Oklahoma City Thunder has left match 1 of the semi-finals of the 2025 Western conference with many reasons to feel unhappy. When you blow a 14-point lead and in the second half, abandon a race of 19-6 in the last four and a half minutes of the fourth quarter, Deliberately give your opponent two chance of cutting your advance with the clock disabled in the last 15 secondsLack a pair of frank clutch throws, abandon a 3 winning pointsAnd lose the advantage of the court at home that you spent six months to fight to win, there is a plot not to love; It's not exactly a fun time at the stadium.
And yet there was the finalist of the MVP Thunder Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, taking the podium after the shocking loss and making the affirmative choice of Look at the right side of life. From TIM MACMAHON D'EPN::
“It should be fun,” said Gilgeous-Alexander after the first Thunder's defeat in this series. “We are going to discover what we are made of, which we are really made of. No one expected what it is gently navigation of all this trip. No trip to life, and we know it. Today, it is a bump on the road – unexpected. No one expects to lose, especially in this way, but it is the game of life. So, it is therefore a question of reacting to fall.”
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Oklahoma City has not been reversed during the regular season – a historically excellent campaign that saw thunder becoming Just the seventh NBA team to win at least 68 gamesTurn it over Best Net Raise Adjusted to ERA since Bulls from 1996and wrap it highest margin of average victory of all time. The only dallinances that Gilgeous-Alexander and Co. had with adversity during their series of grizzly grozzles in the first round came when Memphis built a 28-point lead in the first half of match 3 … only to see the leader of the stars go with a hip injuryPlacing the ground so that OKC withdraws One of the greatest feedback in the history of the NBA qualifiersBefore finish a scanning.
“We have to embrace the fight for the playoffs, embrace the adversity of the playoffs,” said Thunder Mark Daignault coach Tell to journalists. “The playoffs are a mountain to climb, so it will not be easy for anyone. We have somehow traveled the first round. It was difficult in the games, but we had control of the series all the time. But nobody makes a way through a series at this stage of the season.”
On the rare occasions that they did Be overturned, however, the Thunder tended to get out of the carpet with fulfillment. Oklahoma City has lost consecutive matches just twice all season: at the Maladder And Spurs In November, when he was without the great injured men, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein; and at Rocket And Lakers In April, after OKC had already sewn the head n ° 1 in the West. Apart from these two sets, the Thunder responded to a defeat by winning and winning Big – an average of 17.5 points, with a handful of 20 more eruptions.
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This rebound force will be difficult to find against a team of nuggets led by Nikola Jokić, who patiently pulverized the front Holmgren -Hartenstein line – and all the other defenders that Daignault launched him – at the hearing of 42 points, 22 rebounds and six assistes in an order performance.
“He is the best player in the world,” guarantees nuggets (and former beloved thunder superstar) Russell Westbrook Tell to journalists After the victory. “Clear and simple.”
It is the crown that Gilgeous-Alexander wants to wear: the title he has worked in the past two seasons to assume, the rarefied air that he aspires to breathe. What he produced in match 1 to 33 points on shooting 12 for 26, 10 rebounds, eight assists, two interceptions, a block and a turnover in 40 minutes, with 11 points in the fourth, including a clutch pair free throws and a driving dunk In the last 15 seconds – would be good enough to beat most of the teams most nights.
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But match 1 – with the thunder shot just 38% of the soil in the second period And by bringing together a single fact on the field in the last three minutes; with the league Best frank shooting team Leaving eight points on the line, titled by Holmgren's missed pair with 9.5 ticks on the left – it was not most of the nights. And even leaving an exhausting slugfest of seven games against the Clippers, with a single match between the Tours, Jokić, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and the Nuggets at the Championships are not most of the teams.
Eliminating them will require the best that Whitohoma City has to offer – a higher level of two -way locking and 48 minutes than what was generally necessary during this magic race. The Nuggets expect to see him on Wednesday in match 2.
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“We must not be satisfied”, the Nugget striker Peyton Watson Tell to journalists. “We know how dangerous they are in a team.”
If the Thunder did not know how dangerous the nuggets are, they do it now. What they do with this information could greatly contribute to determining whether we end up seeing play 1 as a slowdown or a roadblock.
“We did not expect our race to be the sun and the rainbow”, Gilgeous-Alexander said. Match 1 was a terribly gray cloud. There is therefore no silver lining.
