Thunder’s championship form on display as young Raptors push towards development

OKLAHOMA CITY — They have a group prayer before the games start here at the Paycom Center, a few moments of reflection before the chaos. On Friday night, the minister leading the benediction at centre court called for the safety of the players and for the fans to be grateful for the opportunity to watch the competition. And then 20,000 people said Amen.

The rest of the NBA might need to appeal to a higher power, though.

A lot of teams made trades across the NBA in the past few days. Only one team got inarguably better, and they didn’t do a thing. Unfortunately for the rest of the league it was Thunder, who were already the best team in the league with two months to play in the regular season before Chet Holmgren returned from injury.

The Raptors don’t need much convincing after they were kept comfortably at arm’s length from start to finish by the home team in what ended up being a 121-109 win for the Thunder. For the Thunder, it was another notch in the belt, but for the Raptors, it was an improvement after they lost their first game to OKC by 37 points in Toronto.

“I’m proud of the fight we had, but more importantly, Oklahoma City took us seriously,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “I think that they played really hard, they were prepared and ready for us, very motivated and in a certain way, that’s a compliment for us because we have a very young team now, and they really got their best, and I think we competed at a high level.”

The Raptors, without starters RJ Barrett (concussion protocol) and Jakob Poeltl (hip pointer), were led by Scottie Barnes, who finished with 20 points on 8-of-20 from the floor and 4-of-6 from three. Immanuel Quickley had six points on five shots but had 10 assists in 27 minutes, his longest stint since returning from his groin injury.

There was some justifiable excitement around the Raptors after the acquisition of Brandon Ingram, the lanky wing who arrived via the New Orleans Pelicans late Wednesday night – “I think he’s going to be a very good fit for our team,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “…we’re all excited about welcoming him on our team,” – but he’s not going to change the Raptors’ fortunes this season.

At 16-36, Toronto has the league’s fifth-worst record and is quite happy about it as they imagine a future with a top-five pick in what is considered a strong 2025 NBA Draft. There’s a good chance Ingram – out since Dec. 7^th with a high ankle sprain – doesn’t play for a month or even longer.

The Raptors were sad to see veterans Bruce Brown, Kelly Olynyk and Davion Mitchell move on in their trade deadline activity this past week. But they’re more than happy that it has opened up playing time for their collection of young players they are trying to develop so they can help Toronto turn things around next season.

“It’s a blessing,” said Raptors rookie Jamal Shead. “And it’s a learning experience, getting out there and playing against all these dudes in your rookie year.”

The Thunder are in a different head space. Through 50 games, they have the NBA’s best record at 41-9, the best player – Canadian national team star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander came into Friday’s game as the odds-on favourite for league MVP honours – and the NBA’s best defence by a significant margin. The gap the Thunder have over the Clippers in second place is larger (4.4 points per 100 possessions) than the Clippers have over 11^th place Milwaukee.

On Friday, they made the trade deadline’s most significant addition when they had third-year centre Holmgren return to the lineup after missing 39 games with a hip fracture. Some great players changed teams over the past week: Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis being traded for each other; Jimmy Butler going from Miami to Golden State and Andrew Wiggins going from Golden State to Miami, DeAndre Hunter going to Cleveland to shore up the Eastern Conference’s best team, along with Ingram heading to Toronto were all notable, to say the least.

But the NBA’s best team is getting their second-best player back. That’s a problem. “We appreciate it. He was here last year,” said Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault. “We know what he’s capable of from last year. And then his first stint this season — he clearly made a jump over the summer. We know what we’re getting. We’re certainly happy to have him back.”

Holmgren showed plenty of rust as he finished with four points on five shots and three turnovers in his 22 minutes. In the 10 games he played this season before he fractured his hip bone in a fall, he was averaging 16.5 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.0 blocks on 53 per cent shooting in 29 minutes. But at the most basic level, the Thunder are suddenly enormous when they play both Isaiah Hartenstein and their two seven-footers – together.

And Holmgren looked his perfectly normal, agile, 7-foot-1 self when he was roaming the paint for four blocked shots, including a highlight reel worth shut down of a dunk attempt by Barnes.

“I play basketball to win,” said Holmgren. “… but coming back [50] games into a season with a team that’s playing a really high level … this is not the Chet Holmgren show. I’m just going out there trying to help the team win any way I can … our goal every single night is to win basketball games. Over time what that looks like will change and evolve, but the mission and the goal is the same.”

The Raptors fought gamely, but the Thunder were in control all game. They lead 35-25 at half and 58-47 at half. Through three quarters, the Raptors were shooting just 38 per cent from the floor but tellingly just 44 per cent at the rim where league average is 66 per cent from that difference.

Thunder were able to make life difficult for the Raptors two primary offensive threats in, Barnes and Quickley, as they combined for 10 of the Raptors’ 12 turnovers.

“They’re a really handsy team … Hartenstein and Chet do a great job deterring at the rim, but their whole team is really handsy,” said Shead, who had seven points, six assists and no turnovers in his 22 minutes off the bench.  They’re a really good defensive team. It makes sense they’re the No.1 defensive team.”

It will only get more difficult for OKC’s opponents from here as Holmgren gets up to speed, giving the NBA’s best defense another long and active rim protector who can contribute offensively too. It’s the kind of lineup that champions are made of, and the rest of the NBA may just be playing for second.

Grange for three:

1. Maybe Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was taking it easy on his hometown team. Instead of being jaw-droppingly good against the Raptors, he was merely excellent. Gilgeous-Alexander has been on a historic heater lately, averaging 40.1 points a game over his last seven starts before Friday, including three games in that stretch with 54 (his career high and an NBA record for a Canadian), 52 and 50. He had never scored 50 points in a game before doing it three times in a little over 10 days. Against Toronto he finished with 25 points and six assists in 29 minutes. He was 5-of-12 from the floor but 14-of-14 from the stripe. I didn’t get a chance to speak with him after the game but did bump into Montreal’s Lu Dort who was a late scratch with back spasms but was happy to hear that his crisp white Expos jersey got some camera time.
2. There were some mixed emotions around the Raptors locker room Friday. On the one hand, no longer around were some well-regarded veterans in Bruce Brown and Kelly Olynyk (traded for Ingram) and Davion Mitchell (traded to Miami for a second-round draft pick and veteran PJ Tucker, who will likely be waived). On the other, two players had their NBA futures take positive steps forward. Rookie Jamison Battle had his two-way deal converted to a standard NBA contract with two more seasons added on top of this one. It’s an impressive accomplishment by the undrafted free agent who was competing at Summer League for an exhibit-10 deal (which guaranteed a bonus for players who come to training camp and stay with a team’s G-League affiliate after being waived) and won a five-man competition for a two-way contract out of training camp. It’s a similar path that Chris Boucher took to join the Raptors, and he’s still with Toronto seven seasons later. Meanwhile, centre Orlando Robinson – who was on his second 10-day contract with Toronto – was given the two-way contract spot vacated by Battle.
3. From everyone I spoke with leading up the trade deadline, regardless of what happened on Thursday, the last third of the season was going to be devoted to developing the Raptors’ youngest players. Raptors general manager Bobby Webster confirmed as much when speaking after the deadline Friday morning: “Listen, we’ve opened up a lot of ability for our young guys to play. I think, whether it’s our rookies, Ja’Kobe [Walter], Jamal [Shead], Jonathan [Mogbo], Ulrich [Chomche], Jamison [Battle], our second- and third-year players, Gradey [Dick] and Ochai [Agbaji] , this opens up opportunity for them, and we’re really excited to see that group play together. Rajakovic did his part as the Raptors had four rookies play between 15 minutes (Battle) and 28 minutes (Mogbo). Walter had 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting and went 2-of-5 from three and added a steal and a blocked shot.

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