NBA Matchups: May 26

Oklahoma City Thunder at Minnesota Timberwolves

Team Totals: Thunder 110.3, Wolves 107.3

Injury Report: Nikola Topic (O, ACL)

Wolves projected starters: Mike Conley, Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Julius Randle, Rudy Gobert

Thunder projected starters: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein

Offensive Ranks: Wolves 8th, Thunder 2nd
Defensive Ranks: Wolves 6th, Thunder 1st

Finch quotes: Said Shannon Jr. was “awesome” because he’s physical and a downhill player, said they knew they were going to play Shannon Jr. in Game 3, said they are “definitely” going to see TSJ more and they know he’s going to bring energy regardless of the shots going in, said Naz played more physical and it was nice to see the 3-pointers go in for him, said they never feel psychologically disadvantaged whenever they step on the floor, said they were more aggressive with SGA and they didn’t foul, said they’re fortunate that SGA had a bad game, said Randle was “awesome” and he chatted with him before Game 3 about the minutes being cut in Game 2, said Ant was one of the most positive voices after the Game 2 loss, said they were “doing too much other junk” with their game plan earlier in the series.  

Daigneault quotes: Said the Wolves were ready to play and credit to them for getting the game the way they did, said the Wolves were more physical on both ends, said OKC was trying to drum up some energy at times and it just wasn’t enough, said the Wolves “kept their foot on the gas” and prevented them from their usual “keep coming” style, said the Wolves really executed their defense, said they were not able to bottle up Ant like they usually do, said they are used to teams picking up SGA higher and lower, said he’s a believer in just throwing different guys out there when they’re down big.

Stats and notes:

*Well, you don’t see that every day on OKC getting stomped. In fact, Game 3 was the second time this season they lost by more than 15, and the Thunder lost the turnover battle for the first time in two months (March 25, just 11 times total all year). It was OKC’s worst defensive game all year and their second-worst halfcourt defense all year. The Wolves finally won the points-in-the-paint battle 56-42, and they killed the Thunder in second-chance points 20-7. The Wolves destroyed the Thunder at the rim with Minnesota at 17-of-24 and the Thunder just 11-of-17. The Wolves and Thunder were almost even in transition frequency for the first time, and the Thunder only had two steals for almost three quarters (two steals from Dillon Jones and Ajay Mitchell in the last 37 seconds of 3Q). The OKC offense didn’t have great spacing because of how the Thunder were covering SGA (we’ll get to that on SGA). Additionally, the Thunder ran terribly bad on potential assists at 19 dimes on 46 potentials while MIN went 30-of-35. It was a very un-OKC game and Mark Daigneault felt like he might have wanted to save some of his adjustments in his back pocket in the second half.