The Oklahoma City Thunder are set to play the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday, on the second night of a back-to-back, which starts tonight in Oklahoma City against the Suns, before the team jets out to play the Suns in Phoenix tomorrow night. Mark Daigneault announced before the Warriors game that the OKC Thunder will be short-handed entering Wednesday’s tilt. As a result, two of their best players will not make the trip west.
The OKC Thunder will leave Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams back home in Oklahoma City as they embark West to take on the Suns. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will be sidelined with his abdominal strain as part of his injury maintenance. At the same time, Jalen Williams will not play in either game due to a wrist sprain sustained against the Jazz on Sunday.
The Oklahoma City Thunder will miss two key pieces, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Jalen Williams, as the OKC Thunder head west to wrap up the second leg of their back-to-back.
The Thunder bench boss made sure to reiterate that had this abdominal strain injury for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander happened in October, the superstar point guard would not be playing right now as the remedy is to simply rest. Unfortunately, however, the OKC Thunder do not have the luxury of resting Gilgeous-Alexander with only 18 games left.
For Jalen Williams, after he went up for a rim finish in Sunday’s game against the Jazz, he held his arm for the rest of the timeout. Williams was ruled out earlier this afternoon for tonight’s game against the Warriors. At his pre-game press conference, Mark Daigneault announced the rookie would not travel to Phoenix tomorrow.
The good news for Oklahoma City is, despite starring down the barrel of another back-to-back this weekend, it will get a two-day break before taking on New Orleans on Saturday.
The bad news is Sunday will be the second leg of another back-to-back when they play in San Antonio against the Spurs.