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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Oklahoma City Thunder to the best record in the NBA. He won the scoring title. He ran away with the MVP Award. He was named the MVP of the Western Conference Finals.
But his real test came Friday, with the Oklahoma City Thunder facing a daunting 3-1 series deficit in the NBA Finals.
Superstars are made on the biggest stages. They have a way of willing their teams to win. At 26, Gilgeous-Alexander has an eye-popping resume, but until Friday he hadn’t shown that he has a kill switch.
With the Thunder trailing the Indiana Pacers by as much as seven points in the final 12 minutes of Game 4 of the Finals, Gilegous-Alexander had the most important quarter of his life. He scored 15 of his 35 points in a five-minute stretch to lead his team to a 111-104 win, tying the series at 2-2 and preventing them from slipping into what would’ve been a gaping chasm.
We’ve almost become inured to Gilgeous-Alexander’s incredible scoring ability. Even though he’s averaging 32.7 points against the Pacers in the Finals, that has barely cracked the top three storylines of the series. We’ve come to expect that from him.
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But what we haven’t seen is how he responds to adversity. You know, the Michael Jordan glare, Kobe Bryant gritting his teeth or the chilling look LeBron James has in his eyes when he’s about to take over.
Even though Gilgeous-Alexander’s star skyrocketed this season, with him racking up the most prestigious individual awards in the sport, he hadn’t yet shown that he can put his team on his back when everything is on the line.
Nobody knows that better than Gilgeous-Alexander.
“Championship or bust,” Gilgeous-Alexander said in an exclusive interview with FOX Sports before the playoffs. “If we don’t win, it’s a failure.”
Last season, Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder weren’t ready to compete for a championship. They were eliminated by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs. This time around, Gilgeous-Alexander vowed things would be different.
Everything came down to the fourth quarter of Game 4.
In a timespan of 12 minutes, the series would be dramatically swung onto one of two opposite trajectories, with a loss all but signalling his team’s demise and a win putting both teams on even playing ground, two wins shy of a championship.
Gilgeous-Alexander dug in his heels, and went on to stun a Pacers team that has become known for its incredible come-from-behind wins this postseason. This time, it was the Pacers who were wide-eyed in the final minutes as Gilgeous-Alexander showed he can be that guy in the tough moments, with the highest of stakes on the line.
He used stop-and-go moves to shake off multiple defenders to make a layup. He blocked Tyrese Haliburton’s 3-point attempt. He made a 3-pointer, He made a heavily contested Jordan-esque step-back jumper. He made all eight of his free throws down the stretch, finishing 10-for-10 from the charity stripe.
He proved that he’s a real leader, that he can stay calm and cool in the face of pressure and that he truly deserves to be in the conversation for becoming a superstar in the NBA.
“Same demeanor as always,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “You really wouldn’t know whether he’s up three, down three, up 30, down 30, eating dinner on a Wednesday. He’s pretty much the same guy.”
Added Alex Caruso: “”You wouldn’t know if it was a preseason game or it’s Game 4 of the NBA Finals down 2-1 with him. That’s why we have such a good mentality as a group. That’s why we are able to find success in adversity. No matter what’s going on, you look at him, and he’s the same. Underneath that stoic personality is a deep, deep-rooted competitiveness.”
Leading up to the Finals, Gilgeous-Alexander hadn’t really been tested.
The Thunder swept Memphis in the first round of the playoffs. Their second-round series against Denver went seven games, but in the winner-takes-all finale, they won by 32 points. They then quickly ejected Minnesota in five games in the Conference Finals.
But when Gilgeous-Alexander’s title-winning hopes were put to the test Friday, he emphatically responded.
“I knew what it would have looked like if we lost tonight,” he said. “I didn’t want to go out not swinging. I didn’t want to go out not doing everything I could do in my power, in my control, to try to win the game.”
So, Gilgeous-Alexander laid it all on the line.
And in that moment, we saw our first real glimmers of his greatness.
Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.
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