{"id":544081,"date":"2026-03-18T07:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544081\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T07:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:41:09","slug":"thunder-first-nba-side-to-clinch-play-off-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/544081\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder first NBA side to clinch play-off place"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shai Gilgeous-Alexander enjoyed another 40-point night as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Orlando Magic 113-108 to become the first NBA team to secure a play-off berth.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old Canadian went 14 from 27 from the field as he extended his record of most 20-point games in a row to 129.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Chet Holmgren added 20 points and 12 rebounds as the Western Conference leaders claimed a ninth straight win to improve to 54-15 for the season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We got off to a good start but then the car kind of came off the road for a little bit,&#8221; reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Gilgeous-Alexander said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But that&#8217;s what great teams do &#8211; they figure out a way to get the car back on the road, they figure out a way to go into a building and win a game when the chips are stacked against you, and we did that tonight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>San Antonio Spurs remain second in the West after a comfortable 132-104 win over the Sacramento Kings, while the Minnesota Timberwolves beat the Phoenix Suns 116-104.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>In the Eastern Conference, the Detroit Pistons handed the Washington Wizards a 13th straight loss to strengthen their position at the top.<\/p>\n<p>But the 130-117 triumph was marred by an injury to star point guard Cade Cunningham, who had to leave the game in the first quarter with a back issue.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Knicks stay third in the East after a thumping 136-110 win over the Indiana Pacers, a 14th consecutive loss leaving last year&#8217;s NBA Finals runners-up 15-54 this term.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773819669_679_.gif\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander enjoyed another 40-point night as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Orlando Magic 113-108 to become&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,24617,48,5715,8028,2697,14102,459,2087,2901,3555,15716,6002,10679,2696,6691,82,8027,10627],"class_list":["post-544081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-canada","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-orlando-magic","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544081","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=544081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}