theathleticuk
CLEVELAND — If opposing defenses continue to guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the way the Cleveland Cavaliers did on Monday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder might just weather the storm.
Gilgeous-Alexander has grown accustomed to relentless double-teams this season, but the Cavaliers employed a different approach. They began by defending him mostly one-on-one, rotating various defenders onto him. When Cleveland assigned one of its bigger defenders to shadow the two-time reigning MVP, those big men sagged off far enough to allow Gilgeous-Alexander to get to his preferred midrange jumper inside or near the paint.
The strategy raised eyebrows, especially considering that nearly all of the players Oklahoma City relies on as secondary scoring options are dealing with serious or devastating injuries. Recent opponents had been forcing the ball out of Gilgeous-Alexander's hands at every opportunity, daring someone else to beat them.
For the first time this season, Gilgeous-Alexander surpassed 40 points, finishing with 43, and carried the Thunder to a much-needed 117-112 win over Cleveland. The victory halted a two-game slide in which OKC had been blown out twice and marked the team's second win in four games since its season seemed to hit rock bottom on Oct. 25.
"I am just trying to figure out what winning will look like for this team, with this group," Gilgeous-Alexander said after the game. "Myself and the rest of the group had become so accustomed to what winning looked like with the whole group that we had. So, even when you might not have enough talent — we believe we still do — we just have to find a different way, and we found that way tonight."
Gilgeous-Alexander needed 35 shot attempts to reach his 43 points. The sample size is small, but he hasn't been this inefficient as a scorer in years. His points per game and shooting percentages were significantly down heading into Monday's contest, and making 14 of 35 shots is not exactly lighting it up efficiency-wise. However, his four 3-pointers and 11-of-12 free-throw shooting certainly helped. He scored 13 points in a tight fourth quarter when the Cavaliers largely used two defenders to guard him, though the secondary defender was often far enough behind the play that Gilgeous-Alexander still had room to operate.
"There's certain nights when you have a player like that where you just kind of unleash them and let them go, and he had it going," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said postgame. "He had the look in his eye, so we obviously rode him tonight. That's not our identity over 82 games."
Monday marked nine days since the Thunder lost All-NBA performer Jalen Williams to a gruesome compound lower leg injury and key role player Cason Wallace to left shoulder surgery. All-Star Chet Holmgren suffered a torn tendon in his right knee days later. Williams and Wallace are potentially out for the season; Holmgren is likely to miss at least 10 weeks.
The Thunder won the NBA Finals in 2025 and pushed their title defense all the way to Game 7 of the Western Conference finals last season. They did that mostly without Williams, who battled two balky hamstrings. Then, over the summer, for salary-cap purposes, Oklahoma City traded rotation players Luguentz Dort, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins.
The plan was to roll with a healthy Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams, Holmgren, Wallace and Alex Caruso — who is also currently sidelined with a sprained ankle. Jaylin Williams (not to be confused with Jalen Williams) was counted on as a capable reserve, and Ajay Mitchell and Kenrich Williams were among those expected to develop in expanded roles. But not this expanded.
Mitchell scored 20 points against the Cavaliers, and rookie 7-footer Aday Mara added 10 points and nine rebounds off the bench.
In Jalen Williams, the Thunder have a highly capable two-way player who was one of the league's best the season the team won it all. He is now headed toward essentially two full seasons lost (last year and this) because of injury and is in Year 1 of a five-year, $239 million contract. In Holmgren, they have an All-Star center who had a tough conference finals last May against Victor Wembanyama but otherwise had shown the Thunder enough to earn the same contract extension Williams received.
All in all, the Thunder, as currently constructed, are projected to carry a payroll well north of $250 million — far above the restrictive salary aprons that would make it very difficult to make roster changes or retain top role players in future seasons. Two of those players eating up the money (Williams and Holmgren) have significant injury histories despite their young ages. (Holmgren sat out his entire first season and played just 32 games the year the Thunder won the Finals.) Oklahoma City, despite its success the last two years, remains one of the NBA's youngest teams.
All of the injured players are expected to make full recoveries. The future, so long as those recoveries materialize, remains bright. But the here and now — with no Williams, no Wallace and no Holmgren until January — could be a little touch and go.
"We're not asking for sympathy," Daigneault said. "We're not gonna make excuses. We're going to accept the circumstances as they are, reframe the challenge but lean back on all the same things that we've always leaned on."
The Thunder have been open about needing time to grieve their injuries. Gilgeous-Alexander, who struggled through two inefficient performances in the team's losses leading into Cleveland, admitted his personal energy had been down.
"It obviously was very emotional and a lot really fast, but I think I had to get my mind to what I could control and where we are as a team and where my feet were," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "I think my head wasn't there. My head wasn't where it should've been."
Big man Isaiah Hartenstein, a veteran starter and key role player from the Thunder's title team, declared Monday that the current group was ready to move forward after taking time to process all the injuries.
"I'm not going to lie: there's a human part to it," Hartenstein said. "I think we lose that many guys and don't have the depth that we kind of had in those years past. Those two (previous) games did kind of take a toll a little bit. But I think that we're just ready to move on, and I'm excited for what we can keep improving on. I'm excited to be going forward."
But what that looks like, the Thunder don't know just yet and shouldn't be expected to. There will be plenty of nights when Gilgeous-Alexander faces relentless double-teams. Daigneault said he expected the Cavaliers, for instance, to change their defensive scheme to something like that when the two teams meet again Wednesday in Oklahoma City.
Gilgeous-Alexander will either carry the enormous burden of trying to beat those double-teams to score — which would take a toll on his body after three incredibly long seasons (including the 2024 Olympics) — or he will have to trust his teammates. Or, he supposes, make more shots.
"I didn't shoot it great tonight, percentage-wise," he said Monday. "If I'd made more earlier, later the lead (may have been) bigger, maybe it's less shots, you know what I mean? So, usually, for me, it's what the team needs and more what the game needs."
Caruso is traveling with the Thunder, and his ankle sprain is not believed to be serious. But even with Caruso in the fold, the Thunder will be relying on unproven younger players for big minutes. Another injury to any of the team's veterans would be unfathomable, except it's the NBA and the calendar just turned to November. The odds are something like that will happen.
The Thunder, given their pedigree and their salary ledger, are a team built to win now — and, overall, expects to win now. There is no sign coming from the locker room or front office that a retreat is on the horizon. But what is a reasonable expectation of this team after the week from hell it just endured? Again, it might be too early to say.
"It's really not something I think about, to be honest with you," Daigneault said. "What I focus on is things that transcend the cycle of the team. So, I promise you, the stuff that we were emphasizing, the stuff we were focused on, the way we were operating, the way we were thinking was the exact same from six years ago when we were winning 20-something games as it was when we're winning — you know, when we are on the rise and when we're an established contending team. I mean, that's why your principles are your principles. If your principles can't transcend the circumstances, then you have the wrong principles."
The Thunder's principles and patience are in for a test, as is Gilgeous-Alexander. They all passed Monday in Cleveland.
Originally reported by theathleticuk.