Jalen Williams Injury vs. Suns Shows Thunder Are Still Dominant, but Not Invincible

The Thunder have been the NBA’s best team for nearly two full seasons, but Wednesday night showed they’re not invincible.

During Oklahoma City's 120–107 win in Game 2 of its opening round series against the Suns on Wednesday night, Jalen Williams came up a bit gimpy after attempting a layup with 6:30 remaining in the third quarter. He immediately grabbed his left hamstring before attempting to rejoin the play. He was unable to.

Jalen Williams missed a chunk of games during the 2025–26 season due to persistent issues with his right hamstring. Now the other one is acting up.

Video is below.

Jalen Williams left Game 2 vs. the Suns with an apparent hamstring injury. pic.twitter.com/P47wjF0c9T
— ESPN (@espn) April 23, 2026

He left the game and didn’t return. The Thunder had an 80–65 lead at the time and were in the middle of firmly pulling away from Phoenix.

The injury marred what was otherwise a great night for OKC. The team didn’t seem to need its best effort to dispatch the Suns and take a commanding 2–0 lead in the series. Reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 37 points while grabbing five rebounds and dishing out nine assists. Williams poured in 19 points while he was in the game, and Chet Holmgren matched him. At no point did Oklahoma City seem bothered or concerned by what Phoenix was doing.

After Williams left, things got dicey for a bit, but the 13-point win felt fairly secure.

Jalen Williams injury history

Williams missed 49 games during the regular season. He was sidelined for the first 19 contests following surgery on his right wrist, but missed a chunk of games during the second half of the season due to a right hamstring injury. He returned in late March and was presumed to be healthy for the postseason. Now he has another hamstring injury to worry about.

The 25-year-old made his first All-Star team in 2025 and was named third-team All-NBA while helping lead the Thunder to the franchise’s first NBA title in OKC. He averaged 21.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.6 steals in 32.4 minutes over 69 games. This year, those numbers fell off, as he finished the regular season averaging 17.1 points, 4.6 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 1.2 steals in 28.4 minutes per game. He was limited to 33 appearances this season.

Before this season, Williams had been remarkably durable since the Thunder selected him with the 12th pick in the 2022 NBA draft. He only missed 31 games in his first three seasons combined, and more than doubled that number this year.

Gilgeous-Alexander is the engine that drives OKC, but if the team wants to repeat as champions, it needs Williams healthy and contributing. The Western Conference is too good for anyone to survive short-handed.

The Thunder’s leading man addressed Williams’s injury after the game.

"It's a bit unfortunate but we try to look at it like a positive, that we have guys come in and out the lineup all year," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "We played with so many lineups that it seemed pretty seamless. Now, [Williams] is one of our better players, obviously, one of the better players in the league. For us to reach the mountaintop, we're going to need him, but all we can do is play next man up, and we've built that muscle throughout the season pretty well, so I'm super confident in this team to be able to go and get the job done, no matter who's out there."

Luckily, it doesn’t look like the Suns will provide much resistance, which means Williams may be able to rest for a game or two and see how his hamstring responds to treatment.

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