Led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, OKC went one better than the NBA Championship

LOS ANGELES, CA— Shai Gilgeous-Alexander walked into the Intuit Dome in costume it will probably never happen againa chance to tie Oscar Robertson for third all-time in consecutive 20-point games in NBA history. The last time it was Oklahoma City Thunder the quarterback played against the team that drafted him and traded him, it was one of the tougher games team season and his individual career.

In that 103-101 win over OKC on March 23, 2025, the Thunder scored the seventh fewest points in a victory in a season in which they won 84 games and played 105 of them. It was also the 16th slowest game of the season for Oklahoma City, which was fifth in the league in pace during the regular season.

With the win, Gilgeous-Alexander had possibly the worst shooting game of his career. He finished 7-of-29 (24.1 percent) from the field, including just 6-of-22 on two-pointers and 1-of-7 on three-pointers. The only thing that saved his line was his perfect 11-of-11 shooting at the free throw line.

But the game still ended in a win, and it was a perfect encapsulation of the type of “muddy” victory that helped shape the Thunder’s path to their first NBA championship since moving to Oklahoma City 15 years ago.

“Those are the best games,” Gilgeus-Alexander told ClutchPoints after a recent Thunder win. “You learn the most in those games.

Under the head coach Mark Daigneaultreigning MVP winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and a supporting cast ready to get their hands dirty on every possession, the Thunder are in the process of building something special and sustainable in Oklahoma City for years to come.

They will want to wear you down with their physicality, force you into bad shots or turnovers, and punish you in transition with their plethora of athletes and playmakers. But over the last few years, they’ve also learned how to win ugly games. Or games, “in the mud”, if you will.

“Usually you’re in the mud because the team is doing something to put you in the mud and you have to figure out a way to get out,” Gilgeous-Alexander added to ClutchPoints. “You have to figure out a way to win in the mud. You have to figure out a way to get better so you’re not in the mud. And the mud is usually something that slows you down. So you’re not in the mud when you’re out there as a group doing what you want and what your identity is and in the mud when the team pulls you out of it.

“We’ve gotten better at it over the years. We just figure out how to win and then figure out how to get better through those games and those lessons.”

When the Thunder played the Clippers for the first time this season, a much different outcome emerged despite being denied. Behind Gilgeous-Alexander’s 30 points, including 18 in the third quarter, Oklahoma City easily beat the Clippers 126-107.

“If I can remember, the last time we played the Clippers (in Los Angeles), it was one of those mud games. They did a really good job of making us play a certain way. This time it felt completely different, so I think we took a good step in just getting better through those wins, through those losses, and playing no matter what the game looks like.”

That kind of fight is what allowed the Thunder to have another near-perfect start to the 2025-26 regular season, despite key members of the championship-winning team missing time in Jaylen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Alex Caruso, Lugentz Dort and Isaiah Joe.

At 12-1, the Thunder have the best record in the NBA, and have now won 80 of their last 95 regular season games, a whopping .842 winning percentage. Their only loss was a two-point loss on the road to the Portland Trail Blazers, who have also had a strong start to the season.

Oklahoma City has been one of the slower-paced teams in the league so far, already in six games (they played 24 clutch games all last season) and missing significant parts of their rotation, but it hasn’t mattered for a second.

“I think all those stats, they’re all interconnected for every team, so I’m not sure any one stat in a vacuum means more than another,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault explained of the team’s pace to start the season. “All the other things that happen on the floor affect that. We played two double overtime games earlier and we played four games in the first seven, and they tend to slow down a little bit. Last year we were really fast, we were top five in the league in pace. It’s not a number that we share with the team or anything like that. That was our style.

“I would imagine by the end of the season we’ll be more than we are right now. But you’ve also got to be able to play in the mud. You’ve got to win in a lot of different ways. There are nights where you’re going to have to dictate the pace and the tempo. And that’s the way to win. And then there are other nights where the game is over and the game can be over. We want to be a team that can play in both of these competitions. As much as we want to dictate some tempo on the floor, we’re OK with taking the uglier game because you have to be able to win those games if you want to get where you want to go.

Despite playing clutch minutes – defined as a game within five points in the final five minutes – in four of their first five games, the Thunder have won 12 of their first 13 games this season by a staggering average margin of 15.5 points per night. Last year’s OKC team set a new NBA record for margin of victory, winning by an average of 12.9 points per game.

The Thunder are on a very early season streak to win over 70 games this season after winning 68 a year ago. They brought back their core from last season, and everyone improved individually. They’re winning in different ways, doing so with some of their better players in and out of the lineup, and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down anytime soon.

That’s why Shai Gilgeous-Alexander believes this Thunder team is better than the one that won the NBA championship five months ago.

“This team, this group of guys, they worked extremely hard individually and as a group,” Gilgeus-Alexander said. “We played 82 games and then we had the whole playoffs. So of course we’re just going to be a better team, and I think that’s what it is.

“I’m going to sound like a broken record, but our priority is to get better every day and we’ve been doing that. We did that all last season, we did that all playoff, and because we did that, we have no choice but to be a better team. And then the guys had all summer to work on their games. We haven’t seen any of our better players in this lineup not do well, but it still doesn’t surprise me.”

Through the first 12 games of the season, Chet Holmgren has stepped up as the Thunder’s secondary playmaker and scorer. Second-year guard Ajay Mitchell is the team’s third-leading scorer at 16.9 points a night on 46-35-91 shooting after playing sparingly last season. Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins and Isaiah Hartenstein are averaging 12+ points per game, while Cason Wallace has taken lessons from Alex Caruso and developed into an even bigger defensive threat, leading the league in steals per game. In games against Ja Morant, Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic, Wallace held the trio on a combined 14-of-51 shooting (27.4 percent) as the primary defender.

And all this as Jaylen Williams preparing to return to the Thunder’s lineup from offseason wrist surgery.

JDub gets some kicks before tonight’s game. He should get an update on his status soon pic.twitter.com/JsumnpDRgO

— Daniel Bell© (@BasketballGuruD) November 9, 2025

It seems impossible, but as the season goes on, it looks more and more like this Oklahoma City Thunder team is palpably better and more complete than it was during the 68-win season.

And that’s without mentioning the fact that as of November 14th, they’re on track to win not just one, but two lottery picks through trades they’ve made in years past. If things aren’t dire for the NBA champions’ opponents right now, they may be about to get a lot worse.