OKC Thunder look like legit contenders, tie for West's No. 1 seed with fifth-biggest blowout in NBA history

OKC Thunder look like legit contenders, tie for West’s No. 1 seed with fifth-biggest blowout in NBA history

The Oklahoma City Thunder took over the West’s No. 1 seed with a 139-77 destruction of the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday night. If you do the math, that’s a 62-point victory, which goes down as the fifth-largest margin of victory in NBA history.

What’s crazy is the Thunder, who racked up a franchise record 41 assists, only needed three quarters to build that 62-point lead, which goes down as the largest margin ever heading into the fourth quarter of a game.

With the win, the Thunder improved to 26-11 for the season, good enough to tie Minnesota for the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, after the Wolves (also 26-11) lost at Boston on Wednesday.

On the flip side, the Blazers are now the only franchise in history to lose two games by at least 60 points. Portland lost by 65 points to the Pacers in 1998.

Want more history? Josh Giddey became the first player ever to record a triple-double on 100% shooting in fewer than 25 minutes: 13 points, 12 assists, 10 rebounds on 5-for-5 shooting in 23 minutes.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the way with 31 points on 11-of-15 shooting, while Jalen Williams added 21 on 9-of-10 shooting. Meanwhile, rookie phenom Chet Holmgren dropped 19 on 9-of-13. Toss in Lu Dort’s 11 points on 3-of-7 shooting, and the Thunder starters shot a blistering 74% from the field (37-for-50). They only played two and a half quarters.

As if this showing could be any more impressive, the Thunder did this on a back-to-back after winning in Miami on Wednesday and returning home in the middle of the night. It would have been easy to come out sluggish. Instead, the Thunder built a 15-point lead inside the first six minutes.

“We cleared a couple hurdles tonight,” Thunder coach Mark Dagneault said. “I thought the first one was the start of the game, and how ready we were to play and the energy we were able to generate. …

“[I thought] the other hurdle was playing with a lead,” Dagneualt added. ” … We’ve had leads in the past and we’ve done that well, we’ve done that poorly at different times. Those were the two challenges that we had before and in the game tonight, and I thought the guys did a great job.”

Dagneault has now overseen the biggest victory and the biggest defeat in franchise history. In December of 2021, the Thunder lost by 73 points to the Memphis Grizzlies, and Dagneault said he and the team learned a lot from that experience — namely that it was one game, “a true zero-zero thing when you come out of that thing,” and that goes both ways. This was a massive win, but it was one win nonetheless.

Indeed, the Thunder are building toward something bigger than beating the socks off a bad Blazers team in January. This top-seed thing is no fluke.

The Thunder boast a top-five offense and defense and the second-best net rating, by a tenth of a point, to the Celtics. They have three horses in Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Holmgren. They are deep. Versatile. They have the highest overall shooting, 3-point and true-shooting percentages in the league. They are the first team to shoot at least 50% from the field in 10 straight games in over three decades (Spurs, 1993).

Everyone loves to talk about the Thunder being one big move away — which they have all the means in the world to make — from contention, but it’s starting to look like we can forget about them needing to make a move. This team has every indicator of a legit title contender right now. If they were to make a big move, it might honestly jeopardize what they have going in real time. This team is together. It plays harder than its opponents and, most nights, has more talent, too.

If that’s not a contending combination, I don’t know what is.