If the Oklahoma City Thunder make the Play-In tournament, this game will likely be viewed back on as the turning point of the season.
The Thunder entered Saturday’s contest against the New Orleans Pelicans with some of the highest stakes of the season:
Entering the game, the Thunder trailed the 10th-seeded Pelicans by one game in the standings. A Thunder win means they leapfrog the Pelicans in the standings while a Thunder loss would’ve meant the Pelicans grew a two-game cushion.
With 16 games remaining, the Thunder and Pelicans both desperately needed this game to hold onto their playoff aspirations.
The injury-plagued Pelicans — missing Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram and Jose Alvarado — couldn’t capture a critical game as the Thunder came away with a 110-96 win.
“We had gotten off to slow starts against this team, they’ve outscored us by 26 points in first quarters,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said. “Tonight, I thought we did a great job at executing on both ends of the floor.”
The Thunder used a strong first half to build a 63-44 lead over the Pelicans following the first two quarters. Trailing by as many as 21 points, the Pelicans made it interesting in the second half — cutting OKC’s lead to as little as nine points — but the Thunder answered every threat.
The young trio of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Josh Giddey combined to score 71 of OKC’s 110 points — nearly two-thirds of its points.
“We held them off with sound execution on both ends of the floor,” Daigneault said.
The Thunder played a stifling brand of defense against a Pelicans squad missing their two best players. The Thunder forced 22 turnovers against the Pelicans, which gave them a 23-8 scoring advantage in that department.
“We kinda controlled the game on that end of the floor and kept them out of transition. It was big,” Daigneault said on the turnover disparity.
Another huge disparity came from the free-throw line, where the Thunder went 27-of-32 (84.4%) while the Pelicans went just 16-of-19 (84.2%). Gilgeous-Alexander led the way with 13 attempts — shooting nearly the same amount as the Pelicans.
The Thunder also enjoyed scoring advantages in the paint (48-36) and in the fastbreak (18-10).
Throughout the game, the Pelicans looked lethargic on offense. The Thunder did an excellent job playing the game on their terms. Even though it took the Pelicans missing their two best scorers for the Thunder to finally beat them, that won’t matter in the standings.
The Pelicans were led by CJ McCollum, who scored 26 points on 8-of-20 shooting. Starting in place of Ingram, Naji Marshall added 15 points and eight rebounds. Trey Murphy III also scored 15 points on 5-of-12 shooting.
The Thunder really needed to win this game if they wanted to keep their playoff hopes alive and that’s exactly what they did against a Pelicans squad whose season is unraveling due to injuries.
“We did a good job of not taking our foot off and playing through the finish line,” Giddey said. “… Credit to the guys, it would’ve been easy to kinda get comfortable and let the Pels back in the game. We kept our foot down and closed the game out.”
Let’s take a look at Thunder player grades.