It was no different than any other night.<\/a> I attack,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m always going downhill. I had to put my aggressive foot forward.\u201d<\/p>\nGilgeous-Alexander took advantage of a game that featured 70 total fouls on the players. No. 71 was a technical foul on Pacers coach Rick Carlisle and, naturally, Gilgeous-Alexander made that one, too. He wound up 23 of 26 from the free throw line, 15 of 31 from the field with eight rebounds and five assists.<\/p>\n
Plus, he was largely responsible for the Pacers, who are already short-handed, have three players foul out. They are without injured guards Tyrese Haliburton and T.J. McConnell, then lost guard Andrew Nembhard with a sore left shoulder in the first half. Aaron Nesmith, Bennedict Mathurin and Ben Sheppard later fouled out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a lot, being guarded by one of the best players in the game, (Lu) Dort and then guarding the best player in the NBA,\u201d said Mathurin, who was 15 of 17 from the free throw line and scored 36 points. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a challenge, But I mean, I’m up for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
How good has Gilgeous-Alexander been through the first two games?<\/p>\n
He had 35 points, five rebounds and five assists in 47 minutes to lead the Thunder past Houston 125-124 on Tuesday and then torched the same team he beat in June\u2019s NBA Finals.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander now scored 90 points, the fifth-highest two-game total in NBA history. Only Wilt Chamberlain with 106 and 105, Anthony Davis with 95 and Michael Jordan with 91 had more.<\/p>\n
But the 92 1\/2 minutes he\u2019s already logged are taking a toll, and that may explain why he missed shots at the end of regulation and at the end of the first overtime that could have won the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m tired,\u201d Gilgeous-Alexander said, noting that’s also why he hugged some of his teammates following the game. \u201cBut it\u2019s a good way to break the ice, to get my cardiovascular going. It\u2019s not ideal, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it’s not just the Pacers or Rockets who will have to contend with Gilgeous-Alexander’s challenging playing style, either. He has a deft plan to keep him in the MVP conversation seemingly every night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I just play and then if they stop something, I have a few counters,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they stop those (counters), I have a few more counters and by then, usually, the shots start falling. That’s how all that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wasn\u2019t satisfied with just one MVP season. So he delivered an MVP performance in the NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-247845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}