Ever since he arrived in the league, Chet Holmgren’s physicality has been a question mark.
After all, he is 7’1, but he weighs only 207 pounds. Add his lean frame on top of OKC being one of the NBA’s worst rebounding teams, and all of a sudden he becomes a talking point. Holmgren’s stature is anything but typical for an NBA big man, and going against the norm guarantees one thing — skeptics.
At least for tonight, Holmgren has silenced those skeptics, exploding for 35 points, as well as 14 rebounds and 3 blocks. Holmgren, along with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 31 points of his own, led OKC to 119-107 win over the Utah Jazz.
It wasn’t just the numbers for Holmgren against Utah — it was how he got them. Holmgren threw down at least three, depending on how you quantify them, bodacious poster dunks, including one right on top of the head of Utah center Walker Kessler, one of the NBA’s most impressive interior presences.
Holmgren’s rebounding totals tell a tale of their own as well. OKC’s issues on the boards are well documented, and Utah is the NBA’s second best rebounding team, sitting only behind Boston in team rebounds per game. However, on Wednesday, Utah won the rebounding battle by only two, and Holmgren’s 14 were the main reason why. Even on plays where he was unable to secure the rebound for himself, Holmgren was incredibly active in tipping the ball up in the air for a second chance at grabbing it, or tipping it into empty space for a teammate to chase it down.
Holmgren has struggled at times this season with opponents who rebound well, but against Utah, he was dishing out the punishment, not taking it.
A game against the Utah Jazz in mid-March can only mean so much, but it was one of a few occasions this season when Holmgren has shown he can bang with the big bodies down low. OKC is not going to be a good rebounding team this season for long stretches, everyone knows that by now, but if it can channel performances like these in the paint in the playoffs, its ceiling rises exponentially– and Holmgren has been at the center of almost all those performances.
OKC’s ultimate destiny for the 2023-24 season seems destined to come down to if it can grab just one more rebound in a close game in the playoffs. It is very much in the cards that rebounds, and physicality in general, could be what spells doom for this iteration of the Thunder, but Wednesday night was a data point, albeit a small one, suggesting that OKC, and Holmgren, can be just as physical down low as any other team on the right night,
