Three Takeaways from the OKC Thunder’s Close-Out Win Over the Memphis Grizzlies

The Oklahoma City Thunder eliminated the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday afternoon, completing the series sweep on a down-to-the-wire 117-115 win in Memphis.

Now, the Thunder await the winner of Nuggets-Clippers, a series that currently sits at 2-2.

Oklahoma City was led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had his best game of the series with a 38-point, six-assist performance as he shot 13-of-24 from the field. Jalen Williams followed with 23 points and five assists as Isaiah Hartenstein, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Joe all wound up with 13 points apiece.

Despite losing the rebound battle handily, the Thunder got off plenty more shots thanks to its turnover advantage, and the Grizzlies could not mount an ultimate comeback in Ja Morant’s absence.

Let’s take a look at three takeaways from the Thunder’s close-out win:

Thunder in OKC

On Saturday morning, thunder was striking the OKC metro as the Thunder prepared to eliminate the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs.

Dominant performances from Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams, Alex Caruso, among others, laid the foundation out for a close-out win on the Grizzlies’ home floor. Several breakouts in transition, electrifying plays from Gilgeous-Alexander and others, the Thunder had to shift into another gear as it hasn’t been the smoothest four-game sweep.

They ultimately did, and now move on to the next series.

OKC Remaining True

All season long, Oklahoma City has tormented offenses around the league and generated turnovers consistently versus adept teams, that has been no exception against Memphis in these playoffs.

Head coach Mark Daigneault has discussed sticking to team principles throughout the postseason—in Game 4, the Thunder forced 21 turnovers which wound up handing 32 extra points to Oklahoma City, a massive number which also contributed to the Thunder getting off 14 more shot attempts. That’s not a number many teams would be able to overcome.

What Comes Next

Oklahoma City completed the sweep with two massive wins inside Paycom Center, but Games 3 and 4 have shown a bit of disconnection among this Thunder team, as Jaylen Wells was absent for the entire series and Ja Morant was absent for one half of Game 3 and the entirety of Game 4.

Even without those two, Memphis had the possibility of landing two wins which would’ve tied the series at this point. Oklahoma City did convert in close, clutch situations which has been a critique of them as they had not had many of those situations due to their point differential in the regular season.

There are certainly positives and negatives to take from this series—a sweep is still a sweep—and the Thunder will have its hands full in the second round.