LAS VEGAS — The first half ended in the perfect encapsulation of this season’s most organized bloodbath.
Bodies flying. Bodies floored. The artist named Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was stumped, halted by a Houston defense that reaps on creativity and would hate to see a shot fall on its account.
The second half ended in triumph, with muscles being flexed and imaginary guns placed in holsters. A 111-96 statement win from these competent young Thunder, with the postgame soundtracked by Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” just like every win back in Oklahoma City.
OKC flipped the switch the way an NBA title contender might — certainly the way an NBA Cup contender would. Grinded down by a pair of prolific defenses, Saturday became just as much a game of wit as it was brutality.
The Thunder actively chose, in its own words, to not be punked.
Through 24 minutes, its two star creators, Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams, combined to shoot 7 for 23. Houston’s starters shot a combined 6 for 32. Both teams combined for 83 points. It was the pinnacle of modern day NBA defense, and still a lifeless world of shotmaking.
But Gilgeous-Alexander grew tired of the double teams. Of the blitzing. Of the shots Houston forced him to take and miss. The team that smiled and laughed in the aftermath of Saturday’s win would chuckle at the team that nearly forfeited a win to the Pelicans a week earlier.
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The superstar read and reacted. He was 5 for 9 in the second half, posting 32 points, eight rebounds and six assists. He cut down the ankles of Dillon Brooks, and pushed back at a Rockets defense that attempted to tell him who he would be.
He used more fakes. He was more evasive. Gilgeous-Alexander was more calculated, and as a result, OKC was too. He’d already digested his first-half lows and buried them beneath his highlight reel.
“He’s elite in his preparation,” center Isaiah Hartenstein said. “You see it on a day-to-day basis, how he approaches his craft. The way he works, the way he communicates. … He’s a bucket regardless, but then he gets trapped (and) he doesn’t force it. He makes the right play.
“Even when he went 1 for 9, we all knew that it’s Shai. He’s gonna get back on point.”
SGA’s improved reads opened the floor. Williams began finding Hartenstein (21 points, eight rebounds) in crevices, dishing to him for degrading dunks.
Lu Dort embodied Saturday’s game. And after countless dives and rebound chasing, moving with the kind of motor that has yet to be built, Dort drilled all four of his second-half 3-point attempts.
It built a lead and level of confidence that seemingly didn’t settle with the Rockets. And with just a minute remaining, as is becoming customary in these matchups, a skirmish broke out.
Houston center Alperen Sengun rushed to box out Cason Wallace with some force in a 13-point game. Wallace wasn’t exactly pleased. They got in each other’s grill before Wallace shoved Sengun in the chest.
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Wallace stood his ground, even if he gave up half a foot to Sengun.
“We’re not gonna get punked or shot down by anybody,” Wallace said.
Two weeks prior to Saturday’s matchup, the Rockets downed the Thunder in the most intense environment OKC had played in all season. Afterward, forward Tari Eason took to Instagram Live, dancing in celebration of the win to Kendrick Lamar’s hit diss record “They Not Like Us.”
The Thunder core spent Friday’s media day taking the top off of any narrative of a rivalry between the two squads, though undoubtedly linked by deadly defenses, youth and region.
Dort, with a bit of spice, later separated the teams even further.
“We just play the right way,” said Dort, asked why OKC might not be so loud about its toughness. “We don’t really talk to other people. We don’t do anything after games. We don’t go on live or do stuff like that. We just respect the game. Every time we go out there we compete, try to win, we dap up and then we out.”
Courtesy of the Cup, in just two weeks, Dort got his get back. He ensured that Eason’s live would live in infamy, immortalized as a parallel between them.
He delivered the message as Lamar intended. Let Dort tell it, they ain’t like them.
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Lu Dort’s dream game
Lu Dort hasn’t dreamt of scoring 40 in a while. He earned his first couple contracts committed to being a stopper, the kind famed for shutting down a one-man offense like James Harden. He’s honored that since.
In actuality, Dort’s dream game was Saturday.
Betweens the muddy hairs of one of the worst shotmaking halves of NBA basketball this season, Dort was a diamond.
Part of the ugliness in Saturday’s first half was Houston funneling open 3s to Dort, the same way Dallas did in May’s West semifinals. (Dort’s been a relatively accurate shooter on the season, but is still dealing with mallet finger and is often teams’ preferred choice of shooter.)
Dort lived with that, part of the dreaded shotmaking. But his game, curated for a game like this, made it so that it was less noticeable.
He leaped and heaved himself toward the glass. He thrust himself at Fred VanVleet, the man who essentially drowned the Thunder two weeks earlier, holding him to eight points on 3-of-15 shooting. He dove on the floor for a loose ball like it was a grenade to start the second half, a play Sam Presti — according to Mark Daigneault — said was the play of the game.
Dort admitted to feeling a shift in energy then before noting that he “was gonna make that play regardless.”
And eventually, he drilled every second half 3 he took. The game gave back to him. He finished with 19 points and nine boards, though his legacy on Saturday transcended that. That sort of game belongs to him.
Maybe the players of the 2000’s would’ve embraced him. Saturday often felt reminiscent of it, and even without the baggy shorts (much love to TJ Ford) or cornrows, Dort fit in well.
“Tonight was a Lu Dort night,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Nothing we haven’t seen before.”
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NBA Cup final: Thunder vs. Bucks
TIPOFF: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (ABC)
