OKLAHOMA CITY — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander cracked a grin when asked about the MVP conversation late Monday night.
This moment came days after San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama publicly presented a three-pronged case for his candidacy, hours after Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick lobbied for Luka Doncic to win the award and minutes after Gilgeous-Alexander put the finishing touches on a 47-point performance to carry the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 114-110 overtime win over the Detroit Pistons.
“I think it’s good for the league. I think it’s good chatter,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP. “It gives people something to talk about. There’s a lot of good players in this league and a lot of guys in the conversation because of that.”
However, Gilgeous-Alexander doesn’t want to weigh in on the conversation with any words of his own.
“No, I’m good. Thanks for asking, though,” he said. “Yeah, I’m good. I let my game do the talking.”
Gilgeous-Alexander’s game has spoken loudly all season, as he has led the defending champion Thunder to a league-best 60-16 record despite extended injury absences for several Oklahoma City rotation players, including All-NBA wing Jalen Williams. Gilgeous-Alexander ranks second in the NBA in scoring at 31.6 points per game, trailing only Doncic, while shooting a career-best 55.3% from the floor and averaging a career-high 6.5 assists per game.
With Williams and starting center Isaiah Hartenstein sitting out on the second night of a back-to-back, the Thunder needed a spectacular closing performance by Gilgeous-Alexander to escape with a win over the Pistons, the Eastern Conference’s first-place team that was missing four starters, including All-Stars Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren.
Gilgeous-Alexander scored or assisted on all but one of Oklahoma City’s baskets after he checked back into the game with 6:57 remaining in the fourth quarter. He had 21 points and a pair of assists for 3-pointers in the fourth and overtime, enabling the Thunder to rally from a seven-point deficit in the final four minutes of regulation.
“A lot of times, I try to let the game come to me,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, who went 12-of-19 from the floor, including 5-of-5 in the fourth and overtime. “I try to just play within the game, do whatever the game is telling me — and tonight, I just felt like I needed to go take it. I needed to go be aggressive. I need to go make plays. I needed to score the ball, specifically.”
Gilgeous-Alexander swished what would have been a go-ahead step-back 3 with four seconds remaining in regulation from the right wing, a shot very similar to the dagger he drilled against the Golden State Warriors and a game winner he hit against the Denver Nuggets earlier this month. But it was waved off when official Phenizee Ransom called Gilgeous-Alexander for an offensive foul, ruling that he used his off arm to push off before launching the shot.
It was the rare whistle involving Gilgeous-Alexander with which Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff agreed. Bickerstaff spent much of the game engaged in animated discussions with the officiating crew while Gilgeous-Alexander went 21-of-25 from the free throw line.
“He’s elite at what he does,” Bickerstaff said. “You’ve got to give him a ton of credit for his skill set and his ability to create those contacts and create those whistles. There’s rules for a reason, and he’s mastered to manipulate them. That’s a talent, that’s a skill that he’s been blessed with. We’ve got to continue to play physical. Twenty-five free throws. We shot 23. That’s hard to overcome.”
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault praised his team for managing to “re-center” after the critical call against Gilgeous-Alexander and win in overtime. Daigneault raved about how Gilgeous-Alexander responded to a “choppy” game by dominating in crunch time.
“He’s elite at what he does. You’ve got to give him a ton of credit for his skill set and his ability to create those contacts and create those whistles. There’s rules for a reason, and he’s mastered to manipulate them. That’s a talent, that’s a skill that he’s been blessed with.”
Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his 25 free throw attempts Monday night
“He has the ability to kind of labor in a game and then, snap of the fingers, he’s like back in rhythm,” Daigneault said. “That’s what happened in the fourth. When he went back in there, he had a different pop with his playmaking and his scoring. And there’s a lot of guys that are great players but have bad games. He can work himself through a game with the best of them.”
Like Gilgeous-Alexander, Daigneault showed little interest in adding to the discourse about the MVP race. According to Draft Kings, Gilgeous-Alexander is the favorite with -300 odds, ahead of Wembanyama (+225) and Doncic (+1500).
“I think the voters take that really seriously and look at it really hard,” Daigneault said. “They watch all the players more than I do. I watch one player. I obviously have spoken many times about how I feel about him, but it’s out of our control. He goes out there, he plays, he focuses on what he can control, he stays inside the team — and then the chips fall where they may.”
As Thunder forward Alex Caruso added, “Just watch the games. He got a game winner against the No. 1 seed in the East called off tonight and had 47. His game does a lot of talking. Not much I need to say for him.”
