The Oklahoma City Thunder have shown resilience all season.
The Thunder dropped back-to-back games just twice in the regular season, and the top seed in the Western Conference playoffs never lost more than two contests consecutively.
And yet Oklahoma City faces the visiting Denver Nuggets on Wednesday in Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinal series needing to rebound after Monday’s 121-119 home loss to open the second round.
The Nuggets trailed by nine with less than three minutes remaining before Nikola Jokic helped mount a comeback, and before Denver won on Aaron Gordon’s 3-pointer with less than four seconds remaining.
“We know it’s about how we respond,” Oklahoma City star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “There’s nothing we can do about what just happened, so there’s no point to have our head down or be sad about it or sulk about it. All we can do is be better for the next game, and that’s what we’re focused on.”
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault didn’t expect his team to continue steamrolling opponents after sweeping its first-round series against Memphis.
“We have to embrace the struggle of the playoffs, embrace the adversity of the playoffs,” Daigneault said. “The playoffs are a mountain to climb, so it’s not gonna be easy for anybody.
“We kind of coasted through the first round. It was challenging in the games, but we had control of the series the whole time. … No one just walks their way through a series at this point in the season.”
Oklahoma City threw all kinds of defensive looks at Jokic and had success frustrating the superstar during stretches. But Jokic finished strong as he delivered 42 points and 22 rebounds.
“The best player in the world,” the Nuggets’ Russell Westbrook said of Jokic. “Plan and simple.”
There was a time, when he played for the Thunder, when that moniker might have belonged to Westbrook.
Westbrook received a large ovation when he checked into Monday’s game for the first time, then left Thunder fans in stunned silence when his pass found Gordon for the game-winning bucket.
“They gave me a chance and believed in me when I was a little, young teenager,” Westbrook said of the Thunder. “But the reason why they love me is my competitive nature, competitive spirit.”
Westbrook, and the Nuggets as a whole, have shown plenty of that recently. They found their bearings after head coach Michael Malone was fired late in the season, then they fought through a seven-game first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers that included Gordon’s game-winning dunk at the buzzer in Game 4.
On Monday, they came back from a 13-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the team with the NBA’s best record in the regular season.
Denver will try to keep building momentum with Games 3 and 4 in Colorado later this week.
“We didn’t want to miss the moment. We didn’t want to miss the opportunity,” Gordon said. “I’m glad we showed our grit, but we are not satisfied.”
And Oklahoma City will try to regain the momentum it has built throughout the season.
“We didn’t expect our whole run to be sunshine and rainbows,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
