The OKC Thunder are picking up right where they left off last season when it comes to their on-court domination, but even the casual fan will tell you they have yet to see the best version of this club in 2025-26.
Spotty shooting, unnecessary fouls, and mindless errors have all shown up in the early part of this season. But there is one asset that Oklahoma City has used to flip the switch when needed.
Thunder have been other worldly dominant in crunch time
In the last five minutes of games this year, the Thunder has been dominant when things have been close.
They boast a clutch point differential that is over seven points higher than last season, and they've done it by focusing on one key factor -- taking care of the basketball.
Last year it was tough to tell if OKC was a clutch team or not during the regular season, as they only had 24 possible clutch games due to the simple fact that they just kept blowing everyone else out.
In said contests, they were still top ten in the most significant categories, but nothing resembling their dominance to start this season.
This 2025-26 squad is outscoring its opponents by almost nine points a night in clutch time. That's 2.3 points better than the next closest team.
In the four-game sample size, they're committing 0.3 turnovers (tied for third-best) and a 13 assist/turnover ratio (first) in almost nine minutes of clutch time per game (inflated because of two double overtime wins).
Perhaps the most impressive part of all this is the fact that the Thunder are doing all of this with guys like Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins, and the breakout star Ajay Mitchell taking over a large part of the offense while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is either on the bench or playing off the ball.
Coach Mark Daigneault is trusting his young core to take care of the basketball, and it appears to be paying off.
Jalen Williams' injury-induced absence can only mean good things for the future of this team, especially if they continue to stack up wins in the meantime. It's allowed these secondary players the opportunity to grow and develop, and they're proving capable of stepping up into a bigger role when called upon.
Granted, there is still one obvious question that looms -- What does this rotation look like when Williams comes back?
Fortunately for them, if anyone can figure out how to maximize his players regardless of role, it's coach Daigneault.
Aaron Wiggins played anywhere from 7 to 26 minutes in the postseason last year, and Cason Wallace has looked more and more like a Swiss Army Knife the more he plays.
One can only assume that this supporting cast will be just fine when the starting five gets healthy. If anything, this early usage bump will make them more primed and ready when it comes time to actually defend their title during the 2026 postseason.