Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sounded the alarm on Christmas after his Oklahoma City Thunder suffered their third loss in 12 days to the San Antonio Spurs.
"You don't lose to a team three times in a row in a short span without them being better than you," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "We have to get better [and] look in the mirror. That's everybody from top to bottom if we want to reach our ultimate goal."
By season's end, the Spurs had won four of their five games against the defending champion Thunder, including in the NBA Cup semifinals with Wembanyama returning after missing nearly a month. Oklahoma City, which had looked unbeatable against most of the league, suddenly had a San Antonio problem.
Entering the Western Conference finals, conventional wisdom held that Oklahoma City's stars would be responsible for flipping the script against their new rivals. The more experienced Gilgeous-Alexander would need to outplay Spurs center Victor Wembanyama in a showdown between MVP finalists, and Thunder wing Jalen Williams would be asked to provide a much-needed scoring boost after missing most of the season with multiple injuries.
Instead, Oklahoma City has turned to a cast of unlikely heroes to claw its way back to the top. With Gilgeous-Alexander struggling to score efficiently and Williams sidelined by another injury (hamstring), the Thunder pushed the Spurs to the brink of elimination Tuesday with a 127-114 victory in Game 5.
Let's examine some of the less-heralded factors that have helped Oklahoma City reassert control and take a 3-2 series lead:
An easy adjustment
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault has made a long list of creative adjustments against the Spurs, but the biggest one was also the most obvious: Play Alex Caruso more minutes.
Caruso, 32, is an all-world defensive disruptor and the oldest player on Oklahoma City's youthful roster. As such, the Thunder kept Caruso in bubble wrap for most of the regular season, playing him more than 25 minutes in just one game that was decided in regulation. Caruso also got to take it relatively easy during a first-round sweep of the Phoenix Suns and a second-round sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers.