The Oklahoma City Thunder have one of the youngest rosters in the NBA, but the players are looking like veterans this season. Just ask the Denver Nuggets, who would be riding a 10-game winning streak if not for Oklahoma City.
The Thunder rallied to win at Denver on Dec. 16, and now they return there for another matchup against the reigning champions on Friday night.
Oklahoma City has won its last two games and seven of the last nine, with one of those victories coming two weeks ago against the Nuggets when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander hit a turnaround jumper with a second left to win 118-117 after trailing by eight with 3:33 left.
Chet Holmgren blocked eight Denver shots that night and is tied for third in the NBA with 2.7 per game.
While Gilgeous-Alexander and Holmgren are getting plenty of headlines, the Thunder are getting contributions elsewhere in the lineup. Jalen Williams, who is just 22, had 36 points in a win over the New York Knicks on Wednesday night and scored 24 against the Nuggets two weeks ago.
“Just shooting open shots,” Williams said after the 129-120 win over the Knicks. “Trying to pick my spots a little more carefully. Me and Chet had a really good two-man thing going on, two-man action, for a lot of those plays. The game’s easier when you make shots.”
Oklahoma City has used the youthful lineup to start the season 20-9 but has a tough stretch coming up. After facing Denver, the Thunder host Brooklyn and Boston before going on a four-game Eastern Conference road trip.
The Nuggets are coming off a 142-105 win over Memphis on Thursday night but didn’t have to travel to complete this back-to-back set. They did have to play without Aaron Gordon, who is out for an unspecified time after requiring 21 stitches on lacerations on his face and hands suffered from dog bites on Christmas.
With Gordon unavailable, coach Michael Malone started Peyton Watson at power forward, and the hunch paid off. Watson had a season-high 20 points and took advantage of the Grizzlies sagging off of him and daring him to shoot open shots.
He was just 6-for-14 from the field but hit 40 percent from behind the 3-point arc.
“He knows that we have confidence and belief in him,” Malone said. “Let’s be honest, Peyton Watson is a huge part of our future.”
Watson is also earning time in the present and learning from the team’s stars, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray. Jokic had his 11th triple-double of the season and 116th of his career in Thursday’s win and was done for the night before the end of the third quarter.
Murray had his sixth straight game of scoring 20 or more points, and 10 of his 23 came in the third quarter when the Nuggets put up 41 points.
Watson likely earned another start Friday night, but Malone indicated postgame that he would consider matchups in deciding who will fill in for Gordon.
–Field Level Media