OKLAHOMA CITY — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander figured his night was over at the end of the third quarter, when the Oklahoma City Thunder held a 25-point lead over the Phoenix Suns. He was fine with sitting down with 46 points.
But Thunder coach Mark Daigneault wanted to give his superstar a shot to hit the 50-point milestone for the third time in a seven-game span. He told Gilgeous-Alexander that he had a few minutes to get there.
“I took my time,” Gilgeous-Alexander said after the Thunder’s 140-109 win Wednesday. “He told me not to rush it. If he didn’t say that, I was definitely going to rush it.”
Gilgeous-Alexander reached 50 for the third time in his career — all in the past 15 days — on a pull-up jumper with 9:32 remaining and checked out to a standing ovation a little more than a minute later.
He singlehandedly outscored the Suns 37-34 from the 6:36 mark of the second quarter until he swished the last of his 18 buckets on 29 field goal attempts. He was 17-of-27 off the dribble and 10-of-16 on contested attempts, according to ESPN Research tracking.
“He makes it look so easy,” Oklahoma City center Isaiah Hartenstein said.
The seven-game span is the shortest by a player who recorded the first three 50-point games in his career. Only eight other players have scored 50 three times over seven games in NBA history: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, Luka Doncic, James Harden, Michael Jordan and Damian Lillard.
“Those guys have done so many great things in the game,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I’m so far off of that. It’s cool, but I don’t think too much of it. The most important thing is to just know that I’m getting better in this process.
“Some nights it’s going to look good, some nights I’m going to miss shots. I’m still playing on feel and finding a way to win through those. That’s what I’m after. That’s what I’m chasing. That’s what, I guess, fills my cup. Just knowing that I got better, taking the right steps in the right direction to ultimately win basketball games at a very high level and hoist a trophy at the end of the season.”
Gilgeous-Alexander, the MVP runner-up last season, probably could have had another 50-point night during this sizzling stretch. He scored 34 points in only 22 minutes in Monday night’s blowout win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
Over the past 10 games, Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 39.1 points on 56.3% shooting from the floor. He’s the first player to average at least 39 points while shooting 55% or better in a 10-game span since Jordan in March-April 1990.
“He’s been on this run for a while but continues to defend, continues to do all the other things that going to basketball,” Daigneault said of Gilgeous-Alexander, who also had 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and a block against the Suns. “It hasn’t turned into an individual spectacle. He’s just inside the team, blends it into a game.”
Gilgeous-Alexander has boosted his scoring average to 32.8 points per game, a full point ahead of Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo for the league lead. He has more points (1,315) than minutes (1,313) this season, attributing his recent scoring outburst to a shift in his mentality.
“I used to really, really focus hard on efficiency to the point where in certain moments I think I would not just play more of in my flow state,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, who averaged more than 30 points per game in each of the past two seasons. “I’ll force a play or force a drive, force a shot instead of just taking what the defense gives me all night. I found myself doing that and having big nights. I think that freeness to my mentality and aggressiveness is helpful.”
