When the Thunder ran onto the court for pregame warmups, the ovation inside Paycom Center crescendoed like a lightning bolt. Sudden. Halting. Startling.
And like the boom that follows lightning, it was bone-rattling.
“It literally feels kind of like high school when your high school team is really good at like, football,” Thunder wingman Jalen Williams said. “That’s what it feels like here.
“Just a real sense of everybody wants you to do well.”
Hard to believe anybody inside Paycom Center thought the Thunder would do quite this well.
Thunder 131, Grizzlies 80.
On an afternoon the Thunder returned to the playoffs as a true contender — even with that top seed last season, Oklahoma City seemed too inexperienced to truly make a championship push — Paycom Center felt Sunday like it had so many times before. Like it did in 2010 when a young Thunder team went toe-to-toe with Kobe and the Lakers. Like it did in 2011 when that same bunch went all the way to the Western Conference Finals. Like it did in 2012 when that wild series against San Antonio put Oklahoma City in the NBA Finals.
Sunday stirred the ghosts of Thunder playoffs past. The energy. The volume. The domination. Thunder long-timers and old-timers will remember plenty of playoff games that felt like this.
But the Thunder contenders of yore didn’t win games this way, and I’m not talking about the historic nature of the margin of victory, though that was dang impressive. Only five playoff games in the history of the association had been won by 50 points or more.
Make it six.
And the Thunder etched its name in the record books the way it has won lots of games this season — with an avalanche that completely suffocates anyone who stands in its way.
This one came in the second quarter. A 12-point lead quickly ballooned to blowout with a 23-2 run to start the frame.
The Thunder scored on 13 of its first 14 possessions of the quarter. An Aaron Wiggins three. A Williams jumper. A Cason Wallace transition dunk. Williams finger roll in transition.
On and on it went.
And it happened with a Thunder lineup of mostly reserves. Williams and Isaiah Hartenstein were on the court, but they were joined by Alex Caruso, Wiggins and Wallace.
No Shai.
No Chet.
No Lu.
That’s the thing about these avalanches; the Thunder can cause them with any collection of players. Doesn’t have to be all starters. Doesn’t have to be the big lineup or the small-ball bunch.
Still, there is one constant.
“I think it’s the easy answer,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “I think it’s defense.”
For as good as the Thunder is offensively — and make no mistake, it is superb — it snows under opponents with its defense. Steals. Deflections. Defensive rebounds.
All of that was on display in that blowout-defining stretch Sunday.
Wiggins grabbed a defensive rebound and immediately found Wallace, who saw little Memphis resistance and hit the afterburners. He drove all the way to the basket and punctuated the aggression with that dunk.
A few moments later, Williams deflected a pass in the backcourt. He gave chase, corralled the ball and went for that finger roll.
“It’s hard to have a run when you’re not stacking stops,” Daigneault said. “We have to lean into that.”
And lean the Thunder does.
The defensive tenacity sets this Thunder apart from the Durant-Westbrook Era teams. Now, this isn’t a diss on the defense that those teams played. If it was, Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins and Steven Adams would definitely like a word.
But that defense is different from this defense.
That defense picked its battles.
This one picks them.
“As a team as we go into all these games, you understand that’s one of the hardest things about playing against us is when we’re really physical and executing our stuff and engaged on that end of the floor,” Daigneault said. “I thought we were in a good place tonight combined with probably some of their fatigue.”
The Grizzlies’ quick turn from Friday night’s play-in victory to Sunday noon’s playoff opener can’t be discounted. Memphis looked like a tired team.
But OKC had something to do with that. Go up against a team playing defense like the Thunder did, and it’ll put a big ol’ boulder on your shoulders.
The Grizzlies may be more rested before Game 2 on Tuesday, but the Thunder is planning to wear them out again.
“We get stops, and we’re able to play fast, play to our strengths, play in open space,” Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “That’s the key to it all. If you look at any of those runs, we stack multiple possessions of great defensive possessions, then it allows us to be who we are offensively.
“It’s no secret. That’s what it takes to have those stints in a game, and we know that, and that’s our intention when we go out there.”
The way the Thunder wins is sudden and halting and startling.
Just like that ovation that rattled the rafters of the Paycom Center when the Thunder took the floor.
“One of one for sure,” Williams said.
He was talking about the atmosphere inside Paycom Center.
The same could be said of this Thunder team in the midst of one of those avalanches.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at @jennicarlsonok.bsky.social and twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
