It’s rare, in the NBA, that you absolutely know a lead as large as 26 points will be erased. Sure, no lead is safe anymore, as they say. Higher volumes of three-point shooting and heightened pace of play broaden the modern numbers in all ways, so when the Memphis Grizzlies steamed their way through a dominant start against the Oklahoma City Thunder last week in Game 3, leading 77-51 at halftime, of course there was plenty of suspicion that they might not finish with a victory.
That suspicion grew to something more like certainty once Ja Morant went down. Right before the end of the second quarter, the ultra-athletic point guard fell hard from the sky, amidst one of his many attempts to wow the basketball world. He wanted to put an exclamation mark on what was then an inspiring rally in Memphis, to put up a fight in a series that his team trailed 0-2. Undercut by a stumbling Lu Dort, seemingly every part of Morant’s body absorbed the shock of the hardwood. He never returned to the game, and was later spotted in crutches.
This set the scene for the grim collapse—or, depending on where you’re sitting, the satisfyingly methodical speed-run. The Thunder ignited Alex Caruso and Chet Holmgren in the second half, and swarmed the Grizzlies in the distinct style of a nature documentary. Only a storm could beat the biggest beast of the wilderness this badly. OKC outscored Memphis 63-31 in the second half, with Caruso bullying guards and centers in equal measure. Neither, in his presence, had the wiles, hand speed, or grip to stop him from snatching the ball away. The sand in their offense’s eyes, Caruso’s domination was the kind you truly have to see to believe, because our statistics don’t quite measure it. Four steals, a block, and a +5 in the box score just doesn’t seem like a fair expression of his galvanizing role in the onslaught. He was a one-man orchestra of deflections, aggressions, and predatorial head games that must be experienced in its fullness.
I watched all of this with a kind of sick pleasure, as I have all season with the Thunder. Caruso was the star in this case, but collectively, they are a superior basketball species—meaner, faster, deeper, and more streamlined than anyone they face. Most of their games, throughout a 68-win regular season, were over early, allowing me to regularly clock in for just about 45 minutes of cold, brutal supremacy on weeknights before the game’s drama was over. The Thunder don’t waste your time, and let you get to meal prep, hygiene, and sleep much more quickly than other teams.
The comeback against Memphis provided a decidedly more after-hours version of this delight. Real NBA heads were plugged into the higher-stakes showdown between the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Clippers, airing simultaneously, but once the Clippers jumped out to a rout and that Grizzlies/Thunder halftime score jumped out curiously, it was clearly time to flip over to this uniquely calibrated challenge—it was to be the basketball equivalent of those soothing viral power-wash videos, in which a disgusting, decades-neglected driveway is made shimmering in merely a few fast-forward minutes. Just how big can a problem get, before someone puts on their gloves and professionally solves it?
That’s not a question the Thunder usually have to answer, but they were obviously able to do so in this case. The comeback may prove to be an important sharpening of their shared blade as they look ahead to more experienced, better-equipped opponents in the rounds ahead. In Game 4, another such test was administered, when the Grizzlies—despite lacking Morant—put up a valiant, desperate fight to save their season. This is when OKC’s lead man, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, had his first excellent game of the series. When postseason intensity, with all its nerves and physicality, compresses all of your usual scoring dynamics down to a flat gristle, that’s when you need an elite and self-reliant shotmaker like Shai to rise above.
So the league’s soon-to-be MVP locked in, and became the reason his team won the contest and advanced to the second round. Surgically dribbling into the heart of the Memphis defense, he had no problem calmly swooshing mid-range jumpers with minimal separation. He also attacked the rim, used the glass deftly, and of course weaponized his burst to get contact and free-throws—13 of them, of which he made 11, to run his scoring total up to 38 for the afternoon. With 11 seconds left in a tight game, he hit a deep step-back jumper to push the Thunder’s lead to five and effectively end the series.
SGA has been the best scoring fail-safe this season, which he’ll need to keep proving as the playoffs wear on. But so far, he and his team have passed every exam they’ve been administered, and usually pretty easily. There is reason to doubt them, but that reason is nebulous and subjective, while the cause for believing in them is hard and fast and momentous. Whether it’s the Clippers or the Nuggets who survive their barn-burning brawl, either will be up against rows and rows of teeth, well-practiced at chewing everything that enters them into a defeated maw.
