Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scores 20 of his 31 points in the 2nd half and OKC pulls away from Minnesota 114-88 in Game 1.
OKLAHOMA CITY — There were two signs about Game 1 that gave the Oklahoma City Thunder good vibes about the Western Conference Finals.
One: They won, obviously. And two: They won imperfectly.
They stumbled out of the gate, yet trailed by only four at halftime. Their Kia NBA MVP candidate, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, wasn’t his typical efficient self. But in the moment of truth, when the opening game was ripe to be seized, OKC had all the answers and the Minnesota Timberwolves none of the solutions.
So the first shot of the series was fired by the top seed. Oklahoma City was on the good side of a 114-88 score, in a game that became a rout, the second straight such outcome for OKC coming off a breezy Game 7 triumph two days earlier against the Denver Nuggets.
Minnesota was the more rested team, but not the best team Tuesday. When the Wolves unraveled, they couldn’t put themselves back together or adjust.
By the time the fourth quarter arrived, the Wolves were done, their main players sent to the bench, their heads already turned toward Thursday’s Game 2 (8:30 ET, ESPN) and another chance to claim a game in OKC.
Here are Five Takeaways from OKC drawing first blood and taking the early lead in the best-of-seven series.
1. Four letters: OKCD
This unit was top-rated in the league all season, shutting down opposing teams and making their stars work for every shot. Oklahoma City’s defense didn’t really have a peer until now, in this series, when the Wolves showed they can match that level. Minnesota held the Thunder to 44 points in the first half and essentially threw down the gauntlet.
That challenge was accepted as Minnesota scored just 40 in the second half.
“Defense gave us life,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
This game flipped on OKC’s ability to keep Minnesota in check. The Thunder’s defense kept the halftime deficit from being larger than four points.
As coach Mark Daigneault said: “That was huge. We lost the round but we didn’t get knocked out.”
Once the Thunder fixed their offensive bugs, the necessary balance was achieved and the Wolves were helpless to prevent the inevitable. When the Thunder took the lead, the lead was kept.
Jalen Williams was especially impressive with five steals. The Wolves had 19 turnovers and the opportunistic Thunder scored 31 points off them.
It also helped that, aside from Julius Randle’s big first half (20 points), no one on the Wolves threw OKC for a loop. Which means …
2. Edwards was tame when Wolves needed a boost
Anthony Edwards did not lose this game for the Wolves. And he certainly didn’t do much to help win it, either — and that’s the problem. The Wolves needed a superstar and Edwards was unable to deliver.
He had 18 points (zero in the fourth quarter) and that’s not going to cut it against an OKC team that had to endure a force called Nikola Jokić in the previous round — and found a way to send him home anyway.
The Wolves can’t lean on Randle alone for volume scoring, not against OKC. The Thunder eventually figured out Minnesota’s playmaking power forward, whose biggest flaw is dribbling through traffic.
So, where was the player who says he is a strong candidate to be the face of the league? Perhaps slowed by a turned ankle late in the first quarter, Edwards was relatively quiet for much of the game, especially by his standards.
“I guess I gotta shoot more,” he said. “I only took 13 (expletive) shots.”
3. OKC’s bigs were two much
Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren passed their biggest test in the semifinals when they teamed up to survive Jokic. This time, the opposing big man is a far lesser offensive threat. Rudy Gobert has trouble catching the ball, let alone shooting it, so the challenge was keeping him off the boards and neutralizing his defense.
Once again, the battle of the bigs went OKC’s way, and emphatically at that. Hartenstein dropped one floater after another on Gobert, while Holmgren supplied point-blank buckets off backdoor cuts and lobs. All told, the one-two punch was too much for Gobert and also backup Naz Reid. OKC’s tandem combined for 27 points and 12 rebounds, while Gobert had two points, three rebounds and was mostly unplayable in just 21 minutes.
“It’s a good weapon for us,” Daigneault said.
At this rate, with OKC backing off Gobert, the Wolves must decide: Do they value his defense and keep him on the floor, or do they favor Reid’s offense (and therefore reduce Gobert’s minutes)?
4. SGA to the line for two
The frustration with Gilgeous-Alexander getting the benefit of the whistle boiled over in the first quarter. Edwards tossed the ball at Gilgeous-Alexander’s feet while the OKC guard was sprawled on the court following a foul call on Edwards. Edwards received a technical foul for that, but he took one for the team.
That’s because all of the Wolves were visibly annoyed with Gilgeous-Alexander using his forearm to create space and his body to draw contact, even the slightest, and usually getting the whistle. Gilgeous-Alexander took 7 of his 14 free throw attempts in the first half, which rescued him during a 2-for-13 half.
The free throws and the whistles were costly for Minnesota’s best on-ball defender, Jaden McDaniels, who drew his fourth foul just four minutes into the third quarter and was sent to the bench. He played only 24 minutes as Gilgeous-Alexander effectively made his biggest threat disappear.
He also sent the Wolves into an angry state of mind.
“We talked about that before the series,” Finch said. “There was a lot of frustration out there. We have to be able to put that aside and get on with a next-play mentality.”
5. Wolves bench a big miss
About that offense Reid gives Minnesota — it was absent, along with the production from others off the bench.
Reid, Donte DiVincenzo and Nickeil Alexander-Walker combined to shoot 7-for-36. They had open looks and missed most of them. Almost every miss was a gut-punch for a team desperate for a run and some buckets while searching for ways to keep the Thunder from running away with Game 1.
DiVincenzo’s issue isn’t new as his deep shooting has fallen to 25% in the playoffs (he was at 39.7% during the 2024-25 season). There’s a sense of comfort with Reid because of his track record for bouncing back from poor shooting games. Not so with DiVincenzo. This is becoming a habit.
But when the Wolves looked for another option on Tuesday, Alexander-Walker followed suit and misfired, too. In a contest between teams with deep benches, OKC won handily, getting a surprising third-quarter effort from Kenrich Williams (eight points in 10 minutes), who has hardly played in the postseason.
“We didn’t have a lot of patience,” Finch said. “Our rushed offense affected our defense. When we did get good looks they didn’t go down. We’ve got to pick up our decision-making and we’ve got to clean things up a little bit.”
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Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
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