After evening the series up at one game apiece via a historic Game 2 performance, the OKC Thunder once again found themselves ceed control of their semifinal matchup to the Denver Nuggets this past Friday night, as they fell on the road out at Ball Arena by a final score of 113-104.
With this particular loss, the top-seeds now find themselves down 2-1 in their best-of-seven series and, in turn, have some now questioning Oklahoma City's status as favorites in their second-round face-off.
Now, while concerns about the team's championship viability are certainly warranted, during a recent interview with Alex Caruso, arguably the biggest reason why fans and, frankly, the Thunder should not be panicking just yet was brought to light.
Alex Caruso notes key fact about semifinals that bodes well for Thunder
In his practice media availability session on May 10, the veteran was asked what he believes to be some of the "biggest takeaways" from their Game 3 loss to the Nuggets out in Denver.
Though Caruso did specifically note in his response that, throughout the round thus far, "a lot of questions" have been raised when it comes to OKC's on-court execution, ultimately, he still has a significant amount of faith in his team's game plan and overall ability to persevere when considering the fact that the Thunder have actually held the lead for the vast majority of this series so far.
"We've led for a large majority of all the games so I don't think there's anything that we're going to just, like, have an epiphany on that's like, 'This is the game-changer.' It's just about being great at the stuff that we've talked about doing," Caruso said.
Entering Game 3, the Thunder found themselves holding the advantage in the scoring department for approximately 88.0 percent of the time, and, even following their overtime loss in Denver, the ball club has seen a lead of 12 or more points and, more important, has held the lead in the final minute of regulation in all outings played.
When looking at their series to this point, there's a strong case to be made that, outside of two uncharacteristic misses from Chet Holmgren at the free throw line and an even more rare off night on the offensive side of the ball by superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City could be heading into Sunday's Game 4 up 3-0 and on the verge of a second-straight sweep.
Heck, even with SGA playing some of his least efficient ball of the season, it still took the Nuggets extra innings to pull out a win on Friday in front of a raucous, packed home crowd.
So while some may be looking at the Thunder's current 2-1 deficit as a major worry and, in turn, a serious hit to their title-hopes in 2025, as Caruso alluded to, they have proven capable of taking command of this Nuggets team throughout this semifinal bout.
All they need to do is find a way to sustain this level of play for all 48 minutes of regulation.
With strong leadership, high-end star power, and an elite coaching mind, accomplishing such a feat is far from an unreasonable task.
Fortunately for OKC, they have all three factors already in their possession.