He didn’t have to do it. But for the Oklahoma City Thunder and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to reach their goals, it was a play he needed to make.
Similar passes from Gilgeous-Alexander to open teammates had yielded little fruit. When the Canadian national team star has the ball for the Thunder, he has the ultimate green light. He can dribble and spin into a contested fallaway in the lane. He can deliver his patented shoulder bump and forearm shiver to step back into his never-miss middy. He can drive into the heart of the forest confident he’ll find his way to the other side, or he can glide into an easy three-point look in transition.
For the presumptive MVP, an NBA floor is most definitely his canvas where he’s free to create as he sees fit. Some plays are better than others, but, by definition, there are almost no bad plays when the pride of Hamilton, Ont. has the ball in his hands.
But at this particular moment in Game 7 of the Thunder’s second-round series against the Denver Nuggets on Sunday, Gilgeous-Alexander was still determined to make the right play not only for him but for his team.
Gilgeous-Alexander glanced to his right, saw his teammate and running mate Jalen Williams slowing up for what would be a wide-open three in transition, and didn’t hesitate in flipping the ball to him.
It’s the most basic of all basketball decisions, but notable in this instance because Gilgeous-Alexander’s teammates – and Williams in particular – had failed to execute them over and over again through the hard-fought second-round series.
As the Thunder fought to legitimize their record-setting 68-14 regular season, Gilgeous-Alexander had done his part.
Had he elevated his game, Michael Jordan style, during the first six games of a series that was equal parts alley fight and basketball contest?
Not especially, but it says plenty about Gilgeous-Alexander that even against the packed paint and constant double teams the Nuggets were employing to slow him down he was producing at an MVP level: 28.8 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, 1.3 steals with a True Shooting percentage of 60.0 with just 14 turnovers before Sunday’s Game 7.
But few others in the Thunder lineup could say that they were even matching their regular-season levels. Williams, in particular, was struggling, coming into the deciding game averaging just 16.5 points and shooting just 33.7 per cent from the floor and 21.2 per cent from three, and that was including scoring 32 points on 21 shots in Game 3, the only time he’s looked himself.
And for the early moments of Game 7, it looked like a replay of so many moments in the series so far.
With a chance to advance to the Western Conference Finals on the line, and only a bruised and battered Nuggets team in the way, a win would allow the deep, youthful Thunder, and their 26-year-old superstar, Gilgeous-Alexander, to begin establishing what many feel could be the NBA’s next dynasty.
But the question Sunday, as had been the question for much of the season was a hangover from last season when the No. 1-seeded Thunder were upset in the second-round by Dallas in large part because Gilgeous-Alexander’s supporting cast didn’t seem ready for the moment. They shot just 42 per cent from the floor and 30 per cent from three for the six-game series.
But Gilgeous-Alexander remained committed to empowering his teammates, rather than use his star power to distance himself from them or overwhelm them.
“He’s continued to trust all of us in situations where getting off the ball is the right play,” Chet Holmgren said when I spoke to him for a feature on Gilgeous-Alexander last month. “I’ve seen him come down and score on four people all by himself. So, like, he never has to pass the ball, but he understands the bigger picture … of, if you want people to double you less, send less bodies at you, you have to punish them for it.
“He has a great understanding of fostering that experience in all of us to get better at that as a team, and we’ve done a really good job of executing in those situations,” Holmgren continued. “And a lot of that credit goes to him, trusting that even if it’s not perfect this time, it’s for getting it right down the road.”
Game 7 of the second round was where that road was going to fork: take the wrong one and the Thunder would be facing a long, disappointing summer, wondering if or when all their promise would translate into prime time.
And early on in what ended up being a convincing 125-93 Thunder blowout that sent the Nuggets home and catapulted Oklahoma City into the Western Conference Finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the questions were still there.
As the Nuggets sagged into the paint, often in zone, to help nullify Gilgeous-Alexander’s interior game, the Thunder missed their first six threes, most of them wide open. The Nuggets, playing a short rotation and a core of walking wounded that included Michael Porter Jr. (shoulder), Aaron Gordon (hamstring) and Jamal Murray (coming off the flu), often just dared the Thunder make a shot. Too often Oklahoma City didn’t make them pay.
The Thunder trailed by 11 early in the first quarter and by five after 12 minutes. And even as OKC began to gain some semblance of control, buoyed by a rabid home crowd, it seemed like it was going to be a heavy lift.
Montreal’s Lu Dort hit a corner three for the Thunder, made a steal at mid-court leading to a fastbreak dunk for Alex Caruso and Williams had attacked the rim with confidence early in the second quarter, but there were still plenty of clunkers. Holmgren missed an open three, Williams missed another, Cason Wallace missed one more.
By the time Gilgeous-Alexander found Williams in transition again with a wide-open look from deep, Oklahoma City was 3-of-18 from deep. Williams was 7-of-34 for the series from three. No one would have blinked if Gilgeous-Alexander had just slashed to the paint again. Just a moment before, he’d done just that and hit Holmgren for an alley-oop as the Nuggets swarmed.
But hitting the open man is always the right play to make, both in the moment and for the moments the Thunder are hoping to experience in the coming weeks and seasons.
And this time Williams accepted the pass and stepped into his shot with confidence, nailing it. It put the Thunder up 47-41 with 2:18 left in the second quarter. More importantly, the one shot seemed to light a fire under Williams and his teammates.
The emerging third-year star ended up scoring 11 of his 17 second-quarter points during an 18-5 run in the final three minutes of the period to give OKC a 60-46 halftime lead that Denver could never rebound from.
From that moment on, the Thunder looked every inch the team that had dominated the regular season, setting the NBA record for point differential and winning the west by 12 games over second-seeded Houston and finishing 18 games ahead of the fourth-seeded Nuggets.
It hadn’t looked that way very often in the series: The Thunder gifted Denver the opening game of the set and trailed 2-1 after three games when it seemed like the 2023 champion Nuggets, led by Nikola Jokic and Murray, were going to teach OKC some hard lessons in championship basketball.
A flu-stricken Murray stepped up with another one of his classic post-season showings as he found a way to scrape together 25 points and seven assists in Game 6 on Thursday to force Game 7.
But rather than the Nuggets turning the clock back to 2023, it was the Thunder turning it back to March of 2025, as they ran Denver off the floor, like they did to so many opponents during their dominant regular season.
They NBA’s most ferocious defence forced one of the league’s most calibrated offences into 22 turnovers. Williams looked like the second star the Thunder have been hoping for as he finished with 24 points and seven assists on 10-of-17 shooting, answering for his 3-of-16 fumble in Game 6. Caruso changed the game with his defence, proving an effective under-sized defender on Jokic (20 points, nine rebounds, seven assists but five turnovers ) and Dort and Cason Wallace made Murray’s life miserable, holding the Canadian national-teamer and to just 13 points on 6-of-16 shooting.
And Gilgeous-Alexander? He looked like an MVP as he glided to 35 points on 12-of-19 shooting to go along with four assists and three steals.
His best moments will need to follow if he’s going to go where no Canadian has before – raising the MVP trophy and the Larry O’Brien Trophy in the same season. But he won’t be able to get to those places alone, and Gilgeous-Alexander has never carried himself as such. As superstars go, he’s inclusive in his approach.
And he showed it in the second quarter when the game was still in doubt, demonstrating his faith in his teammates even as they struggled, and being rewarded as they flourished.
It’s an approach Gilgeous-Alexander believes will lift him and the Thunder to new heights.
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