spurs \u2014 boring day-to-day, no drama, just putting in the work, focusing on the little things, and getting better. Duncan has five rings to show for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the first thing for us is just making sure that we\u2019re taking care of our stuff,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cYou know, it starts with how we\u2019re playing, the habits we\u2019re trying to sharpen, what we\u2019re trying to get done. You go through the regular season, there\u2019s different opponents every night that present different challenges, but it always starts between you and yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boring? Maybe. Winning? Absolutely.<\/p>\n
Continuity and experimentation<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City may be young, but they have the kind of roster continuity that is rare in the tax apron era of the NBA. The core of the guys about to chase another ring already won one together. Even players in much larger roles now, such as reserve guard Ajay Mitchell, have been in the system, just not showcased.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely helps,\u201d Dort said of the continuity. \u201cJust like, we have a lot of the same guys from last season. Sometimes it\u2019s hard to adjust to new guys on the team, just the fact that we got the same core that we had last year, it helps so much, and our team chemistry is just getting better and better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the adversity the Thunder faced this season with key players missing time \u2014 Jaylin Williams, Alex Caruso, Isaiah Hartenstein, among others \u2014 is seen as an opportunity. For Daigneault, it gave him a platform to do something he already wanted to do \u2014 experiment with different lineups. Put different combinations of players together.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re actually not a team that wants to find rotational stability in the regular season,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to constantly create variability, because that gives us some learnings and creates options for us. It also puts the guys in situations where they have to adapt to who they\u2019re on the floor with, which we think is good for their development as players.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our coaches do a good job of keeping everybody ready for anything that could happen,\u201d Williams said, echoing the idea. \u201cWe\u2019re a super detailed team when it comes to different situations that we might not have encountered yet, but we\u2019re always ready for whatever the situation is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, the fact that we\u2019ve seen it before, it\u2019s just a tool that we have in our pockets if something goes wrong,\u201d Dort said of needing to pull out different lineups during a postseason series. \u201cAnd then in the playoff teams throw a lot of different stuff, and you never know what they\u2019re going to do. So the fact that we have a lot of different options that we can throw out there, so it\u2019s a good thing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thunder players also understand that continuity will not be the same in the coming years. Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein and Kenrich Williams all have player options for next season, just as massive new max contract extensions kick in for Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams ($41 million each, to start). Gilgeous-Alexandr has a new max contract starting in the 2027-28 season. The money is about to get tight in OKC, and roster changes will flow from that. The players know they don\u2019t have many more chances with this locker room.<\/p>\n
Ready for playoffs<\/p>\n
The Thunder may not talk big-picture, but they are, to a man, ready to play games with real weight and meaning again.<\/p>\n
They just wouldn\u2019t let that get in the way of the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, just your competitive nature, you want to be back in those big environments, the loud playoff games, where every shot means so much,\u201d Williams said. \u201cBut at the same time you can\u2019t skip steps in a process. And that\u2019s something the coaches also instilled in us, and I think our whole team understands that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Thunder did not skip steps, and now they are ready to add to their collection of rings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder are the defending NBA champions. They also have the fifth-youngest roster in the NBA.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-712678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116421883536591287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712678","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=712678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}