Despite coming into the 2025 NBA Playoffs as the top team in the entire league and the favorite to win the championship, the fourth-seeded Denver Nuggets took the OKC Thunder to seven games during their round-two matchup.
Fortunately for Oklahoma City, they ultimately wound up coming out of the series alive, as they downed Nikola Jokic and company in a winner-take-all finale on Sunday afternoon by a final score of 125-93.
Now, though the Thunder advancing to their first conference finals in nearly a decade deserves to spark some serious excitement and joyous reactions from the franchise's faithful followers, the fact that it extended so long could be viewed as somewhat of a let down, and Jalen Williams is widely regarded as a contributing factor in this unfortunate turn of events.
After having a mesmerizing first-round series against the Grizzlies, where he posted top-notch averages of 23.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 1.5 steals on 54.2 percent shooting from the floor, the All-Star played like a completely different baller in round two, struggling with his offensive game and overall on-court consistency.
For every 20-plus point game he had against Denver, he recorded over twice as many sub-18 point efforts on 40.0 percent shooting or worse.
To say Williams was inconsistent during the 2025 West semifinals would be a massive understatement, and, following Sunday's Game 7 win, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander summed up his co-star's play in a perfect, albeit blunt manner, as he said: "Obviously, Dub didn't have his best series."
Thunder star admits Jalen Williams 'didn't have his best series' vs Denver
Now, along with his straight-to-the-point assessment of Williams, SGA was equally as quick to say that, without the 24-year-old's ability to bounce back from his putrid Game 6 showing, they wouldn't be on their way to the Western Conference Finals like they currently are.
"The reason why we advanced was because he got better as a basketball player, mentally and physically. You guys saw tonight how he bounced back after his Game 6. We all expected it. We know the type of player he is, the type of work that he puts in, and we know where his head's at," Gilgeous-Alexander said.
As noted, Williams found himself posting perhaps the most abysmal offensive performance of his postseason career in Oklahoma City's previous game, as he wrapped up his nearly 38 minutes of play with 6 points on 3-for-16 shooting from the floor and a plus-minus of -8.
Instead of wallowing after such an outing, however, heading into Sunday's Game 7, the forward admitted that he was coming in with a "completely new attitude," based on the outcome both for him and the Thunder as a whole, such an approach seemed to do wonders.
In 33 minutes of play, Williams dropped 24 points on 58.8 percent shooting from the floor and 40.0 percent shooting from distance to go along with 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and a steal, all while clocking in with a +35 plus-minus rating.
In the process, not only did J-Dub seemingly provide doubters with an answer to whether he's capable of serving as a second option on this title-hopeful Thunder team, but, to Gilgeous-Alexander, reminded everyone that, when locked in, he's "the reason why we're as good of a team as we are."