Chet Holmgren went step for step with Jaden McDaniels as he powered toward the basket. After a few strides, the long, lanky Minnesota wing realized he wasn’t going to get by the Thunder big man, so he pivoted and went to his left hand.
It was exactly what Holmgren wanted.
Forcing McDaniels to that off hand gave Holmgren the upper hand.
He didn’t bump. He didn’t reach.
He waited.
As much as that’s possible in a fast-paced, bang-bang play at the end of a crucial Western Conference finals game.
Then when McDaniels sent a shot toward the basket, Holmgren reached for the ball, getting a couple of fingers on it and swatting it just before the shot hit the backboard. His block in the final minute Monday night was the exclamation point.
There are many reasons why Oklahoma City now sits one win away from going to the NBA Finals. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s scoring. Jalen Williams’ shooting. The Thunder’s defense and tenacity and resilience. Didn’t that 42-point loss in Game 3 feel like two years ago instead of two days?
But no Thunder was bigger than Holmgren.
His stat line: 21 points, seven rebounds, one steal and three blocks.
“He’s just a winning player,” SGA said. “He was a really good version of himself tonight.”
Holmgren was such a game-changer that when reporters asked Anthony Edwards in the locker room after the game about the impact of SGA and Williams, the Timberwolves superstar turned his answer a different way.
“I think Chet changed the game for them more than anything,” Edwards said, mentioning the easy rebounds and easy putbacks that Holmgren had.
“I think that changed the game.”
Holmgren easily had his best game of the series and one of the best playoff games of his career. Yes, he had that big offensive game when the Thunder made that big Game 3 comeback against Memphis in the first round when he hit five 3-pointers and scored 24 points. But he had no blocks that night. No steals either.
His defensive impact was much bigger on Monday.
“Chet was a monster,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “Played majority five all night and battled up.”
The Thunder largely went away from its double-big lineup, going with smaller lineups for long stretches of the game. That allowed OKC to get more perimeter defenders on the floor, guys like Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace. That was helpful in assisting Lu Dort, Williams and SGA as they contended with Edwards and Randle in addition to the reserves who had hot hands, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Donte DiVincenzo prime among them.
But with Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid around and still trying to cause havoc, Daigneault opted to go with Holmgren.
He played 33 minutes to Isaiah Hartenstein’s 15.
Who knows? Maybe that flips Wednesday when the Thunder has a chance to close out this series, but on Monday, Holmgren was the absolute right answer.
And then he went out and hit 9 of 14 shots, including 2 of 4 from behind the arc, too.
“It was amazing,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Holmgren’s night. “Helluva player. On both ends of the floor, he’s playing at such a high level, and it’s crazy because he’s out there just running around right now.”
Wait. Did he say Holmgren is just running around?
“We rarely call plays for him,” Gilgeous-Alexander explained “He rarely gets anything set for him. He’s out there just playing off of feel and affecting the game at a high level whether it’s making shots, blocking shots, offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding.”
Suggestion for Daigneault and Co.: If this is how Holmgren plays without plays or sets getting called for him, maybe it’s time to start running a few for him.
Because on Monday, he was assertive and forceful and confident and masterful.
And he did it on home soil. Holmgren, you no doubt remember, is from Minneapolis. Grew up there. Learned basketball there. Even won four state high school basketball championships in the same arena where he starred Monday.
Being back in Minnesota is bound to put some extra pressure on Holmgren.
“I’m literally looking at, like, half his town in the family section,” Williams quipped during a live postgame interview with Scott Van Pelt on ESPN’s SportsCenter.
Holmgren admits he didn’t love the way his first playoff game in his hometown went down.
But his second?
It was one for the scrapbook.
“I felt like I played a better game,” Holmgren said. “I still had stretches where I felt like I could be better. … but as a team, as a collective, I thought we were a lot better tonight.
“I’d say the big thing is just trying to have fingerprints on the game.”
Safe to say Holmgren did that much like he left his fingerprints on that fourth-quarter, crunch-time shot he blocked.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at @jennicarlsonok.bsky.social and twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
