DENVER — You could see it with each stepback. Each flick of the wrist from 25 feet out.
To break Friday’s fourth quarter open would’ve been to break the Thunder’s second-round series open. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander so desperately wanted to shed that weight with each of his late shots.
And with each miss, a glass prism seemingly formed around him. Hands in his eye sockets and jersey threads. Wingspans swinging in his peripheral. The rim shrank to the size of a keyhole. Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon were as firm as steel doors.
“In those moments when the game slows down, it usually comes down to your best players making shots and making plays,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after the Thunder’s 113-104 Game 3 loss to the Nuggets. “And I didn’t do a good enough job of that tonight.”
Had he corrected even one of his seven fourth-quarter misses — as he pointed out — Gilgeous-Alexander would’ve been answering a different series of questions.
“Is he wrong?” coach Mark Daigneault quipped Saturday.
Daigneault said Saturday that the unraveling of Oklahoma City’s offensive process wasn’t because of anything “tricky that (the Nuggets) were doing.” Gilgeous-Alexander’s propensity to launch pull-up 3s might suggest otherwise.
Attempts to isolate saw him met with a zone. Attempts to draw the Thunder’s preferred switch, with Nuggets guard Jamal Murray out top, were hardly 1-on-1. Braun stood pat at the nail. Gordon was never too far away.
In 8:52 of matchup time, Braun held Gilgeous-Alexander to 4-of-12 shooting. That doesn’t include the times he stripped SGA on drives. That merely concludes stifling contests and physically-met drives where Gilgeous-Alexander failed to draw fouls.
Gilgeous-Alexander got what he and the Thunder wished for much of the fourth: Murray moving his feet on a mirage of an island.
Each pull-up 3 buried OKC into the sand.
“He got caught in some situations where I thought he took some tough ones,” Daigneault said. “We’re used to seeing those go in because he’s a great player.”
“How many times this year have we seen him take the left-hand dribble pound stepback 3 and make it?” veteran Alex Caruso asked The Oklahoman.
Oklahoma City’s spacing, particularly in overtime, flushed its chances. Plays where the dribble wasn’t kind, Isaiah Hartenstein’s push shot had been pushed to its limits, and Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t shake free of Braun.
“Think that was more on our part, like the other guys on the court,” center Isaiah Hartenstein said. “I don’t think we did a good job of moving, getting him easy looks.”
Denver’s defenders leaned higher up the floor than a pair or Steve Urkel’s pants.
The tallest task was for SGA to get downhill. Hartenstein’s push shot couldn’t serve as a bail out on drives. Nor could OKC’s spot up shooting, a group that attempted a single 3 in Friday’s overtime and made 26.5% of its attempts in regulation.
Each time Gilgeous-Alexander rose from deep was a cry to shed Denver’s coverages. Perhaps what he felt to be OKC’s only hope. That a scorer so dominant and controlling of regular seasons could watch his grip loosen on a tied series only contributed to his grin as he exited the floor Friday.
Daigneault won’t need to reel his superstar back in.
“He’s the man at that,” Daigneault said. “I never worry about him there. … When he fails, he takes it on the chin. He looks in the mirror.”
Joel Lorenzi covers the Thunder and NBA for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joel? He can be reached at jlorenzi@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @joelxlorenzi. Support Joel’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
