NBA News NBA News, Match Reports and Updates
Here’s a sentence that should scare the rest of the NBA: The Oklahoma City Thunder are getting healthy.
Shai Gilgous Alexander, who missed nine games with an abdominal strain, is not on the injury report and is expected to return to the Thunder rotation on Friday night against Denver.
Advertisement
The reigning NBA MVP, Gilgous-Alexander is the frontrunner to repeat, averaging 31.8 points, 6.4 assists, 4.4 rebounds per game shooting 39% from 3-point range.
Oklahoma City kept its head above water, going 5-4 with Gilgeous-Alexander out (Jalen Williams missed seven of those games, and there are a host of other injuries on the team). The Thunder retain the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, but the red-hot Spurs are now just two games behind them and have a much easier schedule the rest of the way (OKC has the second-toughest remaining schedule in the league). Oklahoma City and Detroit are now in a race for the No. 1 overall seed in the league (the Thunder lead by a half-game as of this writing, but the Pistons have one fewer loss).
His return comes in time both for his chance to play enough games to qualify for postseason awards (he can only miss six more games this season) and to keep the Thunder as a top seed — a huge advantage with how loud their arena is during the playoffs.
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/shai-gilgeous-alexander-not-injury-021823702.html
Author :
Publish date : 2026-02-27 02:18:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
