Oklahoma City Thunder often made things easy in the regular season.
They ended with one of the top records in league history and set an NBA mark for the biggest scoring difference by outsourcing teams on an average of 12.9 points per game.
But the second round series of Thunder against Denver Nagets was never easy, especially the overall experience of Nagets Superstar Nikola Jokik and Denver.
With a series tied at the top 2 in the game 5 of his Western Conference series in Oklahoma City, the Thunder is embracing the struggle of the series.
“We are a better team at the beginning of the series,” said Oklahoma City coach Mark Diagnalt. “We are continue to learn and we are growing through all these experiences that we are receiving. It has been only one week since the series starts, but these sports are rich in lessons and rich in experiences. Every time you take a punch and you stand back, you create more mental cruelty, you create more mental cruelty, you build more.”
In the last three matches, only 21-63 (33.3 percent) from Jokik region, beyond the arc is 4 -22 (18.2 percent) and only 5.0 per competition. He shot less than 40 percent once during a regular session, but did not reach that limit since Game 1 of the series.
Two of his four worst shooting performances of his 91 career playoff games have come in the last two matches in Denver.
“It’s all a little bit,” Jokik said about the reasons behind his struggles. “They are really playing well on me. They are really happening in my body, by hand, physically. … They are shrinking the floor for me. I need to do a better work, of course, but it’s part of the game.”
But even with Jokik’s struggles, Nagets have made it a three-game series.
“We need to give ourselves a chance,” Jokik said. “We need to be more physical, aggressive.”
Shay Gilgus-Alexander of Oklahoma City, who likes Jokik, is a finalist for the NBA Most Valuable Player Award, average for 27.5 points and shooting 47.5 percent from the floor in the series, reaching the free-thro line more than nine times per game.
He scored at least 33 points in the first two matches of the series in Oklahoma City.
“This chain has thrown a lot of random things at us, many things that are unpredictable or out of ideal,” said Gilgus-Alexander. “I think we have really done a good job of accepting where we are and who we are and we are not all in the season.”
The series has also highlighted the depth of Oklahoma City.
Thunder has 10 players played in each game of the series, with each average 10 or more minutes per competition.
Denver has mostly used seven-man rotation in the series, with the only bench player of 92-87 on Sunday more than nine minutes Russell WestBrook.
“We just have to get more than more people,” said Nugets interim coach David Edelman. “And I probably have to play more than eight people.”
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