Stealing the inbound pass, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander started the transition and willed his way to the basket for the layup. The crucial late-game turnover sealed this game’s fate.
After giving up an astonishing 30-0 run in the fourth quarter, the Oklahoma City Thunder quickly got out of their funk and collected an impressive 126-120 win over the Dallas Mavericks.
“Obviously, great mental toughness out of the team to go down (six points) with that game context and to get present and stack a couple of good possessions,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said on the unconventional win. “Really good attacks offensively after obviously having a hard time finding it on that end…
“It’s kinda a weird way to win but certainly don’t want to underestimate the mental toughness of the team.”
It was the game of the night as the Thunder and Mavericks played a fast-paced style of basketball where each team exchanged loud blows.
A 39-point second quarter by the Thunder helped them enter halftime with a 72-56 lead. That lead grew in the second half as OKC closed the third quarter on a 17-8 run to enter the final frame with a 107-84 lead.
It appeared the Thunder were going to cruise to an easy win — instead what transpired was a mesmerizing 30-0 run by the Mavericks that flipped a 23-point deficit into a six-point lead. It was an unreal stretch of basketball that was hard to process and see unfold.
The 30-0 run by the Mavericks is the longest run without allowing an opposing team basket since the 1996-97 season — when the NBA started to keep track of play-by-play stats.
“Not a lot of 30-0 runs happening and losing the game,” Daigneault said. “So to win despite that is obviously crazy.”
It felt like the Thunder were on the verge of a massive collapse that would’ve easily been the lowest of lows for OKC’s strong season. Instead, a Jalen Williams dunk finally busted the seal on their basket. The Thunder finished the game on a 15-3 run to close out the road win.
“When you’re going through an avalanche like that, I just think it’s my responsibility to try to reset the team and get us to take a deep breath,” Daigneault said on calling his final timeout with 4:18 left. “… I give the guys a lot of credit, each time we reset, they got their feet back on the ground and we were able to go out there and really perform well in the last four minutes.”
After a Chet Holmgren layup tied the game at 120 apiece, Williams scored on a scoop layup to retake the lead OKC never relinquished again. With a two-point lead, the Thunder scored once again on the aforementioned Gilgeous-Alexander steal-and-layup.
Down by four points, the Mavericks missed a pair of 3-pointers in the final 35 seconds to seal OKC’s win.
The Thunder had another efficient scoring night as a whole. OKC shot a pedestrian 44% from the field but went a sizzling 20-of-44 (45.5%) from 3. It also shot 18-of-22 (81.8%) from the free-throw line.
It was an evenly distributed scoring outing for the Thunder. Eight players scored double-digit points with nobody scoring more than 23 points. Gilgeous-Alexander only scored 17 points.
Meanwhile, the Mavericks were led by a monster outing from Luka Doncic — who missed the first night of their back-to-back to attend the birth of his child. In a chuckling 46 minutes, Doncic had 36 points on 11-of-22 shooting, 18 assists and 15 rebounds for the colossal triple-double. This included going 5-of-13 from 3.
It was the type of performance Dallas needed from its franchise player with Kyrie Irving ruled out with foot soreness.
Doncic’s running mate in the pick-and-roll — Dereck Lively II — also had the best game of his young career. The rookie center had 20 points on perfect 9-of-9 shooting, 16 rebounds and seven blocks. The 19-year-old was the recipient of several lob passes.
Derrick Jones Jr. also had a big night with 24 points including going 6-of-12 from 3. The journeyman has reinvented his career by adding a 3-point shot this season.
Overall, this was a massive win for the Thunder. Playing a high-octane offense like the Mavericks usually results in these high-scoring, fast-paced games with major swings each way sprinkled throughout the contest.
The Thunder took a gut punch in the fourth quarter by giving up a historic 30-0 run, but they weathered the storm and answered back with a run of their own to steal the road victory.
“We preach tight huddles, I feel like that’s what got us through the stretch,” Cason Wallace said on the win. “Just staying together and having that mindset that we can still win the game.”
Let’s look at Thunder player grades.