Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is known for his Instagram captions, which are witty enough to have come from his friend Drake.
But don’t sleep on Chet Holmgren, who dropped some lyrical lines of his own following OKC’s 119-103 home win over Detroit on Wednesday.
“The game usually favors the aggressor,” Holmgren said. “You can’t make a shot without shooting it.”
“Ooh,” Jalen Williams reacted, as if he was shivering from the cold quote. “You barred up.”
Holmgren turned those bars into buckets against the Pistons.
The big man showed an appetite for aggression. An insatiable craving for contact. A thirst for touches that helped him finish with 22 points in addition to 11 rebounds, six blocks and two steals.
The feeding frenzy was overdue for Holmgren, who only scored nine combined points in 51 minutes of action throughout his previous two outings. He matched that total in the first seven minutes of the opening quarter.
“I was just trying to set the tone out of the gates that we gotta really get up and down the floor and keep that pace,” Holmgren said. “It’s worked for us all season, so we had to keep it going.”
Holmgren has spent plenty of time lately at power forward. But the 22-year-old pro showed why he’s a handful to defend at center on a night when Isaiah Hartenstein came off the bench.
Holmgren showcased his mobility by putting the ball on the floor, like when he went coast to coast for an and-one bucket over Jalen Duren in the first quarter. The 7-footer also hunted mismatches, like when he overpowered 6-4 guard Malik Beasley on his way to a layup in the fourth quarter.
Detroit even tried to get physical with Holmgren. But he embraced every bump and bruise and went 8 for 9 at the free-throw line.
“Certainly, him at the five is an option for us that we want to keep alive,” head coach Mark Daigneault said. “Every time we go back to it, it seems to be very sharp. We think we know what we have with that. … It’s obviously very effective when we move him there.”
Holmgren is still finding his rhythm this season. Ups and downs are to be expected, considering he has missed 48 games due in large part to a hip injury.
Holmgren’s performance against Detroit was an encouraging sight with the postseason approaching, though. He scored at least 20 points for the eighth time this season, and OKC is 8-0 in those games.
Sure, Holmgren still has a ways to go before he’s on the same level lyrically as Gilgeous-Alexander. But when he’s flowing offensively, it’s poetry in motion.
“He’s a really good player,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Him struggling, we don’t ever worry about it. … Some nights, you’re gonna have bad nights. That’s just what comes with the game. And tonight, he did not have a bad night. That’s what we expect from him, to bounce back like that.”
Here are three takeaways from the win.
The Paycom Center rims were unforgiving toward OKC’s shooters all night. But they made an exception for Lu Dort, who let a 3-pointer fly as his team clung to a six-point lead with three minutes remaining.
The ball hit the backboard. Then it hit the back iron. Then it hit the front iron. Then it went up in the air. And then it finally fell through the hoop.
That was one of four made 3-pointers by Dort on nine attempts (44.4%). The rest of the Thunder’s players went just 6 for 29 from deep (20.7%).
Dort finished with 14 points in addition to seven rebounds and one steal. And while his numbers aren’t as gaudy as that of someone like Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 33 points, he delivered some timely buckets during the nationally-televised contest.
“Big Game Lu,” Holmgren jokingly said. “He sees the letters ESPN somewhere, and he decides to turn it on. That’s Lu.”
J.B. Bickerstaff pounded the table with both hands before he crumpled up a stat sheet.
He had no desire to look at it anymore in the press conference following Detroit’s 113-107 home loss to OKC on March 15. It showed a disparity in free throws favoring the Thunder, which attempted 22 to the Pistons’ 13.
Cade Cunningham also got ejected in the third quarter after picking up two technical fouls, fueling Bickerstaff’s belief that his team had been treated unfairly by the referees.
“I’m disgusted by the way that game was officiated,” Bickerstaff said after the game. “The disrespect has gone far enough, and I’m not going to allow our guys to be treated the way that they were treated tonight. We deserve a level of respect because we’re competing our tails off and bringing something positive to this league. … The least that they can do is get the same respect that everybody else in this league gets and get refereed the same way that everybody else in this league gets reffed. And enough is enough of it.”
Bickerstaff seems to be getting his wish.
The Pistons ranked 16th in the NBA in free throw attempts per game (21.7) following that loss. They’re averaging a league-high 27.9 attempts in the games since then.
Detroit also got its fair share of whistles on Wednesday. It attempted 25 free throws, nearly twice as many as the first meeting. But it wasn’t enough to get the win on a night when the Pistons were short-handed.
Cunningham sat due to a left calf contusion while Ron Holland II, Marcus Sasser and Isaiah Stewart were out because of a league suspension. Tobias Harris also exited the game late in the third quarter and didn’t return due to right Achilles tendinopathy.
Despite that, Detroit stayed within striking distance throughout the night and even trimmed the deficit to four points with just under four minutes remaining. That’s certainly respectable in Daigneault’s eyes.
“That’s as scrappy and as relentless of a team as there is,” Daigneault said. “They’re playing at an unbelievable baseline in terms of effort. … They’ve done this all year.”
Daigneault isn’t usually one for flashy footwear, but he had some special sneakers on his feet Wednesday.
He wore a custom pair of Nike Air Force 1s in OKC colors to support Autism Acceptance Month. It’s part of a league-wide initiative by the NBA, which will have all of its head coaches wear similar sneakers during games between April 2-9.
The custom shoes feature team colors and designs that symbolize the autism community, and they’ll be sold in a public auction from May 13-20. Funds raised will benefit the “To The Max Foundation,” a nonprofit founded by Utah assistant coach Scott Morrison and his wife Susanne in honor of their 5-year-old son Max, who was diagnosed with autism in 2022.
“It’s an honor to do it,” Daigneault said. “It’s just about acceptance for people who see and experience the world differently. (It’s) just focusing on support and inclusion and kindness, so to participate is an honor.”
Gilgeous-Alexander and Dort are also participating by donating autographed jerseys and game-worn shoes to the auction, which can be accessed at sothebys.com/tothemaxfoundation.
- Daigneault on former OKC guard Dennis Schroder, who had an animated conversation with Gilgeous-Alexander near the end of the game: “We love Dennis and have nothing but respect for him and Detroit. … He took issue with us going and trying to score on the last possession. We meant no disrespect. We love him.”
- Gilgeous-Alexander chuckled when asked about the conversation with Schroder, who he played with in OKC during the 2019-20 season: “It was nothing.”
- OKC will finish this season with a 29-1 record against the Eastern Conference. It’s the best record against the opposing conference by any team in NBA history.
