NBA Gametime reacts to Oklahoma City Thunder CRUSH Denver Nuggets 149-106 in Game 2; SGA: 34 Pts

NBA Gametime reacts to Oklahoma City Thunder CRUSH Denver Nuggets 149-106 in Game 2; SGA: 34 Pts

It’s the most points we’ve ever seen in the first half of an NBA playoff game. And the 149 points are the most in a playoff game in Oklahoma City history. Welcome to Playoff Central Live presented by AT&Tis Hlam, George Niang, Chris Miles here with you. And for the Oklahoma City Thunder in game one, they blew a double- digit fourth quarter lead and they came out uh in the first quarter. They were up 30-11. Denver scored the first bucket. OKC never trailed after that. Nine players in double figures. So open ending for you guys. I mean, what was most impressive about this response for OKC? Yeah, they they let it be known. Oh, my bad. Game over. Game over. Tell them wake up. My bad. Game over. Yeah. No, they let it be known this game was not going to be decided in the fourth quarter. I think OKC came out from the jump and imposed their will like a team coming off a first uh game loss would. Um and they just were dominating in all aspects, whether it was the defensive end, the offensive end, they dominated all categories tonight. Yeah, they played hungry and they played desperate. And you talked about when Shay did that interview, he talked about their had a sense of desperation and that’s something that you just can’t make up. They haven’t had that all year. They’ve literally sat in that number one spot all season and they haven’t felt that desperation, that sense of urgency. So, they came out, they played with a sense of urgency. And this is more what we thought OKC would be like. Of course, not winning by this many points, but playing on both ends of the basketball court the same way offensively, getting guys involved and defenses pulling triggers and guys being able to do what they do and use their gifts. Again, nothing we’ve ever seen in NBA history. The most points the first half in a playoff game. And here’s the thing. You think about that heartbreaking loss. Chad Homegrren missing those two free throws. Comes back 1511, two steals and two blocks. Safe to say that didn’t stick with him. And seven for seven from the free throw line tonight. Seven for seven. Yeah, that’s what you got to do. You got to have a short memory. I remember coming into this league and losing a couple games and and I’m sitting in sitting back in my chair with my headphones on. Eddie Jones like, “Hey, young fella, we got another one tomorrow.” Like, you got to be ready to have a short memory and get ready to the next one. So, he’s a pro. I’m sure his guys kept him encouraged. And once again, the other guys got involved. The Case Wallace’s, the Wiggins, the Isaiah Joe’s, these other guys got involved. This is the OKC that we were hoping to see in the playoffs. Yeah, when you’re when you’re playing a team like OKC and they’re clicking on all cylinders, I feel like they’re almost impossible to beat. Right. Game one, OKC’s bench was a little off, right? Isaiah Joe didn’t make too many shots. Alex Caruso wasn’t making as many shots. Now, like you said, Kase Walls is making shots. Isaiah Joe is making shots. It’s almost like an avalanche of points. And that’s why you see them almost put up 150 points. That was remarkable. And it’s easy to focus on the offense and say, man, nine different players, double figures, Shay Gilis Alexander, his normal 34. But a big part of that was defending Noola Joic after his historic 40, 22, six assist game. He was two for seven out of the start. Uh just four points fouled out with 178 and six and for the Joker like that’s something he might put up in a second quarter to hold him to that that that felt really special to OKC to be able to do that. Yeah. And I think it was the three bigs match up and we got to get a shout out to Jaylen Williams tonight who was a guy who played two minutes in game one and came out and played 12 minutes a night and it’s not about the time that he had on the court. It was about the physicality. He got a busted nose. He got hit in the eye. He brought the rugged physicality, sense of desperation. I’m going to make every play. I’m going to dive on loose balls. I’m going to make sure I set the tone for us in aggressive areas. And I think the big biggest thing here is that, you know, the offense runs through Nicole Joic, right? So, they made everything tough for him. They made it so tough that this MVP candidate had six turnovers. Not that it mattered in this game, but I think it proves to the Oklahoma City defense that if we frustrate this guy, if we’re overly physical, we can gain extra possessions throughout the game by making him turn the ball over. Cuz if he’s not turned the ball over, he’s normally kicking it out to someone for a layup or a three. Yeah. Yeah. And I look at, you know, the shooting aspect of it and I go, man, a guy like Isaiah Joe to play 17 minutes, score 14 points, five for five from the field, and he’s one of your former teammates. Like the fact that they just kind of have him on the roster in a night like this is like okay that’s another knockout punch. Yeah. Yeah. I mean when you have a guy you got to switch. Yeah. And a guy that can go out there and make shots in that small amount of time. Uh that’s demoralizing for another team especially for a team that’s you know thirsty to score points and tonight um you know Denver struggled doing that. But UD like you talked about you know with Eddie Jones. I mean you got to have amnesia in this game right? Flush it move on. It’s one game. You’re going back home. You did your job. You got one game here. You still have homecourt advantage. Yeah. 50 or or 50 or one. It doesn’t matter. It’s just one game. Well, I tell you something, that’s more than one game. Watching SGA get his. But the difference is in this one, you ready for he missed two shots. 11 for 11 from the free throw line. 11 for 13 from the field to get his 34. You know, the analytics guys, you know, the the the the field guys, the guys that are like, “Okay, the eye test.” He passed both of those in this one. Listen, I never forget walking into game seven on the road in Boston and our bus gets there about an hour before the game and LeBron had that look in his eye. And you know in the locker room when your best player has that look, all you have to do is fall in line. I guarantee Shay walked in the locker room with that look in his eye and his guys knew all they had to do is fall in line tonight, be in the right spots, play the game the right way. He’s going to lead us and all we just got to do is follow. Yeah, whatever he said, uh, he certainly followed it by doing. 11 for 13. Um, he was just remarkable. You see him here just finding his spots, find getting other guys involved. And like we talked about Isaiah Joe, when you have threats like that, it it’s really tough to stop the uh the Thunder. Yeah, Thunder turning defense into offense. You see SGA, I mean, whenever we look at their stats, you got to go 12 steals, eight blocks in this one. They had 23 stocks in game one. No matter what, they’re going to do those two things. Yes. defense was swarming, especially tonight. And what you see is Jooku operated in a crowd every single time he had the basketball. They did their work early. As soon as he crossed half corner, he got to that three-point line. One of those three bigs were putting a body on him. We’re going to shrink the elbows. We’re going to make everything difficult for you and somebody else is going to have to beat us. Yeah, it was actually remarkable. You know, they switched up defense quite often. They played the double big lineup, but I think what’s really unique to see is that Shay kind of was roaming around off whatever got non shooter that he was guarding to kind of cause a ruckus around Jokic. I thought that was pretty unique uh by the Oklahoma City Thunder. Obviously, that was their game plan adjustment. And uh Chris UD, it worked. Yeah, we hear about adjustments. Now, it’s time for the Denver Nuggets to make some adjustments. Here’s their interim head coach, David Adam. David, after a blowout loss to the Clippers, you stressed it’s one game, it counts as one. There’s a chance to respond. I assume the message, the thinking is similar. Yeah, but we got punked and we didn’t play well enough and they came out with the right intensity and we didn’t uh I thought we let some open shots early in the game affect us how we played defensively. And you know, this is a team that does that. I mean, there’s a reason why they have historic plus minus numbers throughout this season is they put people away. Uh, so you got to have a much better start than that. Uh, we can’t come out like that, that kind of mentality. Um, you know, I’m not going to I’m not sitting here tonight talking about the one-1 thing. Not tonight. We we’re not going to flush that. We’ve got to be better. We know that. That being said, it’s it’s nice to know that you got to win underneath your belt, but that that’s not what this is right now in the present. Uh, so we’ll react the right way like we did, you know, in game three in LA. Uh, bring it different intensity. Uh, look at what they did differently. Uh, react accordingly. And I would expect a much better effort from our guys on Friday night in Denver. What was the most concerning part about the way you lost? Physicality. I mean, bottom line, uh, I thought they towed the line. Uh, I thought the game was wrecked very physical. I thought we joined the party late. When you join the party late, the refs look at you as reactionary. Uh, the whistle doesn’t go your way. Uh, so you can’t be reactionary in these playoff games. You have to do it from the tip, from the start. Uh, we know that. I could tell in that room. Uh the eyes looking back at me know that. Uh that’s the reality of what just happened. So we’ll go back. Uh obviously it’s a really tough series and they’re really good team, but I’ll say it again like you can’t get punked the first six minutes. They set the tone. You can’t get down this building. I I believe it was 3414. Uh that’s going to lead to some bad things. So uh going home uh knowing that we can be much better is a positive. Uh but tonight um we we should not flush that. We should be thinking about that that we got to get a lot better. Because you mentioned it, you guys were kind of reactionary to the physicality. Yeah. Was there any thought of taking the starters out earlier when it looked like it was starting to get messy with Westbrook and Joic and did he foul himself out purposely? I mean, no. Did you Did he thought of taking the starters out any earlier? I did not. No. I I felt like those guys wanted to go back out there and play. Uh I felt like they needed to find the rhythm uh of physicality. I think that they thought we were trying to junk up the game, which we weren’t. We were just trying to play much harder than we did in the first half. Uh, you know, obviously when he fouled out, you know, got m out with about a minute left. They got to sit the whole quarter. They’ll get to sit tomorrow, all day Friday, and get ready for Friday night. So, no, I was not just going to sit the guys at halftime. Like, that’s that’s not what we’re doing here. We’re going to try to get better in play, feel what it was out there. Um, so yeah, it’s it’s a tough loss. Um, but it’s one coach, what can you guys do to kind of free Jamal uh a little bit? I mean, is it a matter of, you know, a press release of, you know, bringing letting Aaron or somebody else bring the ball up and running them off screens or, you know, what can you do to get them off get get kind of get Dor off of him? Yeah, I thought we in game one, uh, Aaron and CB took a lot of the responsibilities like you’re talking about, which allows us to get hits, you know, and free him up. uh we know with Dort holding and grabbing him all over the court. It’s like you have to get multiple screens uh to give him space to play and we talked about it at halftime we have to get hits in the back court if he is the lead initiator like you’re saying like and that’s part of the physical part of the game. Uh you know you have to be attentive to what’s happening. Uh your teammates getting pressured and that’s something we can get better at for sure you know and like I said it’s I I can sit here and say again it’s 1-1 but that’s another like another thing. Oh yeah. We get ready. Boom. Boom. Lord, right now. Now, Goodbye. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Don’t come here. I know. Good night. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. You want to Damn. Not going to happen.

NBA Gametime reacts to Oklahoma City Thunder CRUSH Denver Nuggets 149-106 in Game 2; Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 34 Pts