That smile. That darn smile.
Every possible pearly white, from a star who traditionally lets his game do the talking, glinted from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s mouth as he strolled off the floor at Ball Arena Friday night. His lips stretched wide. His eyebrows crinkled.
His stat sheet — 7 of 22 from the floor for 18 points in the Thunder’s Game 3 loss — frowned. There was little tangible reason for such a full-bore grin, locked in a box-and-one prison by the Nuggets’ perimeter defense for much of the night. But some Nuggets fans, as Gilgeous-Alexander said postgame, were chirping at him.
So the Thunder’s potential MVP broke out the smile, a seconds-long freeze frame that could stand in a week as this titanic series’ defining image, one way or another.
“I know how the game goes,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I know how life is. It’s easy to talk when you’re up. And I don’t ever want to show them defeat, or that I’m mad, or anything like that.
“Nothing’s written. The series is not over.”
There is a dynasty brewing out past the wheat fields of Oklahoma. General manager Sam Presti stockpiled a never-ending treasure trove of draft picks and turned them into versatile jewels of young talent, with an ambitious analytics-minded young head coach to lead them. They are in the process of becoming great, as Mark Daigneault proclaimed after the top-seeded Thunder’s Game 3 loss, and checked plenty of boxes along the way.
“One thing that it takes to be a great team is — you get taken to the limit in the playoffs,” Daigneault said.
Their core, ultimately, has yet to truly weather a playoff storm and come out unscathed. And as the Thunder now stare the limit directly in the eyes, the eyes of Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and championship-tested Nuggets gamers, their fate will hinge on their smiling superstar.
“We, myself, for sure could’ve got better looks,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Oklahoma City’s fourth-quarter execution. “Now, what the answer to it is, I’m not sure.”
It was a massive win for Denver on Friday night. The Nuggets confused the best scorer in the game enough that he’d need a film study to figure it out. After a fairly passive three quarters against a zone designed to breathe in around his drives and breathe out on Oklahoma City’s supplemental shooters, Gilgeous-Alexander hid behind an Isaiah Hartenstein screen and stepped back for a 27-footer midway through the fourth quarter. Switch, seemingly, flipped.
He didn’t score again, for seven regulation minutes and five minutes in overtime.
The Thunder guard went 0 for 7 down the stretch, as the Nuggets largely keyed in on him and forced him into a variety of off-balance jumpers. Gilgeous-Alexander had built his MVP campaign in 2024-25 on the back of those looks, pivoting through coverages and over contests. But a targeted zone collapsed around him on every drive, another defender and a back-line ready, and his touch was off after two straight 30-point nights to begin the series.
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“The way I see it is, like, you live and die by your decision,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And tonight, I died by my decision.”
He, though, will live to see another day. And another. The Thunder won’t shoot 26% from 3-point range every game, and the Nuggets will eventually have to adjust to the idea of anyone beating them besides Gilgeous-Alexander, and the smile could live to earn its shine.
“It’s never easy, trying to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish, and we know that.” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And we have to rise to the challenge.”
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