In their words: The Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shot that won the game

“He’s hitting the shot.” Darius Bazley, Mark Daigneault and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander talked about the shot that won the OKC Thunder the game.

With 1.4 seconds left, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shut down the Charlotte Hornets’ attempted comeback by draining a deep 2-pointer to give OKC a 109-107 victory in the season opener.

Gilgeous-Alexander, head coach Mark Daigneault and forward Darius Bazley spoke about the shot during the postgame press conference over Zoom. Here’s how it went down:

With 10.3 seconds to go, Hornets forward Miles Bridges drained a 3-pointer. It tied the game and put a stamp on an 18-5 Charlotte run. Daigneault called a timeout.

SGA: He drew up a play really just to get the ball inbounds cleanly to me and then balance the floor, using as much space as possible.

Daigneault: I thought he attacked all night really well. I thought he had great poise and composure for the coverages they were playing.

Bazley: When Coach had drew it up and he told Shai to go … I kind of already in my head, I was like, ‘He’s hitting the shot.’ I didn’t know what he was going to do, but that’s Shai.

SGA: I got a couple moves I like to get to on the iso. After that, it’s just read and reaction.

Daigneault: I didn’t think he got sped up at all tonight. He just kind of played at his pace and he didn’t allow the defense, anything that the opponent was doing, to get in the way of the way that he was going to play.

SGA: I gave him a left-handed in-and-out, I had been doing it all game, going left, so then I crossed over and went to the right. He was backing up so hard, and I figured if I stopped on a dime and pulled up, it would be hard for him to get a good contest.

Daigneault: He played like that the whole 48 minutes, and that was the case on the last shot as well. He came up the floor with an understanding of how much time he had and he got to his spot.

SGA: That’s a shot that I practice a lot, the same-foot stop, and it went in.

Bazley: He brings it every day. I see it in practice. I see it every time we go at each other and compete, and so I didn’t expect anything different in the game. I was really happy for him — he hit the shot.

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