When Shai Gilgeous-Alexander declared he wanted to be one of the best point guards of all time, he was coming off an injury-shortened 35-game season. He was just three years into his NBA career. The Oklahoma City Thunder were tanking. He was not being labelled as a superstar-to-be.
The season of his bold announcement, OKC went on to win all of 24 games, with Gilgeous-Alexander playing just 56 of them. He showed plenty of promise, but he was not in the conversation for the NBA’s next great player.
It’s not the first time I’ve referenced the interview Gilgeous-Alexander gave GQ where – for the first time – he lays out the height of his ambition (it was the same article he declared himself the ‘Black Steve Nash’), but I can’t help it.
That the Canadian men’s national team star called his shot so audaciously so early in his path has always been fascinating, not the least of which because of the way it was at odds with the more understated version of his rock-solid self-belief, which he has demonstrated as his NBA star has climbed.
Turns out the 11th-overall pick in 2018, who was almost an after-thought recruit at Kentucky and who was traded after his rookie season with the Los Angeles Clippers, was correct: he was a superstar hiding in plain sight.
He’s certainly made good on his claim and the self-belief it stemmed from in the years since. Gilgeous-Alexander broke out last season, earning first-team all-NBA honours, but the real measure of his greatness – real or potential – would have to wait as the Thunder finished 10th in the West and were eliminated in the play-in tournament.
Gilgeous-Alexander took it a step further this season, finishing second in the MVP voting and leading OKC to the top seed in the West.
But being considered ‘great’ requires post-season success, ultimately.
On Monday night in Dallas, Gilgeous-Alexander faced the stiffest test of his career and proved that his path to the pantheon remains – so far – uninterrupted.
The Thunder were in danger of falling behind 3-1 in the series with a loss. Teams trailing 3-1 in seven-game series lose 95.4 per cent of the time in the NBA, according to whowins.com, but Gilgeous-Alexander wouldn’t have it.
In the space of three minutes and 45 seconds late in the fourth quarter, with his team trailing by six points against the Mavericks on the road, Gilgeous-Alexander put his cape on and made sure it didn’t happen.
He scored four straight buckets on a variety of pull-up jumpers, including an improbable, fadeaway over two defenders, seemingly from behind the backboard, and then used the attention he was generating when he attacked the paint to find first Lu Dort and then Jalen Williams for wide-open threes. The tide was turned, the Thunder had the lead, never gave it up and now head home to Oklahoma City with the series tied 2-2, heading into Game 5 Wednesday night.
The kid from Hamilton played the role of superstar to perfection: sense the moment, read the room and execute, picking the perfect time to use his funky, silky, stop-and-go game to get himself makeable shots when his team needed them most.
“There’s a balance you have to find: when to attack, when to pass, when to make not the right play and trust your skill,” Gilgeous-Alexander said in his post-game media conference. “It’s something that I battle with and try to be really good at and a lot of great players battle with and try to be really good at, but ultimately what it comes to down to, for the most part, is taking what the defence gives you and trusting your teammates. You need them to win at a high level, that’s as clear as day, and I want to win at a high level.”
Gilgeous-Alexander has been getting plenty of that, including from national team teammate Dort, who has been using his tireless strength to give Mavericks star Luka Doncic fits so far in the series.
But it’s the man known as SGA who ultimately lifted OKC, even if it took a fading, falling, shot from the behind the backboard over two defenders.
“That one? That one was ill-advised,” he said, smiling. “But you just trust your work.”
What he ended up with was a glorious work of basketball art: 34 points on 14-of-27 shooting, with all of his buckets coming from between seven and 17 feet as Gilgeous-Alexander countered the Mavericks’ rim protection by simply pulling up short of it. He added five assists, two steals, two blocks and didn’t make a turnover.
It was a moment that required a clutch performance, and Gilgeous-Alexander delivered.
“This was probably the most meaningful game I’ve played in my career,” he said.
The best part for Canadian basketball fans is that it was just one of the steely performances seen over the past few days in the Western Conference playoffs, with more promised.
On Sunday night, Jamal Murray and the Denver Nuggets proved that the reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated as they completed a two-game sweep of the Minnesota Timberwolves on the road. Murray bounced back from his concerning start to the series – the Kitchener, Ont. star averaged just 12.5 points on 28.1 per cent shooting against a smothering Timberwolves defence as the defending champion Nuggets fell into an 0-2 hole – with a pair of signature performances in must-win games.
Murray – who averaged 21.5 points and 6.5 assists while shooting 50 per cent from the floor and 41.7 per cent from deep in the two Denver road wins – has a chance to help the Nuggets to take control of the series with a win in Game 5 in Denver on Tuesday night.
“We’re the champs. We’ve been in this position before,” Murray said in his media conference after Denver’s Game 4 win. “I never had any doubts. You’d have to ask someone else [if they did].”
That anyone had doubts was in part attributable to Minnesota’s effort to smother Murray defensively, robbing Nuggets star Nikola Jokic of his preferred playmaking partner. The Timberwolves relied on fellow Canadian Nickeil Alexander-Walker to lead that charge, with Murray taking note: “I’m going to be asking for the same defence for Team Canada, that same defence,” Murray said, which is about as definitive as the he has ever been publicly about his intention to play for Canada at the Paris Olympics this summer.
Murray’s viral moment came when he intercepted an errant inbounds pass on his own side of half-court and in one motion, stepped into a 50-foot three-point attempt that hit nothing but net before turning and posing at the broadcast table while TNT play-by-play voice Kevin Harlan narrated the shot.
It was part of an eight-point Nuggets flurry in the final 19 seconds of the second quarter that put Denver up by 15 heading into halftime. Murray went on to score 12 of his 19 points in the third quarter, all crucial as Denver had to weather a determined Minnesota comeback attempt in the second half that fell just short.
“It was nothing crazy,” Murray insisted of his iconic heave. “I just caught, shot it and it felt good from the moment in left my hand.”
Between Gilgeous-Alexander and Murray, Canadian basketball fans have plenty to feel good about as the NBA Playoffs unfold and the Olympics await.