Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t have his best night in Game 1 of the Thunder’s Western Conference Semifinals series against the Los Angeles Lakers, scoring only 18 points and committing seven turnovers. Still, the Thunder rolled to a 108-90 victory to protect homecourt.
“I thought collectively we could have been better,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said, per ESPN. “It obviously wasn’t clean. It was a little clunky. … You can’t be greedy with a playoff win that was not a perfect game.
“There’s a lot of playoff games that are not perfect. The other team’s trying their best to squeeze you and make you very uncomfortable. And so we won an imperfect game tonight, and that’s a good thing.”
SGA only attempted three free throws on the evening, well below his average.
“I was loose with the ball, had a lot of turnovers,” SGA said. “I think that comes to the rust and not playing for a little bit. They’re obviously very aggressive, but I feel like for most of the night we got great looks.”
Forward Chet Holmgren spoke positively of Gigeous-Alexander’s performance despite his pedestrian numbers.
“I think he made the right decision all night long,” Holmgren said. “I think there were a lot of opportunities where we weren’t where we needed to be and he was expecting us to be there. We had a couple turnovers in the pocket like that where he threw it right to where we should have been and we weren’t there. In the stat book, those are his turnovers, but they shouldn’t be. … We got to improve, be better, be where we need to be.”
Game 2 tips off Thursday night on Prime Video.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.