Jalen Williams is a candidate for slam dunk of the year against the Grizzlies
The Oklahoma City Thunder got back to winning ways on Monday night after defeating the Memphis Grizzlies 119-103. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander once again put in a dominant effortscoring 31 points to lead OKC to victory, but with a lot of their key guys out, Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t do it alone.
To that end, Jalen Williams provided enough support as the undisputed number two option, scoring 24 points on 10-20 shooting from the field. But that wasn’t all Williams did for the Thunder. He awoke the Paicom Center crowd with a slam dunk of the year candidate, throwing a nasty poster over the outstretched arms of Jaren Jackson Jr. and Christian Kollock — two legitimate shot blockers.
With less than a minute left in the third quarter, Williams broke up a double team following the ball. This then gave the star Thunder all runway should have put both Jackson and Kolok on the poster.
Williams and the Thunder are coming off a disappointing loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, so a comeback was imperative. They took a few shots from the Grizzlies, but OKC was able to throw a haymaker that Memphis couldn’t recover from.
The Thunder are back to winning ways despite playing in a short frontcourt
On Monday night, The Thunder were without Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartensteinpushing second-year big Branden Carlson into his first career start. OKC was also without Alex Caruso, Aaron Wiggins and Jaylin Williams. But this team is simply too deep and too good for the absence of a few key players in the rotation to be enough to keep them from winning.
The Thunder will look to continue another long winning streak on Tuesday night against the San Antonio Spurs in the second leg of the NBA Cup semifinals.
2025-12-23 06:01:00
