{"id":716264,"date":"2026-04-23T00:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716264\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T00:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T00:54:23","slug":"okc-thunder-must-continue-to-take-advantage-of-easy-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716264\/","title":{"rendered":"OKC Thunder Must Continue to Take Advantage of Easy Path"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">The Oklahoma City Thunder are taking on the Phoenix Suns in the opening round of the NBA Playoffs. The Bricktown Ballers are attempting to be the first team since the 2018 Golden State Warriors to repeat as champions. The past six have failed to even make it out of the second round. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">Not only are the Thunder the best, most talented team in the NBA, but their path back to the Western Conference Finals sets up perfectly. Not only do they play the No. 8-seeded Phoenix Suns, who staved off the No. 10-seeded Warriors to clinch a playoff spot from the NBA Play-In Tournament, but their second round matchup is either a hobbled Lakers crew or a horrific Houston Rockets squad offensively. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6l\">After the Oklahoma City Thunder&#8217;s dominant 119-84 win over the Suns in Game 1, the Bricktown Ballers must continue to take care of business in this series. Looking around the NBA, the top seeds have fallen victim to upsets already. The Orlando Magic stole Game 1 in Detroit, the Philadelphia 76ers and Portland Trail Blazers split the first two games of their No. 7 vs. No. 2 series with the Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs, respectively. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">Oklahoma City has not lost a first-round game to this point under bench boss Mark Daigneault. Game 1 shows the signs of yet another sweep in order for the Thunder. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">It is pivotal for the team to continue to take care of business. While nothing is promised \u2013\u2013 besides a better showing from the Suns after two days to regroup \u2013\u2013 it is paramount for the Thunder to not take this Game 2, or any contest this series, lightly. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6u\">\u201cThese series are unpredictable. No 2 games are the same. The minute you make an assumption, you are overconfident, or the minute you go down and you&#8217;re overly urgent, that can impact your ability to be present in the next game,&#8221; Daigneault said pregame when asked about the upsets around the league. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6x\">The Oklahoma City Thunder breezing past this series in a predictable fashion would not only keep wear and tear off their bodies on the court in what projects to be a long playoff run, but also gives them the rest advantage again in the next round. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"70\">Rise and Repeat that process of keeping the first and second rounds limited to five games max and Oklahoma City will have plenty of downtime ahead of their most daunting task, the Western Conference Finals. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder are taking on the Phoenix Suns in the opening round of the NBA Playoffs.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,6,11],"class_list":{"0":"post-716264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116451297448616872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716264","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=716264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}