Thunder pull away late, routet nuggets in the battle of West Contenders: Takeaways

Oklahoma City – The Way through NBA’s western conference still seems to be going through Oklahoma City.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 40 points on Sunday when Thunder defeated the Denver Nuggets 127-103 in a battle for two of the West’s top challengers. Thunder made a close match a routine with a 41-20 wave in the last quarter.

Oklahoma City (53-11) has now won 16 of his last 18 games and stretched its current winning row for seven matches. Nuggets (41-23), who went into Sunday’s games after winning 13 of 16, saw their two-game mini-streak end.

The teams meet again Monday in OKC.

Thunder’s raucous fourth quarter

Thunder led with only one point with less than 11 minutes left. And yet, at the last sum, the end of their bench was on the field and ran out of the clock about what the scoring would entail was a blowout.

Oklahoma City ended the victory on a 41-17 race. The trend has become its staple this season.

Sometimes the thunder bends against a smaller team. Other times, they remain competitive with a top-tier group, like nuggets, and they eventually turn their opponents dizzy over the last 12 minutes. They just did it against Brooklyn Nets. Boston Celtics played them closely – until they didn’t. New York Knicks played them closely – until they didn’t. And now Denver is part of the trend.

Thunder has only played 56 minutes all season in coupling time, defined as when a game is within five points with five or five-minute minutes left, the lowest figure in the league. The only team close to them is Washington Wizards, sinking only so low because they occupy the other end of the spectrum. – Peace Katz, NBA Senior Writer

MVP update

Gilgeous-Alexander reigns highest in the first stage of the MVP stroke, but Jokić will receive another chance Monday.

Gilgeous-Alexander, who led Thunder to the victory, ended with 40 points, eight rebounds and five assists, his third consecutive match with at least 40 points. Just around the time when a team with a lead could go through the movements, Thunder’s Superstar does anything but that.

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Meanwhile, Jokić closed played with 24 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists. Oklahoma City, with two big men to fight him, the most widely used center Isaiah Hartenstein as his primary defender, threw colleague 7-foot Chet Holmgren on a non-shooter that allowed Holmgren to help in the field on the three-time MVP. But Holmgren treated bad trouble all night, which meant adversity for OKC.

Sometimes the man who helped Jokić was a little guard, like Alex Caruso. On other occasions Hartenstein had to handle him by himself. – Katz

Thunder exploit jokić for defense

I don’t think this has a lot of influence on the MVP race because I think Gilgeous-Alexander is the clear leader here. These are two great players, maybe even a time-in-one-life-type players. But if performance-plus-winning matters is the sga guy this season because OKC has dominated the regular season.

What was remarkable from Sunday afternoon was Gilgeous-Alexander who was the best player on the floor and his ability to utilize Jokić defensively in drop coverage. If Denver wants to take some information home to study, it should be to find out a way to keep Jokić on the floor against Thunder Defensively, because on Sunday afternoon Thunder got everything they wanted. – Tony Jones, NBA Staff Writer

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(Photo: Joshua Gateley / Getty Images)