It seems like the Oklahoma City Thunder was angry about giving away Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinals series to the Denver Nuggets on Monday, because they beat the absolute pants off of Nikola Jokic and company last night. Game 2 was over early, with OKC racing out to a 24-point lead by the end of the first quarter and scoring an NBA Playoff record 87 points in the first half. As he often does, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the way with 34 points, 4 rebounds and 8 assists, helping the Thunder even the series as they prepare to shift to Denver for Game 3.
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SGA’s +51 was the first time this century that a player has had a plus-minus of +50 or better, and he did that in only 3o minutes. Had he played at all in the fourth quarter, the Thunder almost surely would have won by more than 43, and he would have extended his record even further.
The road teams have really been on this round, winning all six games before this one. The Thunder finally broke through to become the first home team to win a game in Round 2, and their performance stood in sharp contrast to the one put forth by their fellow Finals favorite, the Boston Celtics, who earlier in the night blew a 20-point lead at home for the second game in a row.
Shannon Sharpe raved about OKC’s performance, and SGA’s specifically, in last night’s episode of Nightcap. “Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was sensational, and he showed you why he’s going to win the MVP,” he gushed.
Shai was great in Game 1, but he was nearly perfect in Game 2. He went 11-13 from the field and 11-11 from the line, and he turned it over just two times. Jokic had no answer this time, as he was only able to follow his beefy Game 1 stat line of 42 points, 22 rebounds and 6 assists with a more pedestrian 17/8/6.
Votes may be in, but SGA and Jokic are still making their MVP cases
Everyone knows that the MVP is a regular season award, but that hasn’t stopped SGA and Jokic from trying to put forth a convincing closing argument anyway.
Both sides have pretty unimpeachable cases. Jokic is top-three in the league in points, rebounds and assists, and he’s put forth some of the most ludicrous box scores we’ve ever seen (his 61-point triple-double and 30-20-20 game still beggar belief) while carrying an inferior team to 50 wins. He even become something of a player-coach since Mike Malone was fired in the last week of the season.
SGA led the league in scoring and is the unquestioned best player on a team that won 68 games. He’s as efficient a player as there is in the league, and his season has been compared favorably to some of the best of Michael Jordan’s career.
Neither player has outwardly campaigned for the award. They’ve let their play do the talking for them, a refreshing change after years of Joel Embiid shaking hands and kissing babies to curry favor with voters.
Even as SGA led the Thunder to the best record in the league, many observers were unimpressed, wanting OKC to prove they could do it in the playoffs before they really gave OKC their flowers. The Thunder responded by annihilating the Grizzlies in Round 1, but their collapse in Round 2’s Game 1 against Denver gave the haters — and the Jokic supporters — ammunition.
Game 2 was so impressive that it completely flipped the script. As all the other favorites around the league faltered, OKC put its foot down, and they were led by SGA. Now the question isn’t, “Can the Thunder get it done in the playoffs?” but, “Who is possibly going to stop this team?”
Sharpe put it best when he said, “[OKC] didn’t dwell on it. All they did was come out here and drop 149 and say, ‘You know what? [Game 1] was an aberration. You’re gonna need to be on your best behavior if you want to get rid of us.'”
Is anybody going to be able to get rid of SGA and the Thunder? Not if they continue to play like that.
