PHOENIX — Forgive the Oklahoma City Thunder if their steps toward the bus departing from Mortgage Matchup Center sounded relieved.
The first round of the playoffs tastes like an appetizer to an apex predator, but after three first-round sweeps in as many years, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has learned to savor this. The postseason climb only gets steeper.
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“It’s a really good feeling, just confidence-wise, as a group,” the reigning NBA MVP said after Monday’s 131-122 Game 4 win over the Phoenix Suns to advance. “It’s good to get a playoff run started off that way. You never know what can happen. Usually, the later you go, the better the team. You want to give yourself as many days that you can rest.”
Two years ago, every Oklahoma City benchmark was tethered to its age. The Thunder were the youngest No. 1 seed, the youngest team to win a postseason series, the youngest core in the playoffs. How quickly they erased any memory of inexperience. A four-game sweep of the Suns became the bare minimum for a team with aspirations of a title defense.
The Thunder kept the eighth seed at arm’s length without their All-NBA wing. Jalen Williams’ mid-series injury did not alter their immediate fate.
Five-time All-Star Devin Booker felt that inevitability.
“They have all the answers to the test,” Booker said. “They’ve been tested together, and they’ve been together for years.”
The Thunder’s maturation extends beyond last June’s title, as they endured a pair of grueling seven-game series to get there. Their system — the way they enforce it, the way they adjust — it’s all continued to incubate. It grows as Gilgeous-Alexander does. It ages with coach Mark Daigneault. It is enabled by every pesky defender on the wing.
Leave it to Daigneault to push a series of buttons in a closeout game. In the first quarter, he played Aaron Wiggins five minutes after the wing played 10 real rotational minutes all series. Gilgeous-Alexander typically plays the length of the first quarter. With pest Dillon Brooks attached to him, forcing him to fight for every opening, Gilgeous-Alexander was yanked by Daigneault earlier than usual to let Ajay Mitchell run the offense.
Daigneault still hasn’t lost a first-round playoff game as a head coach.
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He met Phoenix’s desperation with competence. Brooks matched up with Chet Holmgren for every game of the series leading into Monday. Suns coach Jordan Ott gave Brooks what he wanted and requested Booker stay with Holmgren.
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For three minutes, Holmgren impacted every possession. His contests, his spacing. He and center Isaiah Hartenstein’s chemistry felt explosive. He lunged toward lobs and caught Booker sleeping. Oklahoma City’s big men combined for 42 points and 24 rebounds. Their sturdiness extends the timer on their pairing.
“(It was) their ability to defend in space against a team with shooting everywhere, and that was playing with that tempo,” Daigneault said of how much Hartenstein and Holmgren played together. “That was the kind of game a year ago that we would probably have to downsize more than we did. But their ability to keep themselves on the floor defensively against that type of offense allowed for us to get the stuff we got around the basket.”
This series proved taxing for Booker before the cross-matching. He saw those double-teams he dreads, accompanied by Lu Dort in any other one-on-one scenario. But on Monday, as a defender, he was chasing Holmgren in actions. His own 12-point third-quarter outburst, much like the remainder of the series, never sustained.
“Yeah, our game plan just worked,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
Veteran Alex Caruso breathed life into the concept of playoff risers. He drilled eight of his 17 3s in the first round, forcing turnovers and runs at regular pace. Mitchell, in his second playoff start, remained audacious. He needed to. He finished a team-high plus-27 — including a plus-15 in the second quarter — and served as a stabilizer of offense.
Gilgeous-Alexander entered Monday in the 100th percentile of the field as a pick-and-roll ballhandler in these playoffs, averaging 1.56 points per possession. He defied double-teams. He played Twister around blitzes and aggressive coverages. He appeared double-jointed near the rim.
Game 4 was a continuation. Of his prolific control of offense. Of his regular-season reign. The 31 points and eight assists. Phoenix’s defense doesn’t speak for the West, but Gilgeous-Alexander essentially elevated as a ballhandler for a series-sized sample. That’s not nothing.
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“We’re evolving,” veteran Alex Caruso said. “Guys can get better. I think that’s the coolest thing about this team, that will all the success we’ve had, accolades, awards, achievements. There’s still areas to improve. Greatness is always chasing something.”
In Oklahoma City’s case, the chase is terrifying because it has the legs to follow through, to keep improving by the series. Its momentum is not matchup-dependent. It’s evidently prepared to stomach the injury misfortune seen across these playoffs, too.
The Thunder, one ring down and another in their line of sight, already boast experience considered sufficient. They’re an assembly line. Their aggregate, as exposed by the regular season and Williams’ two-game absence, feels unfair.
In nearly all of the other NBA playoff series, the first round went off-script. Vanilla, though, is Oklahoma City’s superpower. Brooks’ taunts and Booker’s denouncement of officiating are one thing. As far as the length of this series, the Thunder never allowed this head-to-head to generate headlines.
The final headline: Oklahoma City completes sweep, preparing for days off
A line Gilgeous-Alexander can now appreciate.