The Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday delivered a monumental 138-89 thrashing to the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Cup quarterfinals, a real coup to return to Las Vegas for a second year. Forty-nine-point lead in a Cup playoffs, the biggest thrashing of the season in the NBA.
The reigning champions thus equaled the best start to a season in NBA history, that of the Golden State Warriors of the 2015-16 campaign, with a 24-1 record through their first 25 games.
Thunder advance and Shai touches historic mark
Dona y cambia vidas
Tu donativo brinda terapias, esperanza y un futuro sin límites a niños con discapacidad. Haz la diferencia hoy.
The Thunder await the San Antonio Spurs, who defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, in the West semifinals.
Oklahoma City closed the third quarter with a 38-point cushion (110-72) and Mark Daigneault decided to bench all of his starters for the final 12 minutes.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 28 points and 8 assists. Chet Holmgren contributed 24 points and 8 rebounds.
Shai has now played 96 straight games with 20 or more points, 30 shy of Wilt Chamberlain’s all-time mark, which has stood since 1963.
Unstoppable precision and total confidence
All Oklahoma City Thunder starters finished the night between 50 and 80 percent shooting.
With a whopping 73.3% from Gilgeous-Alexander and 69.2% from Holmgren.
“We demand a lot of ourselves. The most important thing is to keep improving. It doesn’t matter where we are today: we want to be better tomorrow.”
“And, well, there’s a little bit of money on the line as well, so we got off on the right foot today,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after the game.
Bloodbath in Oklahoma
The most important thing is to keep improving
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Virtually unbeatable since winning their first ring, the Thunder took this NBA Cup playoffs as the ideal stage to send an intimidating message:
His reign is not in dispute.
They didn’t give the Suns -always trailing on the scoreboard- a chance and put the game away from the first quarter.
They punished Phoenix with three-pointers and stratospheric shooting from every position on the court.
With a 14-2 run, they took a 36-16 lead in the first quarter.
They closed the second quarter with another 20-6 run to make it 74-48.
The Thunder closed the first half with four straight three-pointers.
Gilgeous-Alexander, Luguentz Dort for a double and Jalen Williams at the buzzer. Absolutely demoralizing.
Thunder sweep mercilessly
At halftime, the Thunder were shooting 60.5 percent from the field (26 of 46), including 68.4 percent from three-point range (13 of 19).
A 6-0 run to start the third quarter made it clear that there would be no surprises in the second half.
In fact, they extended their lead to +43 (105-62) just before the end of the fourth quarter, a massacre in a game of this caliber.
The substitutes were not far behind:
Daigneault gave them the reins in the final quarter and they extended the cushion to a maximum of +53 (138-85) with just under two minutes to go.
Ousmane Dieng and Branden Carlson each contributed 11 points down the stretch.
The Thunder struck fear into the Final Four in Las Vegas.
Last year’s finalists against the Milwaukee Bucks, it will be very difficult for them to escape the title this time.
With information from EFE
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