LOS ANGELES, CA — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander marched into Intuit Dome wearing a fit he'll likely never repeat again, a chance to tie Oscar Robertson for third all-time in consecutive 20-point games in NBA history. The last time that the Oklahoma City Thunder guard played against the team that drafted and traded him, it was one of the more grueling games of the team's season and his individual career.
In that 103-101 OKC victory on March 23, 2025, the Thunder scored their seventh fewest points in a win in a season where they won 84 games and played 105 of them. It was also the 16th slowest paced game of the season for Oklahoma City, which ranked fifth in the league in pace during the regular season.
The win saw Gilgeous-Alexander have arguably the worst shooting game of his career. He finished 7-of-29 (24.1 percent) shooting from the field, including just 6-of-22 shooting on two-pointers and 1-of-7 on three-pointers. The only thing that salvaged his line was his perfect 11-of-11 shooting at the free throw line.
But the game still ended in a victory, and it was a perfect encapsulation of the type of, “muddy,” win that helped shape the Thunder en route to their first NBA Championship since relocating to Oklahoma City 15 years ago.
“Those are the best games,” Gilgeous-Alexander told ClutchPoints after a recent Thunder victory. “You learn the most in those games.”
Under head coach Mark Daigneault, reigning MVP winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and a supporting cast willing to get their hands dirty every single possession, the Thunder are in the process of building something special and sustainable in Oklahoma City for years to come.
They'll 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 year, they've also learned how to win the 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 that you're not in the mud. And the mud typically is something that slows you down. So like, you're not in the mud when you're out there as a group doing what you want to do and what your identity is and in the mud when a team takes you out of it.
“We've gotten better at that over the years. Just figuring out how to win and then figuring 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 presented itself despite being shorthanded. Behind 30 points from Gilgeous-Alexander, including 18 in the third quarter, Oklahoma City handily defeated the Clippers 126-107.
“If I can recall, 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. It felt completely different this time, so I think we've taken a good step in just getting better through those wins, through those losses, and playing through whatever the game looks like.”
That type of grit is what's gotten the Thunder off to another near-perfect start to the 2025-26 regular season despite key members of the championship winning team missing time in Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Alex Caruso, Luguentz 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 win percentage. Their lone loss was a two-point road loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, who have also had a strong start to their season.
Oklahoma City has been one of the slower paced teams in the league thus far, played in six clutch games already (they played in a league-low 24 clutch games all of last season), and have missed significant portions of their rotation, but it has not mattered for a second.
“I think all those stats, they're all interconnected for every team, so I'm not sure that any one stat in a vacuum means more than the other,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault explained the team's pace numbers to start the season. “It's influenced by all the other things that are happening on the floor. We played two double-overtime games early and we played four clutch games in the first seven, and those tend to slow down a little bit. We were really fast last year, we were in the top five in the league in pace. It's not like a number we're sharing with team or anything like that. That was an outcome of our style.
“I would imagine that we're going to be higher than we are now by the end of the season. But you also have to be able to play in the mud. You have to win a lot of different ways. There's nights where you'll have to kind of dictate pace and tempo. And that's a way to win. And then there's other nights where the game just grinds down and you have to be able to execute on both ends of the floor. And we want to be a team that can play in both of those contests. As much as we like to dictate some tempo on the floor, we're okay embracing an uglier game because you have to be able to win those games if you want to get to where you want to go.”
Despite playing clutch minutes — defined as 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 whopping average margin of 15.5 points a 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 pace to win over 70 games this season after winning 68 a year ago. They've returned their entire core from last season, all of whom have improved individually. They're winning in a variety of ways, doing so with some of their better players in and out of the lineup, and don't seem to be 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, has worked super hard individually and as a group,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We played 82 games, then we had the whole playoff run. So like, naturally, 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 we prioritize getting better every day and we've done that. We did that all last season, we did that throughout the whole playoff run, and because we did that, we have no choice but to be a better team. And then guys had a whole summer to work on their games. We haven't seen one of our better players in the lineup yet, but this team does a good job of plugging away and it's not a surprise to me.”
Through the first 12 games of the season, Chet Holmgren has taken a step 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 with 46-35-91 shooting splits after playing sparingly last season. Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah Hartenstein are all averaging 12+ points per game while Cason Wallace has taken lessons from Alex Caruso and developed into an even bigger menace defensively, leading the league in steals per game. In games against Ja Morant, Stephen Curry, and Luka Doncic, Wallace held the trio to a combined 14-of-51 shooting (27.4 percent) as the primary defender.
And all this as Jalen Williams is preparing to make a return to the Thunder lineup from offseason wrist surgery.
JDub getting shots up before tonight’s game. Should have an update on his status sometime soon pic.twitter.com/JsumnpDRgO
— The Daniel Bell© (@BasketballGuruD) November 9, 2025
It seems impossible, but as the season progresses, it's looking more and more like this Oklahoma City Thunder team is tangibly better and more complete than they were in their 68-win season.
And that's without even mentioning the fact that, as of November 14th, they're on track to receive not just one, but two lottery picks via trades they made in years past. If things aren't scary now for opponents of the NBA Champions, they might be getting a whole lot worse.
