Four Cities in Five Nights: Chet Holmgren Ascended
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Four cities in five nights. The Oklahoma City Thunder conquered all four.
From the classic inside Paycom Arena, to the two snoozers in Dallas and Chicago, to the thriller inside Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, the Thunder handled business in style, quieting the chatter that the San Antonio Spurs were closing in on the top seed in the Western Conference.
At this point, there’s not much left to say about the consistency of the reigning MVP.
With Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, it’s practically a guaranteed 25-piece every night. That didn’t change during OKC’s latest four-game stretch.
SGA appeared in three of those games and averaged 30.6 points per contest, hovering right around his season average.
But Chet Holmgren stood out.
Against Denver, he dispelled the “too small” narrative, pulling down a career-high 21 rebounds against Nikola Jokic and Jonas Valanciunas, two of the league’s most bruising forces. He paired that with 15 points on just eight shot attempts and three blocks, his bread and butter.
Against Dallas, he nearly recorded a double-double with 19 points and nine rebounds, adding two blocks.
Chicago told a slightly different story offensively. Holmgren wasn’t as efficient, finishing with 12 points on 4-of-10 shooting, but still recorded a double-double with 11 rebounds and, of course, two blocks.
Those first three games felt like a buildup.
Because Holmgren saved his biggest performance of the trip, and perhaps the season, for Madison Square Garden.
Head coach Mark Daigneault talks about how Chet’s versatility benefits this team in Playoff situations:
It’s really valuable. Starts with how impactful he is as a player. It’s one thing to be impactful, but it’s another thing to be impactful in a lot of different ways.”
Mark Daigneault answered my question about Chet impacting the game in different ways over the last four games, and how that speaks to where he’s taken his game.
He also talked about how important that versatility is when OKC is matched up with other versatile contenders. pic.twitter.com/tpoNbelgLc
It was clear Holmgren wanted the moment. Under the bright lights of MSG, he opened the game by scoring 14 of OKC’s first 25 points in the first quarter. With Shai bottled up early by the Knicks’ defense, Holmgren got things started from deep and set the tone. He followed that with eight more points in the second quarter.
Holmgren finished with 28 points and eight rebounds, despite going scoreless in the third quarter. He easily could have approached his career-high 36, but as he often says, he prefers to “let the game come to him.”
In the end, it all worked out for OKC.
Shai delivered his MVP moment late, Holmgren flirted with a 30-piece, and the Thunder knocked off their second championship contender in four games.
