Subscribe
Follow Us
The Oklahoma City Thunder pulled out a triumphant 123-118 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans Wednesday to keep their hopes of clinching a 2023 postseason berth alive. Despite being the less experience and lower seed whilst playing on the road, OKC managed to keep their composure down the stretch of their down-to-the-wire matchup against NOLA to punch their ticket to round two of the NBA Play-In Tournament.
Following the contest, head coach Mark Daigneault was asked during his post-game media session to voice his “thoughts” on how his team played in their first truly meaningful game as a collective unit. In response, the third-year headman heaped a tremendous amount of praise upon his club for their efforts.
“I mean, [it was a] great 48-minute effort out of the team, great poise. Obviously, New Orleans made a couple big runs at us [at the] end of the second and then the beginning of the fourth and I thought our guys had a great temperament in the huddles. [We] got back to our stuff. We weren't perfect tonight but got back to our habits and it was a great effort out of the team,” Mark Daigneault said on the Thunder's play against New Orleans.
Perhaps the biggest factor in the Thunder's win proved to be the 180 shift from star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, as he erupted for a whopping 25 of his total 32 points scored during the second half of the contest.
Of Oklahoma City's 123 points scored, 90 were registered by the trio of SGA, Josh Giddey, and Lu Dort, the latter of whom took part in a controversial late-game scenario that, luckily, played out in his favor.
