Thunder Wrap Historic Season Early

Final: Thunder def. Clippers 128-110

Box Score | Play-by-Play

Nuggets and Notes

• The Oklahoma City Thunder clinched the #1 overall seed in the NBA. The defending champs will have homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs.
• Not that there should've been any doubt left whatsoever, but OKC also clinched the back to back MVP trophy for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
• That's 7 straight wins for OKC.
• And 8 straight wins over the Clippers.
• The Thunder stormed out of the gates with focus and force. Swarming defense. It was clear from the jump OKC wanted to clinch the #1 seed and finish their regular season tonight.
• Chet Holmgren had a career night. In the first five minutes, Chet had 14 points on 3-4 shooting. The Clippers had 9 points on 4-11 shooting up to that point.
• Holmgren's final line: 30 points (one shy of his season high), 14 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and 4 blocks. He shot 10-13 from the field and 3-4 from 3.
• Sorry, back to back MVP SGA. Apologies, fringe First Team All-NBA Kawhi. Forgive me, recovering All-NBA/All-Defense JDub. But Chet went wire to wire as the best player on both sides of the court.
• Jalen Williams returning to this offense and applying so much pressure at the rim along with his playmaking and elite defense takes OKC to a whole other level.
• Holmgren is going to be All-Defense First Team. He's going to finish top-two in DPOY voting. And he should make All-NBA Third Team.
• That's back to back nights that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 5 assists in the first quarter.
• SGA has missed 38 fourth quarters (sat out 26, missed 12 due to injury), but SGA leads the NBA in clutch scoring.
• SGA took one (1x) free throw against the Clippers. He has 12 total free throws in his last four games combined. Some free throw merchant.
• Shai has scored 20+ points for the 140th straight game. If tonight was his last game of the season, SGA is a perfect 68 for 68.
• Thunder versus Clippers featured the two players with the longest 20 point streaks in the NBA. To put the gap between the streaks into perspective: If Kawhi scored 20 points every game the rest of this season and all of next season…
  
  …he’d tie SGA’s streak the final game of 2027.
• Isaiah Joe could be an X factor for OKC in the playoffs. What a weapon off the bench.
• Joe had 21 points and hit 4-7 from deep. He is now 18-28 from 3 in his last four games. Strokin' Joe is shooting a career high 42.3 3PT%.
• Hoping to see Nikola Topic play 30 minutes versus the Nuggets on Friday night. Go Nuggets?

One Key Seed Takeaway