The Oklahoma City Thunder game on Saturday against the Minnesota Timberwolves was the antithesis of many other OKC games this season.
We’ve seen quite a few instances this year in which the Thunder fall behind big in the first half, make good adjustments over the break and then make some sort of run late. But on this Saturday, it was the Thunder who led by 21 points at halftime. It was the Timberwolves who came out with more energy and better defense. It was the Thunder who felt pressure to keep the lead.
During a season in which the team has been able to feel content with many losses, this 120-118 win felt oddly unsatisfying.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Gilgeous-Alexander taking over is always a sight to behold. Beginning at the 4:03 mark in the fourth quarter, he had nine Thunder points in a row. When the Timberwolves finally double-teamed him, he found Darius Bazley down low, who scored what ended up being the winning basket.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 31 points, 13 of which came in the fourth quarter, and had nine rebounds and seven assists. He was excellent. This should be a game the Thunder can take pride in.
But after scoring a franchise-high 83 points in the first half and then mustering only 13 in the third quarter and allowing the Timberwolves to overcome the 21-point Thunder advantage and eventually take the lead, it’s not a win the team can properly celebrate.
“Didn’t feel as good as we wanted it to,” Gilgeous-Alexander said in the Fox Sports Oklahoma on-court interview when asked how it felt to pull out the win.
After the Thunder shot better than 60% from the field and 50% from 3 in the first half, they scored a total of 37 points in the second half and only made two more 3-pointers.
“I think we might have taken it for granted that it was going to be an easy game,” said guard Theo Maledon.
While Oklahoma City couldn’t score on offense, the Timberwolves started going to their big man on the other side of the ball.
Center Naz Reid made eight of his 13 shots in the second half, racking up 29 total points in the game. Al Horford sat on the second night of a back-to-back, Isaiah Roby was out with foot soreness and backup big Mike Muscala didn’t return after getting elbowed in the face in the second half, which gave Oklahoma City the opposite issue they had on Friday: The lineup was now backcourt heavy.
“We were five guards out there, for all intents and purposes,” head coach Mark Daigneault said.
That quote is interesting, in that he can consider Bazley a guard. Apparently, the Timberwolves also realized that the Thunder were missing a center as big as Reid, so they fed him. The second-year player posted a career-high and powered Minnesota to 32 points in the third, far outpacing the Thunder’s 13 in that frame.
Entering the fourth quarter, the OKC lead had dwindled down to two. Within four minutes, the Thunder trailed 104-98.
Then Kenrich Williams checked in. On his first possession back in the game, he grabbed an offensive rebound and put it back in.
He grabbed a defensive rebound the next time down the court and then an offensive rebound on the other end, though a turnover ended that possession without a Thunder point.
“We call that pitbull mentality,” said guard Hamidou Diallo. “He brings it every night.”
Gilgeous-Alexander hit back-to-back looks to pull the Thunder within one possession. Minnesota rookie Anthony Edwards hit a shot to push the deficit, but Williams came through again.
He grabbed an offensive rebound that led to a Theo Maledon 3.
After Diallo and Reid traded buckets, Gilgeous-Alexander went on his run. The Thunder offense, which had looked rather hapless in the second half, scored on seven of their final nine possessions. If you want to combine the possessions in which Gilgeous-Alexander turned the ball over and then immediately stole the ball in the backcourt and scored, you can consider it seven of their final eight possessions.
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“Immediately after (the game), I was tired. Super tired. It didn’t really hit me until the end,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I was just happy we were able to do enough to get a W. Obviously it wasn’t perfect, it was a tale of two different halves, but like I said it’s a testament to the group’s relentlessness.”
There’s plenty of good to take away from the dominant first half and the final five minutes or so of the win, but Oklahoma City will have plenty of lessons to learn from the part in between when Minnesota got back into the game.
For one of the first times this season, it wasn’t the Thunder who was forced to make a comeback. They got a taste of the other side.
“It was a roller coaster emotionally, but I give our guys credit,” Daigneault said. “Gritted our teeth in the fourth and hung in there.”
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