{"id":309670,"date":"2025-11-27T06:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T06:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/309670\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T06:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T06:17:07","slug":"shai-gilgeous-alexander-still-looks-like-mvp-as-thunder-beat-timberwolves-for-10th-straight-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/309670\/","title":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander still looks like MVP as Thunder beat Timberwolves for 10th straight win"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 A sick, exhausted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> politely answered questions after a 40-point game that led his Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> past the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

He was listed as questionable on the pregame injury report with an illness. A game-time decision deemed him available, and the reigning league MVP made 12 of 19 field goals and 15 of 17 free throws in a 113-105 victory in the NBA Cup.<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexader spent himself helping the Thunder win their 10th straight and improve to 18-1. He wore a heavy gray quarter-zip sweatshirt and a Burberry scarf to the postgame interview table. He was thoughtful, but didn\u2019t quite have his usual energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I feel good,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt good enough to play. I was a little more tired out there than usual, but I did enough to get the job done tonight. I felt good enough to play, so I played.\u201d<\/p>\n

He got off to a slow start, but bounced back to score 13 points in seven minutes in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he gave us a huge offensive lift,\u201d Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. \u201cI thought he read the game really well tonight offensively. He gave us a huge offensive lift in the second quarter. We just had a really hard time offensively there and he kind of carried us for a little stretch there to close the half and allowed us to open a nice lead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander made just one field goal in the fourth quarter but made nine of 10 free throws. He needed to come through because Minnesota\u2019s Anthony Edwards<\/a> scored 14 of his 31 points in the final 7:34 to make the game tight.<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander wanted to be there for his teammates, especially because it was an NBA Cup game. The Thunder improved to 4-0 in West Group A and will round out group play Friday at home against Phoenix.<\/p>\n

\u201cGames mean a little bit more,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can literally earn money by winning these seven games, so there\u2019s a little bit of incentive behind it, a little bit more than just waking up and playing for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thunder beat Minnesota 4-1 in the Western Conference Finals last season, and the Timberwolves gave them one of their toughest games this season Wednesday. Sick or not, Gilgeous-Alexander embraces those kinds of challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s how you grow, how we grow as a team,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said. \u201cPlaying against the best and getting their best only helps us see where we are on a nightly basis. We\u2019ve done pretty good so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/p>\n

Cliff Brunt, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) \u2014 A sick, exhausted Shai Gilgeous-Alexander politely answered questions after a 40-point game that led…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-309670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}