The Oklahoma City Thunder sent a loud message to the rest of the West with a demolition in Game 1 of the Conference Finals but one player is still someone who they have no answer for.
The Minnesota Timberwolves will be licking their wounds after a dispiriting loss of 114-88 that had all the worst things happen to them.
From Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s foul-baiting ways to their clamped defense on Anthony Edwards, the Timberwolves were outplayed, outfought, and out-thought.
However, Shannon Sharpe saw a major silver lining despite the loss, in a player who was unstoppable. The Thunder have no answer for him.
So dominant were the Thunder in that game that Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch pulled his starters early and 13 players got some minutes.
Rudy Gobert, the architect of the Lakers’ and Warriors’ downfall, was reduced to 21 inconsequential minutes, while Edwards huffed and puffed to 18 points.
Julius Randle top-scored with 28 points and Donte DiVincenzo was the only other player who came close to being in double figures as he scored nine.
It doesn’t paint a pretty picture for the rest of the series unless the Wolves unleash their asset who looked unstoppable in Game 1.
Randle played 36 minutes in Game 1, just behind Edwards’ 37, but in those 36 minutes, he proved that he could be the difference-maker in the series provided he gets some help.
Shannon Sharpe said on Nightcap: “They don’t have anyone on the opposing team who can take him [Julius Randle]. He’s too big of a body, too strong, too powerful. He’s hitting his three points and when he puts the ball on the floor, who can stop it?”
The Thunder are the most well-rounded team in the NBA, never mind the Western Conference. They have the combination of pace, power, skill, and size to attack and defend in various ways.
To beat a team like that, one can’t play them at their own game, they just need to lean into their own strength and hope to make it a battle over that skill.
For the Timberwolves, that skill is power, which they have loads of in Naz Reid, Randle, Gobert, and Anthony Edwards, to name a few.
They need to make this season a graft, a battle of attrition where the finesse goes out of the window and it becomes a slugfest.
Randle showed the Thunder a taste of what that could look like and if his teammates join the party, they will have a chance of staging an upset.
They just need to go hard into their strength, which Randle personified in Game 1.
