Much was made of the Jalen Williams/Shai Gilgeous-Alexander screening action the Oklahoma City Thunder used to close out Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Down the stretch of that soon-to-be immortal victory over the Indiana Pacers, Williams simply received ball-screens from Gilgeous-Alexander, who then had a much easier time scoring (or drawing fouls) on Aaron Nesmith than he did Andrew Nembhard.
It wasn’t a terribly inventive play-call; we see it all the time in the NBA. Head coach Mark Daigneault simply, finally, put his two best offensive players in the action to procure a favorable matchup.
As Oklahoma City looked to close the door in Game 5, Daigneault went back to a similar well. With seven minutes to go and a five-point lead, Williams crept up to screen Nembhard. Nesmith yells out the coverage, and Nembhard gathers his senses. Suddenly, Williams darts out to the wing, and the MVP is three steps past everybody, not so much rejecting the screen as ignoring it.
Indiana’s defense collapses, and Gilgeous-Alexander whips a pass with his left-hand to the corner. Lu Dort, like every Thunder role player Monday night, does his thing:
Likely with some direction from the coaching staff, it’s a slick, veteran play. Imagine the tired, caffeinated room of Indiana coaches planning their response to the Gilgeous-Alexander/Williams two-man game all weekend. Now, feel their blank stares when Oklahoma City’s stars are (literally) two steps ahead at the game’s most pivotal juncture.
Oklahoma City’s defense, the main reason it’s one win away from a title, is beyond cliché. Forget being tenacious, or gritty, or full of dawgs; it’s simply the best most of us have ever seen. But they, like most NBA champions before them, are also led by stars.
Chet Holmgren Is Everywhere
And no, it’s not a Batman and Robin situation, but a true Big 3.
Chet Holmgren’s impact isn’t textbook. Even when he makes a standard play, like attacking the rim on a handoff — only standard if you ignore the fact it’s a 7-foot-1 guy doing it — he finishes like this…
Holmgren’s leap to offensive stardom has been stunted in the 2024-25 season; missing 50 games didn’t help. The 3-point shooting isn’t sniper-level yet, and whether he rolls or pops out of a ball-screen, the results remain mixed.
But even in these NBA Finals, his offensive impact cannot be totally extricated from what makes him a great player in whole. In the fourth quarter of Game 4, with his Thunder trailing by seven, he went on a personal 6-0 run to close the gap, forcing his way into put-backs and to the free-throw line.
If Holmgren never adds a pound of muscle to his slender frame, he’ll be all right. After an ankle twist and multiple hard falls that sent him to the floor in Indiana, and would’ve sent many others to the locker room, he was able to dish out body-to-body punishment while covering the unbelievable ground he normally does.
This is the worst he’ll be as an offensive player for the rest of his career. In the series-tying Game 4 win, Holmgren scored 14 (timely) points on a tidy 60.1 percent true shooting while grabbing four offensive rebounds. That’s a neat little stat line, but it’s more than enough for star-level impact because Holmgren is already one of the NBA’s best defenders. After that 6-0 run to start the fourth quarter, the kid from Minnesota closed out the Pacers on defense, both helping at the rim and crucially switching onto Indiana’s guard, who couldn’t do a damn thing against him:
It’s rim-protection instincts, it’s ground coverage, and 11 defensive boards to go along with it. In Game 4, Indiana posted a universe-collapsing 137.5 offensive rating when Holmgren sat and a garbage 94.5 offensive rating in the 37 minutes he played. During Monday’s Game 5, it was more of the same. He shot just 4-of-15 but grabbed five offensive boards and made play after play on defense, particularly during a dominant Oklahoma City first half:
If the Thunder do win the championship, Holmgren won’t win Finals MVP. This playoff run might ultimately be viewed as the stepping stone he takes to stardom. But the Thunder defense is five points per 100 possession better when he’s on the court in the postseason, and the difference is even greater in the Finals. He only has to play average offense to return star impact, and even in the Finals, he’s doing more than that.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Is Achieving Mastery
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, like the Pantheonic players before him, is becoming an unquestionable winner. Not just an unfathomable talent who is one of the greatest perimeter scorers of all-time, not just an NBA MVP, but a master of the game.
After the aforementioned rocket to Dort, he further buried Indiana with his defense, stealing the ball on two straight possessions and later blocking Nembhard in transition, cementing a ridiculous 31/2/10/2/4 line:
Gilegous-Alexander jumped from a zero-assist performance in Game 4 to a double-double in Game 5, in part because his teammates made shots. But his drives were more perceptive, as opposed to his heroic, game-winning stretch at the end of Game 4, where whatever energy he had left was spent on getting to a shot he liked. His step-back jumper on the baseline following the push-off that wasn’t didn’t just escape Nesmith, but Nembhard coming over in help.
In Game 5, he didn’t escape extra defenders so much as invite them. After emptying the clip at the most critical juncture of Oklahoma City’s season, he came out determined Game 5 would be his team’s strongest offensive performance of the series.
Earlier in this series, I twice wrote the most “worrisome” trend for the Thunder was a lack of 3-point attempts. Sure enough, they hit their nadir in Game 4, shooting a very 1994 3-of-16 from deep. Indiana had successfully choked off both transition opportunities and drive-and-kick opportunities in the half-court. In Game 5, Gilgeous-Alexander was simply too good on many possessions, here leveraging his all-time-great flexibility and balance to avoid a travel, then make a kick-out pass that leads to a three:
The scoring is unquestionable. His tools as a driver deserve their own wing in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. The handle, the footwork and the touch are everything a hoops purist could want in a professional bucket-getter. But don’t let the awesome beauty of his game distract from the fact Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is ascending to mastery.
Jalen Williams, Unleashed
More accurately, Jalen Williams has unleashed himself. In the biggest game of his life, he not only played the best game of his life, but committed to the best version of himself and would live or die with the results. He shot just 3-of-8 in the first quarter and didn’t get to the free-throw line, but he missed three of those shots directly at the rim.
In Game 4, we saw a mentality shift from Williams. Instead of trying to dribble into enough space to rise up and shoot midrange pull-ups, shots Indiana was willing to cede to him by playing drop coverage and/or late-switching, he trusted himself to go full bore to the front of the rim. Then, if he was cut off, he could downshift into a mid-range pull-up. That is what makes Williams a special scorer, not the other way around.
In this first clip from Game 3, he has a clear angle on Thomas Bryant — of all defenders — to get to the rim or at least farther into the paint. Instead, he leverages that angle into a step-back jumper. It’s fine move, but one that results in a shot Indiana will happily give up:
The last two clips above perfectly illustrate his adjustment. Williams puts his initial defender in jail then explodes through a crack in the defense to draw a foul, which could’ve been an and-1. Later, he arrives at the free-throw line unencumbered with an open pull-up waiting for him. Instead, he picks a side of Tony Bradley to attack, drives at the left hip and, despite not creating a ton of space, the 6-foot-6 linebacker gracefully scoops the ball off glass with his left hand while jumping off of his left foot. Williams is a fine jump-shooter, but a force of nature when he’s going North-South.
And then, the downshifting. Now, most tracking sites will call this a “short midrange” shot, so thus, a middy; the 2022 first-round pick benefits from applying force first then easing up:
It’s a dribble to use the screen, then two after the point of contact. There is no change of direction, no funny business, just a crafty finish at the end of the drive to create a scoring angle. Unlike his Batman in Gilgeous-Alexander, many of Williams’ best buckets do not leave your jaw on the floor. Often, he is either bigger or quicker than his defender — or both. Just relying on that is enough to get the job done. Decisive drives like the above give help defenders less time to attack his dribble, the weakest part of his driving game.
But over the past two games, we have not seen any weakness from Williams, only strengths. In the NBA’s ground-coverage age, where all five players on the court must be able to fly from sideline-to-sideline and apply force whenever they get where they’re going, it’s fitting Oklahoma City’s Big 3 is a true two-way cohort. Jalen Williams made All-Defensive Second Team this season. That effort hasn’t slowed in the Finals:
Like every team capable of winning 68 regular-season games, the Oklahoma City Thunder have a tremendous roster, top-to-bottom. Even in the NBA Finals, such depth has shown, with Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins hitting four 3-pointers apiece in Game 5, and Kenrich Williams smoothly taking Jaylin Williams’ place in the rotation as the Thunder downsize to match Indiana’s speed. They have options upon options.
But like most every team capable of seizing a 3-2 lead in the NBA Finals, they have bona fide star power. It doesn’t always manifest traditionally, given how complete Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Holmgren are as players. But this quirky collection of Gen Z stars, the first truly Zoomer Big 3 in NBA history, is just that: a Big 3, silly Instagram captions and all.