- SGA is going even bigger. Another masterpiece: 55 points on 15 of 31 shooting, 23 of 26 from the line. He scored 22 after the fourth quarter alone and completely owned both overtimes. This season, Shai is averaging 45 points per game.
- Thunder survives another double-OT thriller. Second game in a row in which the overtime periods doubled. The first time in NBA history that has happened. And OKC doesn’t get much rest. After taking Friday off, the Thunder will play 3 games in 4 nights.
- Calm down Chet. After coming out aggressively on the offensive end in Game 1, Chet barely played a role offensively, scoring 15 points on 4-12 shooting (0-6 from three). Interestingly, Holmgren has yet to record a block in 78 minutes.
- We need to talk about Ajay Mitchell. In a good way, of course. Fifteen points in 16 minutes on opening night, followed by a career-high 26 against the Pacers. While the offense was stagnant at times, especially when SGA sat, Ajay found ways to score, often by attacking the basket (which gave him 8 FTs, and he made them all).
- Three million. That’s what Mitchell deserves this season (and the next two). Is this the best contract in the NBA?
- Aaron Wiggins, who still saves basketball. Starting with clean sheets from Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace, Wiggins dropped 23 points on 7-14 shooting and hit five threes, including two huge daggers in the second overtime that helped OKC seal the win. On a bad night for Chet, and with JDub still recovering, the Thunder desperately needed Wiggins to show up, and of course he did.
- Honestly, a pretty fun finals rematch. The shine of this game probably had a little less shine when Tyrese Haliburton played for Indiana with TJ McConnell. OKC sat almost an entire roster, while Caruso and Wallace joined Dub, Joe, Topic, Sorber and Kenrich as inactive due to injuries. But this was a fun, back-and-forth game with Bennedict Mathurin showing signs of glory that almost led Indiana to a small sign of revenge.
- There was another timeout controversy. Well, sort of. With 22.5 seconds left in the second OT, Obi Toppin hit a three to bring the Pacers within 4. Toppin then appeared to have a steal on the inbounds before the officials stopped play to grant the Thunder a timeout. Rick Carlisle was livid, but Mark Daigneault had requested a TO before the theft. Wow.
- You have to make your free throws. OKC was 45-51 from the charity stripe. Indiana was 30-40. Those ten misses for Indiana might be hard for Pacers fans to stomach in a six-point, two-OT loss.
- Everyone played. That’s right, all eleven guys who lined up well got minutes against Indiana. Chris Youngblood also scored his first points and first three-pointer of his career.
3 Key Takeaways
1. Shai is the reigning MVP. You just have to leave it to him. A new career-high when OKC needed every point. SGA wants another ring, you can tell.
2. Three-point shooting is a question mark. The Thunder generated good looks from deep, but outside of Aaron Wiggins (and Jaylin Williams), the wide side of a barn would still be too difficult a target. As a team, Oklahoma City was 10-35, after going 13-52 on opening night. For those math nerds, that’s only 26.4% of the season.
3. Luckily, this team runs deep. We talked about Mitchell and Wiggins having great games, but J-Will had some key minutes going 2-3 from deep, Brooks Barnhizer was thrown into real rotation minutes. Dieng played 15 minutes. With so many injuries early in the year, the depth pool has been tested, and so far it has proven good enough to keep OKC undefeated. And at this point, Mitchell is the secondary creator OKC needs off the bench. Dude can play ball. It will be very interesting to see how Mark handles the bank minutes when Topic returns.
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