By Michael Kinney
OKLAHOMA CITY– It didn’t take long for Oklahoma City to learn its lesson. After allowing a shorthanded New Orleans squad to hang around before winning in Game 1 of their first-round series at the buzzer, the Thunder jumped on top of the Pelicans in Game 2 and never stopped stomping.
Led by a tenacious defense that forced 17 turnovers, the top-seeded Thunder rolled to a 124-92 victory Wednesday night at the Paycom Center to take a 2-0 lead as they head to New Orleans for Games 3 and 4.
Along with the turnovers, Oklahoma City held New Orleans to 26 percent shooting from 3-point range and won the rebound battle 37-35.
“We know that’s where we hang our hat defensively and these past couple of games we just tried to give it all we got and execute the game plan,” said Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. “We go into every day and focus on them and then just try to carry them out and we’ve done so.”
Offensively, the combination of Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren proved to be too much for the Pelicans in Game 2. Gilgeous-Alexander continued to put up MVP-caliber numbers as he scored 33 points on 13 of 19 shooting. That includes going 3-for-5 from 3-point range and handing out five assists.
Holmgren, in only his second career playoff game, tacked on 26 points, seven boards and two blocked shots.
“Some of it was in the flow of the game. Some of it was calls that Coach put together,” Holmgren said. “Just kind of trying to read who was guarding me, what coverage they were in and make decisions based on that. I feel like overall tonight I made the right decision and the right play on pretty much all of those.”
However, when the night started, it looked like Holmgren was going to have his hands full as the Pelican’s Jonas Valanciunas scored nine straight points and seemed to have the rookie on his heels.
But Holmgren and the rest of the Oklahoma City defense collected themselves and held Valanciunas to 10 points the rest of the night.
Oklahoma bombarded New Orleans with 3-pointers in the first half as they built a 63-50 halftime advantage.
The Pelicans got it as close as 12 points in the third quarter before the Thunder went on a run and pushed their advantage to 82-60 with five minutes left in the period.
With the hot shooting of the Thunder (14-of-29 from 3-point range), the Pelicans needed big nights from CJ McCollum and Brandon Ingram if they were going to contend. Ingram was held to 18 points while McCollum struggled as he shot 6 of 14 from the field for 15 points.
The Pelicans were just unable to keep pace with the energetic Thunder, who seemed to feed off the atmosphere of the crowd throughout the night.
But now they are going on the road for the first time this postseason. Without the fury of the Thunder fan base behind them, they will have to rely on the energy from each other, according to Holmgren.
“We’re going to go out there and play as a team, figure things out together, but again, I don’t know. I’ve never played in that situation,” Holmgren said of playing a road playoff game. “But last year in the play-in game a lot of these guys were playing in a situation like that with a crowd that was pretty crazy. I was there for that. I wasn’t playing obviously. We can expect the same thing. Not only is the crowd going to bring it, but the Pelicans are going to bring it too, so we got to be ready for that and continue to get better.”
Game 3 is Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
Notes: For the second straight game, an Oklahoma City Thunder fan won $20,000 after knocking down a half-court shot. Eli Walch, 23, said he plans to use the money to pay for his upcoming wedding… During halftime, CJ McCollum was hit I the face with a basketball that crumpled him to the ground. After being attended to by medical staff, he started the second half… Zion Williams missed his third straight game with a strained left hamstring.
IG: mkinneymedia
X (Twitter): MKinneyMedia
Youtube: Michael Kinney Media
Photos (SmugMug): Michael Kinney