Perk credits OKC’s depth & SGA’s trust in his teammates 💪 ‘OKC DEEPER THAN THE OCEAN!’ | NBA Today

Perk credits OKC’s depth & SGA’s trust in his teammates 💪 ‘OKC DEEPER THAN THE OCEAN!’ | NBA Today

Mark Spears, you’ve covered a whole lot of these series, so you know this number. Winning a series is tied at 2-2. History says you got to take game five. The winner has gone on to win that series 81% of the time. High stakes, highest pressure, and that sets the stage for two superstars, two MVPs, delivering body blows and going back and forth. Danny Green, we pick this up late. Tie game at 96 in Oklahoma City. SGA spins, cycles, lays it in high off the glass. Daytime SGA puts the Thunder up by two, but then here it’s Nicola Joic that is able to respond. These two trading buckets. This is what we signed up for in this series. And it’s not just the shot making, it’s the gravitational pull of SGA. Oh, there’s Isaiah Hartinstein dumps it off to Isaiah Hartinstein. Just a really nice setup there. But then the next Nuggets possession here, Jokic hit him with a ball. High arc and floater off the glass. Game all tied back at 100. Back and forth we go. The next possession here. SGA hits a step back to Mo. Murray is perplexed. You landed in his uh landing space, bro. It’s a foul. Illegal. Tough shot there through contact. SGA finishes. And this is the next Nuggets possession here. Nicole Joic. How Chad Homegrren. His wingspan is 7 foot five. Every person in Oklahoma City just deflated after that shot. His go-to at the end of the shot clock. And with that, it’s his second 4015 and5 game in his playoff career. Tied with Elgen Baylor for the second most all time. Game all tied at 103. But then the next Thunder possession here, Jaylen Williams. Watch him in the corner there. We’ve talked about needing the others to show up. JDub with a huge bucket there, then having a nice conversation with his shooting hand. Yes, sir. And that brings us to today’s electric moment brought to you by Hyundai. Under a minute left, OKC up three. We’ve been wondering when is SGA going to hit the shot. and he’s four of 21 on threes at this point in the series. Christian Brown on him now gets just a little bit of breathing room. And all of a sudden, the Thunder up by six. And just look at the Thunder fans reaction to that shot. Even Nana is perplexed. So is Matt Pinto on Thunder Radio. Hardenstein screen. Shay jumped out by Brown. Kills Alexander five to shoot. Angle left fires a three. That’s online. Got it. Tang ball under by baby. I can’t even try to replicate that type of call. So, I’ll just say chuch-ching. SGA comes up clutch. But here’s Jamal Murray on Joic’s MVP performance as well. I mean, a bad game. He had 26 10 and eight. And it’s like, he played bad. Like, no. He missed shots. There’s a difference. He’s still playing. He’s still the engine of our offense. He’s still coordinating. He’s still anchor on defense. He still does a lot of different things. So, you know, I don’t think Yolk should be going through any type of slander when, you know, he’s still playing all NBA MVP, Hall of Fame type of level. No one guy can do it. I need Chad. Chad needs me. We both need Dub and Hart and K Rich and so forth and so on. Like, we all need each other. Obviously, he’s a really talented guy. Um, but all we care about is winning the game and we got one tonight. We got to go get one more. You’re only as good as your weakest link. I mean, that’s a heck of a quote there from SGA. Perfect. Perfect for what I’m about to explain to you because I was one of the other guys that helped my team. Your superstars get you there. Your others win you the series that get you through the series when your superstars are tired. Jamal Murray got tired last night and OKC outlasted them. Usually in the fourth quarter OKC they’ve been one shot, one pass and and isolation, no movement and they get, you know, fourth quarter out. This game they move the ball well, attack the paint. You see the the draw that he got, pump fake, draw, kick, find Lou Dort, who hit two previous to this three-pointer. I don’t know why Jokic is closing out so short on him. Lud Dort was hot. He’s the one that got them back into the game. 50-50 balls. Got them some loose balls, offensive rebounds. Here they got the zone going. SJ gets a pick and roll. Attacks the paint. Gets to see move with the ball, move without the ball. Isaiah Hartinstein cut back door. Lob, easy dunk. Got to love that, man. Others get involved. And this one was even my my favorite one because it was a the screen by Isaiah which got them the three. SGA gets to the paint, draws three guys to him, sees the open man, finds Ludort, swing, swing quick. And you see Isaiah here sitting this big screen right here. That was a key play to them getting a wide open shot from JDub who damn near ices the game or gets them the lead. They had since in the fourth quarter they hadn’t had the lead all game. So this is what wins you the games. The others get him the little plays. Gets to the paint attacking swing swing getting some open looks. Richard Jefferson, I don’t know if y’all remember him. He used to hang out on our show a whole lot more before he got important, but we would always say the stars got to get you a game. Your role players got to get you a game. And that is certainly what uh the Oklahoma City Thunder did here. But as you can see, SJA, he scored or assisted on more points by himself in clutch time of game five than the Nuggets scored as an entire team here, edging Denver by a margin of 12 to1. They fought back to take this series 3 to2. You know, there’s a closer for the Toronto Blue Jays. His name is Jeff Hoffman. Well, the Canadian for the Thunder, SGA, he’s their closer. We’ve seen this the last two games. He’s he’s been phenomenal at the end of the game. his numbers the rest of the game hasn’t been great, but in game four, he locked it in, got him to win, got the clutch basket to win the game. And yesterday, it was the same thing. He had the three-point play. He had uh at two minute mark, and then 47 seconds left, he had a three-pointer. Perk had a guy in Paul Pierce that used to close games for them in the key big games. SGA, he’s that closer for the Thunder. You got to ask yourself like how did he get to the point where he could close the game, right? And you got to give credit to his teammates. The Oklahoma City Thunder are deeper than the Pacific Ocean when it comes down to that depth. And that’s what’s that’s what’s winning them these games, especially the last two. You look at the numbers of what they’ve done to Denver in the fourth quarter. I mean, it’s been eye popping, right? like 63 points. The Nuggets 37 over the last, you know, in games four and five. The Thunder shooting 49% from the field, 8 for 17 while diving two for 24 from the three-point range. And so you look at Alex Caruso who’s bringing that championship experience and that leadership. You got Jay Will who is the one that comes in off the bench. Jay Dub is the starter. You have Jay Will coming in and he’s mixing it up, wrestling down low with Jokic and getting him frustrated. You have Chad Homegrred came up with huge blocks. Um Isaiah Joe and I thought uh Kase Wallace, they defense was was pretty damn good. Luke Dorts who had been struggling this series from the Trey Ball. All of a sudden, he have his one shining moment where he’s knocking down triples. And you heard Shay uh uh talk about it like basically like I couldn’t I wouldn’t be able to close the game if it wasn’t for the others on my team being able to get me through the first, second, and third quarter. 100%. And you got to give a lot of credit to SGA cuz he did a great job of trusting them. You know, this is a game he had 30 points and it didn’t seem like it. The whole second half, fourth quarter, he wasn’t that aggressive, but he was aggressive in making moves and getting his teammates open, freeing them up, getting to the paint, attacking. There was too much ISO ball in the games that they lost in the fourth quarter was one pass, one shot. He made sure they had extra passes, extra screens, got to the paint and picked and choose his moments to get to the basket and make some shots and make some plays. But he allowed his other guys to step up and give them opportunities to win. Especially when Denver was playing that that zone, he found ways to penetrate that zone and get them open looks. That depth on full display for anyone wondering, the Pacific Ocean is over 14,000 ft deep. Ever since you said that, Perk, I was I was curious. And the Thunder are deeper than that. So, how do the Nuggets, Burke, when you look at the fact that they’ve been outscored by 26 points in the last two fourth quarters, how do they get back in this? How do they force a game seven? Look, the biggest X factor for the Nuggets uh in this series is Aaron Gordon, right? You look at this series, the two games that the Nuggets have won in this series, Aaron Gordon had 22 points in each one of those games. the games that they lost, he’s had under 20, right? They’re undefeated in this postseason when he scores 20 or more. So, Aaron Gordon is that guy. Remember in game one, Joic had 42, but Aaron Gordon had 22. They had 64 of of the 121 points. He is that guy for them. If the Thunder continue, especially Chad Homegrred to slow him down, that favors the Thunder. But if Aaron Gordon decides to go back into championship mode of what we seen when they made their finals run the most important piece outside of Joic and Murray, then the Nuckers have a real chance of winning this series in seven games. But he’s the biggest X factor. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Danny Green joins Malika Andrews on NBA Today to break down how the Oklahoma City Thunder have found success against Denver Nuggets before Marc J. Spears and Kendrick Perkins speak highly of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and OKC’s depth.

0:00 Nuggets-Thunder highlights
3:02 Danny Green at the big board
4:43 Marc J. Spears & Perk on OKC’s depth
6:50 Danny Green credits SGA’s trust in teammates
7:40 Aaron Gordon is the Nuggets’ X-factor

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