In Game Two of their second-round series against the Denver Nuggets, the Oklahoma City Thunder put on an offensive clinic. They outscored Denver by 24 points in the first quarter and never looked back on their way to a 149-106 victory, that evened the series score at 1-1.
Scoring has significantly increased in the NBA over the past two decades, from 93.4 points per team per game in 2003-04 to 113.8 this past regular season. The advent of the sky-high three-point rate, better spacing, multi-positional playmaking, deeper rotations, fresher legs, less isolation possessions and better offensive principles have changed the game on both ends, but particularly offensively, raising the sport to new highs that defenses cannot handle. Where so recently 149 points was unfathomable, it is a mark that was equalled three times season, and surpassed four more.
Even in this context, though, 149 is a massive number of points for the Thunder to score in a game. It is particularly large in a playoff game, which is supposed to be a more physical defensive slugfest, where each possession matters more.
The Thunder’s Best Offense Is A Good Defense
To be sure, the Thunder played physically. Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon was outspoken in his post game comments about Oklahoma City’s tough approach, in particular against Nuggets superstar centre Nikola Jokic, and as interim Nuggets head coach David Adelman expressed it, the Thunder “came out with the right intensity…and we didn’t.”
Getting Jokic into foul trouble in this way however was key to it all. In nullifying Denver’s best counterpunch, the Thunder were able to run the Nuggets off the floor, getting to where they wanted on the court, winning all the whistles and making the resulting attempts (shooting 33-36 from the free throw line as a team, to go with 16-36 from the three-point line).
The Thunder’s 87 points in the first half was a record scoring total for any first-half in NBA history, surpassing the Cleveland Cavaliers’ record of 86 set back in the 2017 NBA Finals. It also tied for the most in any half with an 87-point Milwaukee Bucks performance all the way back in 1978. So dominant was the Thunder’s first half performance – leading by 31 points at the break – that the entire second-half felt like garbage time.
Shai Set New Standards
As always, the crux of that offensive display was the Thunder’s own superstar, guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. On only 13 shots, SGA scored 34 points – including a perfect 11-11 from the free throw line – to along with eight assists and only two turnovers, an exercise in offensive efficiency.
The advanced stats saw him set more records as an individual. Gilgeous-Alexander’s plus-minus rating – a simple calculation of how many more points a team scores with a certain player on the court, compared to when they are on the bench – was +51, the highest mark in NBA playoff history of any player ever. The previous mark of +46 was jointly held by Desmond Bane, LeBron James and Jimmy Butler, but Shai’s performance now stands alone.
With the series now tied at 1-1, the teams move to Denver for Game Three on Friday night. The Nuggets will try to take some solace from the fact that, although they were beaten down by the Thunder in Game Two, their victory in Game One saw them take back homecourt advantage in the series. But as Gordon himself said, if you lose by 40+ points, “it’s not the refs”. Instead, it was the Thunder and Shai’s offensive masterclasses. The statement has been made.
Thunder Set Multiple Scoring Records in Game 2 Victory