In the Oklahoma City Thunder’s first game since losing Chet Holmgren for at least two months to a broken hip, Gilgeous-Alexander scored a career-high 45 points, 9 assists and 5 steals to lead his club to a 134-126 victory over the LA Clippers before 17,430 at the Paycom Center.
“I didn’t feel special,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of his 14th career 40-point game. “I didn’t feel like I had done something I’d never done before. It just felt like another basketball game. I felt like I should have done more, missed some easy shots, but [that’s] the game.”
Perhaps his career exit didn’t feel extraordinary because Gilgeous-Alexander is obsessed with a bigger goal. After reaching the second round but losing to the Dallas Mavericks as the Western Conference’s top seed, Gilgeous-Alexander has focused on better preparing the Thunder (9-2) and his young teammates for a deeper playoff run.
“I’m not saying this to put down my teammates,” Gilgeous-Alexander explained. “But I feel like the end of our season last year in the playoffs, obviously for a lot of them, was the first time in the playoffs and playing such meaningful games. And I don’t want to say they weren’t ready, but I feel like there could have been. best equipped all year round to take [certain] shots, getting to the points and being more comfortable in certain positions on the court, especially on the offensive side.
“I feel like in the playoffs we were good defensively and offensively that’s why we lost. And part of my job is to make sure my teammates are confident and ready for the big moments.”
After watching Holmgren take a hard fall in the loss to Golden State on Sunday, suffering a right iliac hip fracture that will be re-evaluated in eight to 10 weeks, Gilgeous-Alexander and his teammates had to move on and be ready to go. win while playing small. ball against the Clippers a night later. The Thunder are small and bigs Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein (nondisplaced left hand fracture) and Jaylin Williams (hamstring) are sidelined.
While Holmgren played in all 82 regular-season games last season, he missed his first NBA season after being selected second overall in the 2022 draft due to a Lisfranc injury.
“We’ve been through it before,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of playing small. “We have won games by playing little and we can do it again.”
The Thunder led by as many as 20 before seeing the Clippers make a furious run to get within two with 42.3 seconds left. Los Angeles guard Norman Powell continued his torrid start to the season by scoring 29 of his 31 points and making 10 of 12 shots, including 5 of 6 3-pointers, all in the second half before fouling out late.
But Gilgeous-Alexander scored 10 of his points in the final 5:25, including two free throws with 22.7 seconds left to stop the Clippers’ run.
Clippers coach Ty Lue said before the game that Gilgeous-Alexander is at a level that only a select group of all-time great superstars have reached where they can let the game come to them and take over late.
“As a younger player, you can lose control or try to get my points,” Lue said before the game. “He knows the style of play will come to him, he knows the ball will come back. He lets other guys get going, he lets other guys he trusts with the basketball [to score early].
“But he knows that at any moment he can take over the game. He reminds you a lot of the greats like [Michael] Jordan.”
Gilgeous-Alexander became the first player in Thunder/SuperSonics franchise history to record at least 45 points and five steals in a game.
But Gilgeous-Alexander, 26, has much greater feats in mind, and that’s why he’s been constantly thinking about how he can better prepare his team to win playoff games every night, something some stars don’t realize. they realize or do it until after several playoffs or when they are older.
“When we lost [to Dallas]”I thought about why we lost and obviously there are so many things to criticize,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “But I can only control what I can control, and I try to look at it through that lens.
“A lot of people don’t recognize it until it’s too late. And I don’t want it to be too late, so I tried to get it right early.”
