Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropped 33 points on the Detroit Pistons as the OKC Thunder pick up their 11th straight win. Dave DuFour and Es Baraheni discuss the Thunder’s chances at 70 wins, the bad loss for the Kings, and Anthony Davis’ game winner. Then, the Athletic’s James Edwards stops by to talk about the Knicks’ loss to Cleveland, OG Anunoby’s scoring surge, and Jalen Brunson’s return.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Es Baraheni & James EdwardsExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodyRead James Edwards on OG: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6248667/2025/04/02/knicks-og-anunoby-new-york/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What are the chances of the OKC Thunder reaching 70 wins?
Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. Coming up, the Thunder win again, a bunch of teams had some weird losses, and James Edwards is here to tell us why the Knicks can't beat the best teams. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, S. Morning, morning. Another, hmm, a bit of an off night for the NBA. Not the greatest night of basketball. But the best team in the sport did play last night.
Chapter 2: How did the Thunder perform against the Pistons?
The Thunder handled the Pistons. Pistons shorthanded, of course. Cade Cunningham still out. Bunch of guys serving suspensions from the big melee the other night. But OKC, once again. Just takes care of business. They get their 64th win. They're 64-12. I don't know. We cover this team every single day, almost on this show. There's something to talk about with them.
Chapter 3: What is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's scoring record?
Shea Gildas Alexander, of course, just continues to rack up the accolades. How many games now has he scored 30 points? 69 games tying Michael Jordan.
Chapter 4: What does the Thunder's win record signify for their championship hopes?
Yes.
Very nice. Having a nice season. And I mean, when you look at what they've done, I mean, this is again, this is a dominant basketball team. They continue to dominate. Last night was their 50th win by double digits this season. Tied for the most in NBA history. The track record of teams that have done that, S, pretty good.
Yeah, pretty good championships all around. It seems like they're in line for that. I mean, there's there's tons of expectations there for them to do so. You think about the 1972 Los Angeles Lakers did that. They tied with them. That's the team that they they tied with when they got that 50th double digit win. Won a championship. 2017 Warriors won a championship.
You know, 1971 Milwaukee Bucks won a championship. The 96-97 Bulls, the 08 Celtics, 2015 Warriors. That's the type of team we're talking about when it comes to this Oklahoma City Thunder team. That's just how good they've been all year.
Yeah, and I'm looking at their remaining schedule. They've got Houston. They've got two games against the Lakers. They've got Phoenix. They've got Utah. They've got New Orleans. So I think they're going to set the record for most double-digit wins.
Yeah.
Right? It just feels like it's going to happen. I mean, everybody beats Utah by 30 points. Might count for two wins at that point. Right. So, you know, you're thinking about this. I'm thinking about the schedule, and I'm saying, okay, this team, they've got six games left. They're six games from 70. Now, it's not the easiest schedule, right? It's Houston, two games against the Lakers.
We think Phoenix is probably done. Utah has been done since, I don't know, last June. New Orleans, you know, obviously they shut down CJ and Zion. There's a path to 70 wins here. They've already kind of – they've set franchise records. I believe – S, what was it?
64.
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Chapter 5: What happened in the Celtics vs. Heat game?
Sean Kemp, Gary Payton, those guys tied them with this win.
So they've kind of done everything that you can do as a franchise. They're going to break that record.
Wait, so I'll ask you this. Wait, this is interesting now. Do you think there's value in getting to 70? Like – Being a team that won 70, does that matter at any point in time other than the fact that you got to 70?
No, I don't think so. I think what matters, I mean, they've checked all these other boxes. I think the thing that matters for them is to keep doing what they're doing and not upset the apple cart. I don't want to see this team necessarily take a bunch of games off. Right. I think that would be bad. The worst thing would be like losing to the Jazz and the Pelicans going into the playoffs.
Even if you're playing your bench guys, I just think it's kind of a bad vibes thing. I don't like to see good teams going into playoffs losing, especially historically great ones.
Also, like this team has dealt with so many injuries throughout the year that it's actually pretty good for them to get some run with their team fully healthy. Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein. Just figure out the fine tune, the rotation and lineups for them as they head into the postseason. That's super important.
They're young and they're going to have that a little bit of a break because of the play in. I mean, I'm not saying they should be peddled to the metal, but it would be cool. It would be cool if they did it. All right. All right. Bold prediction time. Six games. It's not an easy schedule. Give me the number.
Where do they stop? I'm going to say 69. I think they'll get to 69 because they play the Lakers twice. Right. And I think one of those games, yeah, it's hard to beat a team twice. So I'm going to say they get a split there, especially because it's in OKC. I think there's a chance. I'm going to say 69. How about you? I don't know.
I like it. Look, I want to say that they're going to win all six. Because if this was two months ago, they would win all six. That's the sort of team that we're dealing with. I'm going to say 68. I just think that they're going to rest guys, and I think they're going to be extremely strategic as they go into the playoffs.
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Chapter 6: How did Anthony Davis perform in his recent game?
Yeah, I like that quite a bit. Before we go to James, we got to talk about Anthony Davis completely. Cause Anthony Davis has been back. He had probably, I think it's his best game since he returned and he finished the game somehow with like one eye. Yeah. He hits a game winner. He caught an elbow at some point in the game and had to leave. And,
I don't know how he, how he was able to see with, with an eye patch, but Anthony Davis hits a game winner, has a really ridiculous line and him and Derek Lively out there. I see, look, I see the vision. It's been awesome. Yeah. I see. I understand it completely.
Yeah. Yeah. And look, they have all of their bigs back. So Daniel Gafford is back in there. They're running the double big lineups consistently. I thought him and lively AD and lively had a raw, a lot of great moments. There was a moment where, okay, lively caught in the short roll and you see Anthony Davis go up for the alley.
There was a moment where, okay, now Anthony Davis is in the short roll and you're finding situations. So like vertical spacing wise, they are creating offense just because of their double big lineups. Uh, which is an interesting thing because you see the trend around the NBA of teams going with these double big versatile lineups.
You think of the Rockets with Steven Adams and Alper and Shangoon, the Thunder who do it with Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein. Even the Celtics have it with Porzingis and Horford or Luke Cornett and any of those two guys. It's very, very good to be able to go to two versatile guys who are seven feet tall who can do everything. And AD obviously completes that. It's funny because
It was one of those bigs that gave him the eye patch. It was Daniel Gafford's elbow that got him in the eye and he bled. But some sort of typical AD kind of game where he comes back in the game and absolutely dominates. It was a good game.
We'll be right back.
Last night, the Knicks played another game against a top team and another loss for the New York Knicks. They just can't seem to beat these teams at the top of the East or the Oklahoma City Thunder. Here to talk about it, James Edwards. He covers the Knicks for The Athletic and one of our favorite guys to talk to. James, how's it going, man?
These Knicks, they can't seem to get over the hump against the real contenders.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the Kings' recent losses?
Chapter 8: What are the playoff implications for the Nuggets?
These Knicks, they can't seem to get over the hump against the real contenders.
Yeah, it's been a weird season. I think obviously, and Tom Thibodeau likes to talk about this a lot, I think what gets missed in the discourse is kind of the circumstances surrounding games. So in their defense, two of the three games against Cleveland have been on the second night of a back-to-back.
This one tonight, without Jalen, without Miles McBride, without Campaign, starting DeLon Wright, who's been solid, and rookie Tyler Kolek. So they know Mitchell Robinson, who's not playing back to back yet. So of all the games, this isn't really the right one for a barometer kind of test.
But I mean, listen, everybody in the NBA plays back to backs when they lost by 36 or whatever it was a few weeks ago, a little over a month ago. Like, yes, they were on the second half of back to back, but. good teams don't get blasted like that, that like it's, it's pretty rare. So yeah, it's a team that I think is a really good team.
But there is a clear kind of tiering system right now in the NBA. And the top of that tier is the, the Thunder Celtics and Cavs. And those it's pretty much those three against everybody else. And the Knicks have some good moments. They look really, really good in spurts throughout games. And then they look, kind of they look like they could lose to anybody at points in games. Yeah.
It was like a momentum shift for them in the game last night. You know, Aston and I, we were talking about it. The offense came out so hot, and we were thinking, oh, it's a great time to plug this big piece that James just wrote about OG Ananobi. He's having a great start. But then the Cavs started switching. Now, we've done this all year with them. Yes.
What's the issue that you've seen so far as with the Knicks and the switch?
I think they don't utilize slipping as much. Like if you're if one of the best ways to beat a switch is to slip. Right. And Josh Hart is a great guy at slipping pick and roll situations, getting in the short roll, make plays four on three. Right. Like that's the way you can kind of feel your offense through switches and I haven't seen that a lot.
And maybe that's just me looking at it from an outsider's perspective and not seeing them on a day to day. But I think they're leaving a little bit on the bone offensively when it comes to facing switches. James, I guess my question to you is, like, why do you think this team struggles so much when teams just outright switch their actions offensively?
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