Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads Thunder past Rockets in double-overtime thriller on ring night

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Thunder planned Tuesday’s pregame festivities for months, right down to a nice touch of the reigning NBA champions posing in front of their banner, which was suspended in the air before rising to its final resting place in the rafters.

But it’s what happened after all that hype that served as a reminder of how the Thunder earned the right to party in the first place.

Coming back from 12 points down in the second half, then surviving what should have been a Chris Webber-like moment for one of Oklahoma City’s old favorite sons, the Thunder held on for a 125-124 victory over the Houston Rockets to kick off NBA basketball’s No. 80 season the same way it ended Season 79.

The Thunder’s pregame party was the result of beating the Indiana Pacers in seven exciting and competitive finals games. The stakes on Tuesday were obviously much lower, but you couldn’t tell anyone on the court that in the final seconds of regulation or overtime.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP reign, like his team’s title defense, is off to a great start. Only the third player in NBA history to be MVP, Finals MVP and scoring champion in the same season, Gilgeous-Alexander made two free throws with 2.3 seconds left in double overtime to give his team the lead for good. He scored 35 points – 24 in the fourth quarter and two overtimes.

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“We did enough to win,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of a night he called “surreal.”

“I don’t know how to describe it other than that,” he continued. “But it was super fun. Seeing the banner raised was cool too. Knowing it’s going to be there forever. And we’re the first group to bring a championship to the city, that’s a pretty special feeling.”

Chet Holmgren added 28 points and Ajay Mitchell scored 16 off the bench for the defending champions. The Thunder trailed 10 on the final possession of the first half, but Mitchell, a sophomore, converted a four-point play on a 3-pointer and a free throw. Oklahoma City was missing third-team All-NBA member Jalen Williams, who is still recovering from offseason wrist surgery.

Alperen Şengün led the Rockets with 39 points and 11 rebounds, while Kevin Durant, making his Rockets debut, added 23 points and nine rebounds. Gilgeous-Alexander fouled Durant, who was playing tight defense, on the Thunder’s final possession. Houston’s final shot, taken by Jabari Smith Jr., was a 20-footer in the corner that was wide of the goal.

If Houston had won, the NBA world would have been in uproar over a missed call on Durant at the end of the first overtime. Durant, the former Thunder star, rebounded Gilgeous-Alexander’s missed shot and tried to call a timeout. Luckily for him, the officials didn’t see it, as Houston was out of a timeout and the Thunder would have had another chance to win via a technical shot.

“Kevin definitely called a timeout about three times, verbally and physically with his hands,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I think the refs just missed it. But that’s life. You make mistakes in life and you move on. Yeah. Nothing too crazy. I turned the ball over a few times tonight.”

This is only the sixth time in NBA history that an NBA opening night game has gone into double overtime.

Şengün, whose five 3s were a career-high, put the Rockets ahead, 102-101, with 38 seconds left in regulation on a short turnaround jumper. Durant was fouled with 9.5 seconds left in regulation and had a chance to put the game away, but he missed the first foul shot.

Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 12 points in the fourth quarter, capitalized by converting a 16-footer with 2.6 seconds remaining, and Şengün’s 13-footer with a hand to the face missed – sending the game into the first of two overtime sessions.

“A lot of good learnings in the game,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said afterward. “It wasn’t an easy night.”

The requisite “MVP” chants for Gilgeous-Alexander, “looooooooos” for fan favorite Luguentz Dort and a few boos for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver (what did he ever do to you, people of Oklahoma City?) kicked off the Thunder’s pregame celebration. Sam Presti may be the most popular executive in all of professional sports, or at least it seemed that way Tuesday at the Paycom Center when his name was announced.

One by one, the defending champions received their cuddly brother from Silver and their diamond-encrusted rings at center court, the finale of a month of celebration following the Thunder’s Game 7 triumph over the Indiana Pacers last June.

Gilgeous-Alexander briefly addressed the boisterous crowd, thanking the community’s continued support. The familiar chorus of “OKC, OKC” echoed from the rafters as the most prized textile in all of Oklahoma emerged from its long black box.

“Oklahoma City Thunder, 2024-25 NBA Champions,” the banner reads, immortalizing the franchise’s second championship overall, but first since the team left Seattle in 2008.

“It feels like last season just ended a week ago, but you know, that’s how things go,” said Holmgren, who scored 13 goals in the first quarter. “Time flies.”

The game marked the official return of the NBA to NBC, ending an 8,532-day hiatus since the last time a major American professional basketball game was broadcast on the network.

Last year, the Thunder became the second youngest team to win a Finals (Portland, 1976-77), with an average age per player of 25.56. They won 68 regular season games (tied for fifth most in NBA history), set a league record for average margin of victory (12.9 points per game), another league record for double-digit wins (54), and featured the league’s best defense in the regular season and playoffs. And the whole team is “back”, even if a key element was missing on Tuesday.

Williams, selected to the All-NBA Third Team and All-Defensive Second Team last season, tore the scapholunate ligament in his wrist on April 9, but postponed surgery until after the Thunder’s historic run.

“He’s progressing,” Daigneault said. “He’s doing a good job. We’ll always be conservative in any situation, especially this time of year. He’s coming in, he’s exactly where he should be.”

Durant, 37, a 15-time All-Star, began his career with the Thunder franchise as a rookie in Seattle. He played in Oklahoma City until joining Golden State in 2016, and has since been on his fourth team. He signed a two-year, $90 million contract extension with the Rockets earlier this week. They acquired him in the largest trade in NBA history, a seven-team deal that cemented Houston in the minds of most pundits as a legitimate threat to a burgeoning Thunder dynasty.

The Rockets, who surprisingly finished second in the West behind Oklahoma City last season, suffered a major blow over the summer when point guard Fred VanVleet was lost for the season with a torn ACL suffered during a voluntary workout. Without VanVleet, the Rockets started one of the highest lineups in NBA history, a combined 413 inches for all five starters.

Rising star sophomore Amen Thompson, who is 6-7, is the de facto point guard. He was out for most of overtime with an apparent leg cramp and finished with 18 points and five assists in 39 minutes.

Last season, Durant became just the eighth player in NBA history to join the 30,000-point club and, barring injury, he could pass Wilt Chamberlain, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Jordan on the all-time scoring list this season.

“The adjustment was easy from day one,” Houston coach Ime Udoka said of Durant. “It’s just who he is and his skill set, and he can play with anyone, anywhere. And that’s what he’s done. More than that, I think he’s taking guys under his wing from day one, and taking guys that looked up to him, and kind of showing them the ropes of what he’s done to become who he is and where he is now. And everyone has kind of followed suit up until this point. “

On Tuesday, the Thunder survived near misses from Durant and Şengün, as well as some controversy. Last spring, it looked like the Pacers might be 60 minutes away from their first NBA championship when they had a 10-point lead late in the third quarter of Game 4, moving closer to building a 3-1 series lead — which only one team in Finals history had ever overcome. But Gilgeous-Alexander scored 15 points in the final 4:38 to lead Oklahoma City to a series-altering comeback.

Indiana nearly pulled off another rally in Game 5, cutting its 18-point deficit to two in the fourth quarter, before four straight Thunder steals, coupled with Williams’ 40 points, tilted this game in their favor. The Pacers returned the favor in Game 6, knocking out Oklahoma City to force a Game 7. They led by 30 points after three quarters. And Indiana was ahead in Game 7 when Tyrese Haliburton blew out his Achilles tendon late in the first quarter.

The Denver Nuggets carried the Thunder to seven games in the West Semifinals, and although Oklahoma City beat Minnesota in five games in the conference finals, the Timberwolves crushed the Thunder by 42 points in Game 3 of that series.

Was opening night, ring night, in Oklahoma City a microcosm of everything the Thunder endured last year to win what they were celebrating? Or prefiguring a repetition, in the literal sense of the term?

“We have to be humble enough to realize that we have to improve,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It was an incredible moment. I will remember it for the rest of my life.”