Gilgeous-Alexander in the win: 35⁄8 on 61% TS
https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401871329
35 points
1 rebound
8 assists
1 steal
11⁄22 FG, 1⁄4 3PT, 12⁄15 FT
Made the right play every time down the stretch
Shai’s ability to make the right reads and not waste possesions is legit generational. He is best in the world and has been for quite some time till proven otherwise
People seriously undervalue how good he is at not wasting possessions. It is such a critical skill that isn’t highlighted enough
It’s pretty apparent if you watch the Pistons series where Cade is giving the ball away like it’s candy.
For quite some time? Wtf lol
The future is now, old man
Jokic? Ever heard of him? SGA plays on a stacked ass team lol only reason he wins. Fuck the Thunder. Enjoy your trailer.
It’s a Malcolm in the Middle joke, relax big dog
Only had one uncharacteristic mistake with a late turnover, but besides that he was in complete control. His shot is still not 100% though, he missed shots he doesn’t usually miss, but the separation and the shot quality was there.
It’s just how it goes sometimes, but it still shocks me when he misses lmao.
The constant immediate doubles really threw him off. Wolves or Spurs will trust in their defenders to play him 1 on 1 and we will see Suns series stats again
Nah. Spurs won’t. They have Wemby, so Chet can’t feast as usual. Spurs have quicker defenders.
The wolves also won’t, they tried that last year and shai cooked until they switched it up
The Spurs are hard double teaming Ant every time he crosses half court, and dudes on two fucked knees. Shai is gonna get the same treatment
I don’t disagree about his shot but it speaks volumes that shooting 50% on high volume and high shot difficulty is mid for SGA standards. His efficiency is so far ahead of all of the other star guards in the league right now.
Yeah, honestly felt like a mid shai game compared to his march form and most of the series has been duds. Feels like his timings been off, the hyper aggressive doubles in games 1⁄2 definitely took him time to adjust to and last game it felt like he was trying to adjust back to playing normally after expecting the doubles to come
Guess we’re just spoiled with how insane he’s been this year
He was their whole offense and they got a good shot every single time except the one turnover.
AJ Mitchell would disagree
In the last 5 minutes (the clutch) it was all shai
Lol yeah. Don’t know which game this guy was watching, definitely not this one.
Good game tonight. Lakers really showed up…. helluva game.
Yup close one to end the season atleast
The Clutch Player of the Year showing up in the clutch?
How fitting.
Right? SGA had a tough series, and a lot of that is credit to the Lakers defense, but he showed up each game when it mattered most.
sga passing out of doubles must’ve resulted in about 100 uncontested points over four games. he was careless with the ball in g1 but I thought he adjusted to the blitz coverage well and just initiated offense for others. okc plays too selflessly and intelligently for that coverage to ever be a sustainable strategy.
To be fair, there was no clutch time in the other games.
rough series for sga but once again his shot making ability when the game gets tough in the 4th is genuinely insane and anyone who says otherwise are completely ignorant
When he hit that three I knew it was over
SGA clutch 3s are almost always daggers
I wouldn’t call it a “rough” series per se, as his gravity helped the team massively on the offensive end.
Just looks bad from a stats perspective, but still gets them the win because other guys are open..
his shooting was below average and was turning the ball over much more than usual.
but yes his gravity definitely helped guys like chet, mitchell & mccain feast
definitely a rough series for “his standard”
So much of the value he brought in this series doesn’t show up in the stats though
Getting Face guarded full court and Double/Triple teamed at the half tends to do that to someone lol
Fourth quarter psycho
Those buckets were so nice I’m ngl
Ajay doesn’t play nearly as well without all the attention Shai got.
Shai getting doubled by Rui/Smart left Reaves on Ajay lmao, no wonder he dominated
The best player of all time once it gets to the fourth except maybe Jordan. No one else has this ability.
His “worst” games are usually the ones where they are up enough he doesn’t have to go nuclear in 4th. Close games he almost always gets his scoring numbers at least
Stars usually dont show up as hard for playoffs because they get insanely double teamed/defended. 35 in playoffs is still really fucking good
Clearly the best in the world at this point. Getting so hated he’s underrated lol
Getting so hated he’s underrated is a bar tbh
He’s had 3 mid as hell games in a row, I don’t think it’s “clearly”.. Wemby looked like a kaiju his last game
Shai’s floor is just so high.
Didn’t even feel like he was that good tonight and still stuffed the stat sheets.
I’d imagine every game he would’ve had numbers like this without the excessive double teams
Shai’s bad games are usually better than bad Jokic/Wemby/Giannis/Luka bad games
Prob because he has 6 top 20 defenders on his roster. Really helps
The Jokic stan SPRINTING from his cave to claim that Shai’s individual performances are held up by, checks notes, his teammates DEFENSE. OF COURSE!
He’s crazy good. Like generational at creating shots and all while constantly getting tagged by sniper fire.
I would buy this more if Jokic actually took on a heavier load on defense because of this but since that’s obviously not the case I can confidently say you’re talking out your ass
Unsure why you’re being downvoted , as a neutral it really helps when u have 5 all defensive players on the same team.
Jdub, chet, caruso, dort, wallace
No surprise the opposing teams best players perform worse than their averages.
They’re going to mass downvote any thought that doesn’t suck SGA completely off. Feels like this is the OKC subreddit lmao
It’s a positive okc thread, you gotta wait until the next thread were everyone is doggin on them. It’s just how Reddit works
This is the best play I’ve seen from a guard since Curry in 2016.
Curry wasn’t this good in the playoffs tbf.
Shai’s only competition for best guard peak of all time is 91 MJ and 16 Curry at this point.
this wasn’t shais best series either tbh man
16 curry was returning back from injury as well during the playoffs
True, but he’s still averaging 29⁄7 on 63% TS in the playoffs.
What makes you so confident lol. 2005-06 Wade and 2008-09 Kobe were arguably better than Shai right now. Thinking Basketball compared their peaks and calculated how much their on court presence boosts their teammates’ TS, and Shai was only at +1.5% while Wade was at 6% and Kobe at 5%.
That’s only one stat. Offensive impact metrics as a whole consistently place Shai way above Kobe and Wade.
Shai plays on way better teams with much better spacing. Wade was the better transition player and defender, while being much more explosive getting to the rim. Kobe was the better playmaker and off-ball player.
If you want to compare raw plus/minus impact, I’m pretty sure 2000-02 Kobe laps both bc of the team situation
2022 Curry
NBA reddit said he’s a bum without the refs
Some pretty hysterical grown men around here
Manchildren*
Washed
finally had his mvp caliber game hopefully it means hes back into form
Fourth quarter takeover
The turnaround fadeaway two -> three point shot 😮💨
They said he was overrated
They said his team was better without him
who are they
Lakers fans and haters
greatest in the world 🧹
Some people will be triggered by that 12/15ft
im triggered bro why tf he missing 3 fts
His bag is insane. His body control on those bump and fade midrange jumpshots are insane. Getting doubled all game and still finding ways to score.
Jokic was never on his level
elite ragebait
Nahh respect Jokic. Hes already cemented as a top 5 player in nba history
Sga just took a break this series and they swept. I don’t think it’s fair to compare sga to any of the other mvp candidates legitimately. He just has a far superior roster
Oh sorry I forgot MVP was the shitty GM award
When your MVP is not playing well and you win 4-0 it sounds like he’s not really that valuable of a guy tbh. Cry all you want
When your MVP gets dog walked by Terrence Shannon Jr he’s not really that valuable either
Sga just played a worse series and it didn’t matter. That’s clearly the difference
If it helps you sleep tonight.
He didn’t take a break at all? He had to pass out of a double every possession for the first 2 games, had a poor-shooting game 3, then carried in game 4.
Shai just needed some clutch minutes to lock in lol
MVP and Clutch Player of the Year for a reason, that 4th quarter showed exactly why no matter how much people bitch about flops and fouls and continue to deny greatness
Best player in the world
His game is so relaxing when he’s not driving
Damn. The gap between SGA and Luka keeps widening.
Sga with b2b rings, season mvp, finals mvp
Luka on the other hand, is on that Harden/Westbrook trajectory.
Yall need to slow down saying we’re going to win it all with confidence. There’s another 60 win team with an alien they have to beat. Also the pacers showed anything can happen in the finals.
Yah the Knicks are on fire. B2B rings is a dumb comment. SGA could get hurt and they’d no longer be favourites against the Spurs
He was so clutch
Him and Ajay Mitchell (ignore that wide open 3) decided to hit their only 3s in the clutch. Fairs
That Mitchell miss broke my heart. Been cooking and missed the wide open in the clutch lol
I still can’t believe he’s on my favorite team.
First good game of the series tbh lol
15 fts what a bozo. FT merchant. Wack ass player.
YEAH, OH YEEAAHH, OHHH YEEAAHHHH
Credit to Smart, played him incredibly physically and absolutely made him work all series.
So many people don’t understand what physical basketball actually means on the court, they just expect to get away with fouls and that anyone can do it.
It’s more mindset than anything and Smart absolutely had it
I didnt even realize he had 35 with the way ajay was cooking the entire game.
Been waiting for a MJ/Kobe archetype to win a b2b. Cmon SGA!
He was a -7 as well
forgot the important statistic
[deleted]
The 4th best player but he was double and even triple teamed for 90% of the series… right
His rates of double and triple teams were absolutely abnormal. The Lakers threw a bunch of junk defenses at him. Largely, he handled them pretty well, but was functionally schemed to be minimized. His impact was far beyond 4th best on the team.
“A liability on defense”? Do you actually watch basketball?
L ragebait, try harder.
He shares the court with the Thunder’s least reliable shooters. There were a couple quarters during the series in which the shooters around him missed a lot of shots, which mattered because he was being consistently hard doubled.
He was fine on defense. Had a bunch of good possessions from the help position, especially rotating along the baseline to the rim. Definitely had a couple of bad fouls on the perimeter, but by and large he was pretty good defensively.
The Lakers contorted themselves to guard him, which warped their lineups. They kept their best defenders off the court when SGA was off the court. That allowed the Thunder’s substantially better supporting cast to roast the Lakers’ weaker defensive lineup.
You might not yet have the eye to view basketball very critically. That’ll develop as you spend more time viewing it with more intentionality.
I was explaining the context behind those raw on/off numbers, which of course you know takes about 2000 possessions to stabilize.
I’d recommend watching the basketball rather than the most rudimentary of spreadsheets.
Uh huh.
If he was so bad I doubt he’d be commanding a double or triple team you’re contradicting yourself 😭
Yeah because they can’t double Shai when he’s on the bench Lmao, the Lakers are already a bad defensive team so throwing all our Offensive weapons (Ajay, Joe, McCain, etc) on the court in those minutes tend to cause a run
alright you chose to ignore everything I typed cool don’t got time to argue with you no more
I haven’t seen any star get guarded the way Shai has this playoffs but go off king
How dare he have a bad series when hes getting double and triple teamed
Make Ant MVP then, God forbid he has a bad series youll jump him
rage bait just ignore lol
Dogshit hot take
Just accurately state that SGA has way more help than anyone else and the thunder mob will jump you.
A supporting cast of Chet, Hartenstein, Mitchell and Dort is not making it out of the first round without SGA
Are we being serious now? How could you legitimately believe this?
They maybe beat the suns in 7
They lose to every other playoff team, I’m not sure what you expect from 1st option Ajay Mitchell and 2nd option Chet Holmgren