The OKC Thunder are now officially one win away from heading back to the NBA Finals following their 127-114 triumph over the Spurs in Game 5.
Though being on the brink of clinching a second-straight title round berth is certainly impressive on its own, perhaps the most exciting and, for San Antonio fans, scary part about Oklahoma City's current position is the fact that superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has yet to play a good game this entire series.
At least, that's the kind of sentiment the MVP just echoed following Tuesday's tie-breaker, and even went as far as to say that he thinks Game 5 saw "the worst start to a basketball game in my career."
It's no secret that Gilgeous-Alexander has been somewhat inefficient at times this postseason, at least for his standards, as he's averaging 3.1 fewer points and shooting 9.0 percentage points below his regular-season numbers.
Of course, even with this drop off, Shai is still posting remarkable averages of 28.0 points per game on 46.3 percent shooting from the floor and, despite his self proclaimed, career-worst start on Tuesday, he still was able to finish with a whopping 32 points and nine assists, tying beloved former cornerstone, Russell Westbrook, for the most playoff games with at least 30 points and five assists.
If this, or any one of his previous outings, doesn't register as a good game for him, the Spurs should truly be scared to find out what does.
Shai praises Thunder teammates for picking up his slack
While denigrating his own performance, Gilgeous-Alexander made sure to heap praise upon his Thunder teammates during his on-court interview postgame, saying that "the group held it down."
Though there's certainly an argument to be made against his own assessment of his efforts, it's hard to disagree with his take on how well Oklahoma City's supporting cast played.
No Jalen Williams or Ajay Mitchell? No problem!
From the usual suspects like Chet Holmgren starting off aggressive with eight of OKC's first 10 points (finished with 16 on the night) and Alex Caruso continuing his hot playoff stretch with a 22-point showing off the pine, to Jared McCain posting yet another 20-point playoff performance here in his first-ever postseason start, SGA's running mates clearly came to play.
By game's end, seven of the nine Thunder players who saw over two minutes of action managed to score seven or more points, while the club as a whole cashed in on 48.2 percent of their shots from the floor and 43.8 percent of their shots from deep, a far cry from their 33.0 and 18.2 splits from their ill-fated Game 4.
Behind this well-rounded performance from Oklahoma City, they now find themselves up 3-2 in this best-of-seven series with a chance to wrap things up on Thursday night in what should be a high-intensity Game 6 out in San Antonio.
Who knows, maybe we'll even finally get to see a Shai-approved performance to help them officially punch their ticket.
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