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    • The Thunder rolls past the Clippers who move to 6-0 for the first time in OKC history
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    The Thunder rolls past the Clippers who move to 6-0 for the first time in OKC history

    Vaseline Posted on

    INGLEWOOD, Calif. – With the same stuffy expression, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander described the Thunder’s latest achievement as enthusiastically as the last.

    Like the point last season when OKC officially returned to the postseason. Or when it became the youngest No. 1 seed ever. Or when it won its first playoff series since the Kevin Durant era.

    When told that the Thunder’s 105-92 win over the Clippers on Saturday made it 6-0 — the team’s best start in franchise history — SGA’s lips didn’t even curl into a grin.

    “There are 76 games left,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, eyes that have seen so much in seven NBA seasons and yet still not enough for his liking. “We’re not even close to where we need to be to achieve what we want to achieve, and that’s obviously a big win.

    “So yeah, it’s cool. We are not satisfied at all.”

    Gilgeous-Alexander plays it cool with this kind of thing. He wouldn’t be very enthusiastic anyway; the Thunder were about an hour away from perhaps their toughest win of the season, the textbook example of the second night of a back-to-back, in which it grasped at straws leading into the fourth quarter to pull away from a Clippers team that has lost every home game.

    Ugliness aside, it’s worth putting the zero-and-zero thing aside to think about what the grueling win means. Six games, six wins. Uncharted territory, even for the legendary predecessors of this team.

    The second-best start for the franchise came during the 2011-12 season, when Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook helped OKC start 5-0. They reached the NBA Finals later that season.

    But return to a contemporary, league-wide scope.

    OKC remains one of two undefeated teams, joining the Cleveland Cavaliers after Donovan Mitchell kept hopes alive with a game-winner earlier in the day.

    The six-game start has yielded all sorts of results: an expose of Denver’s decline; late-game handles from the Bulls and Hawks; the confirmation of an identity against Spurs; the rediscovery of crime in Portland; and now Saturday.

    Saturday was far from OKC’s sharpest, or most glorious, win. But it had similar ingredients to some of the other results the Thunder have achieved in their undefeated run.

    There were largely confusing offensive stints, unfamiliar to what fans knew a year ago. There was the trademark defensive stint – which can usually last a half, a quarter or even most of a match – that changed the game and made everyone forget about any attacking discrepancies.

    And of course, the battery power to pull off a win against a feisty LA team, about an equally applicable reason why OKC is off to this historic start.

    Yet six games is only six games. To the world, and to Chet Holmgren.

    “I don’t think any team has ever hung a banner for a six-game winning streak,” Holmgren said.

    More: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and OKC Thunder roll past Portland Trail Blazers to improve to 5-0

    Maybe the Intuit Dome will become one of the gyms Isaiah Joe loves. He seemed to enjoy the nets on his debut. When OKC needed its offensive answers most, Joe was there every time with a timely 3.

    He finished 4 for 8 from deep for 12 points on Saturday, a pair of those kinds of deep handoffs that viewers knew he would shoot and that could kill any Clipper momentum.

    And they did.

    With just over nine minutes to play in Saturday’s fourth quarter, Joe stepped into a deep transition 3 that put the Clippers down, putting OKC up at 10. Two minutes later he drilled again, allowing OKC to increase the lead to 13.

    Joe had taken shots in spurts, especially when necessary. On Saturday, he was one of the notable reasons why Gilgeous-Alexander had little work to do when he came back in later in the fourth quarter.

    But it was Gilgeous-Alexander who had led them there. Vintage Shai, the one who dictates defenders like dog commandos and earns his wealth through the lanes and on the perimeter, appeared.

    That version of him added 25 points, nine assists, shot 50% from the field and went 9 for 9 from the free throw line.

    It’s not that he’s missing; Gilgeous-Alexander can willingly tap into his old ways whenever he wants. When it feels good. But the biggest storyline for the Thunder star this season has been his efforts to increase his three-point volume. On Saturday, SGA went just 2 for 4 from deep, a product of some of the variables he had hoped for.

    One was that the Clippers defenders picked him up higher. LA employs junkyard dogs at the point of attack, so it was almost a given. But SGA took 10 3s earlier this week, perhaps a reason to pick him up early, as coach Mark Daigneault noted after the game. And before that, Gilgeous-Alexander enjoyed the rim and the free-throw line.

    So for those wondering why Gilgeous-Alexander is pulling up three after three, sometimes in spots he wouldn’t have dared to go this season, the All-NBA guard has gracefully dismissed the concerns.

    “I appreciate your concern,” he joked.

    Gilgeous-Alexander will try more, he noted. He felt like he could have even done that on Saturday, a night where OKC somehow still finished with six double-digit scorers.

    With Holmgren on attempts and not quite efficient, while Jalen Williams is still trying to find a consistent rhythm. Lu Dort was cautious about his placements, as he has been more often than not this season, for a necessary third-quarter blowout. Joe occasionally delivered the kind of play that was needed.

    But as will likely become common, OKC forced 20 goals and watched the Clippers play Gilgeous-Alexander the way he wanted.

    The Thunder fought through its slow start like pneumonia, with small lineups, Gilgeous-Alexander and a robust defense still on its side. And so OKC remains one of the last few undefeated teams standing.

    “It really tested us tonight,” Daigneault said. “If we wanted to win that game, that’s what it took.”

    The goal was for teams to play him higher. The Los Angeles watchdogs did just that, and Gilgeous-Alexander rode to a sixth victory.

    Thunder vs. magic

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