Oklahoma City’s talent is obvious. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s the league’s Most Valuable Player for a reason. The Thunder’s defensive prowess is well-established. What remains remarkable about this group, now three wins away from an NBA championship going into Game 3 against Indiana, is that it’s reached this place with such little collective postseason experience. Among the many NBA tropes OKC is smashing this season is that you have to have amassed years of playoff scarring via searing defeat before you can challenge for a championship.
The entire Thunder roster, going into Game 3, has played in 390 total playoff games. More than half of those appearances – 212 – have come in these playoffs, and guard Alex Caruso, in his first season in OKC, has 49 of those 390 total playoff games played, the most of any player on the roster. By way of contrast, LeBron James entered the 2024-25 postseason having played in 287 playoff games.
Oklahoma City surely didn’t want to lose to the Mavericks in last year’s conference semifinals. But the Thunder have blasted past that disappointment, quickly.
“I think there’s just a lot of integrity to the team,” Thunder Coach Mark Daignault said Tuesday. “That starts with the makeup these guys have. They have great psychological makeup, great competitive makeup, great personal makeup. And then, over time, we’ve had to really kind of forge into this version of ourselves, in visible spaces. We haven’t relied on anything outside the outcomes, the noise. We haven’t relied on that when we weren’t winning. We haven’t relied on that while we were building. We haven’t relied on that while we were rising and we are not relying on that now that we’re in a different position.”
