Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did just about everything a superstar is supposed to do on Friday night. He scored 40 points, dragged a short-handed Oklahoma City Thunder back from a 13-point halftime hole, and buried a leaning three-pointer with three minutes left that looked like the dagger. Then, with the game on the line and one final shot to win it, the ball rattled out — and the Los Angeles Clippers escaped with a 113-112 win that nobody in the building saw coming an hour earlier.
The finish came down to 50.4 seconds. Darius Garland drove into the lane, finished through contact, and sank the free throw to complete a three-point play that gave the Clippers their first lead of the fourth quarter, 113-112. Oklahoma City had one last possession, and the ball found Gilgeous-Alexander, just as it had all night. His 21-foot jumper at the buzzer missed, and the Intuit Dome crowd erupted as the Clippers held on.
The comeback
The Clippers trailed 112-106 with 2:43 left, and the game looked lost. Brook Lopez started the rally with an inside basket with 2:21 remaining, then added a pull-up jumper nearly a minute later to cut the gap to two. Garland's three-point play finished the job — a 7-0 run in the final minutes that turned a six-point deficit into a one-point win. It was the kind of finish the NBA Cup was made for.
The sequence will live in the highlight reels for a reason. Garland's drive came after Lopez had already dragged the Clippers back into it almost single-handedly, and the free throw that completed the three-point play was the loudest moment of the night at Intuit Dome — the first time the Clippers had led since the third quarter. Oklahoma City called its final play for its best player, and got the look it wanted. Sometimes the story of a game is simply that the shot didn't fall.
It was the second act of a game that had already swung twice. Los Angeles built a 57-44 halftime lead even while shooting just 40 percent from the field, leaning on Lopez's early scoring and Garland's playmaking. Then the Thunder answered with a 40-25 third quarter, seizing an 84-82 lead behind Gilgeous-Alexander's brilliance, and the Clippers suddenly looked like a team about to let another one slip away. They didn't. Los Angeles won the fourth quarter 31-28, and the last two and a half minutes belonged entirely to the home team.
SGA's 40, and what it couldn't do
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 40 points on 15-of-26 shooting, his third 40-point game of the season, along with four rebounds and five assists. His leaning three with 3:01 left put Oklahoma City ahead 110-106 and felt, for a moment, like the shot that would settle it. Instead it became the last big moment of a night that ended with his final attempt bouncing away. The two-time MVP had carried the Thunder all evening; on the last play, the Clippers finally made him miss. It was the kind of performance that usually ends with a win — and the kind of ending that makes a loss sting twice as much.
He didn't lack for help, exactly. Jared McCain added 23 points, Isaiah Hartenstein posted 21 points and a game-high 16 rebounds, and rookie Aday Mara — starting alongside the 7-foot Hartenstein in a twin-towers look — chipped in 10 points and three blocked shots. But the Thunder were badly short-handed, and it showed in the fourth quarter, when the Clippers' fresher legs won the loose balls and the final possessions.
A short-handed Thunder side
Oklahoma City played without Chet Holmgren (knee), Jalen Williams (leg) and Cason Wallace (shoulder), none of whom has played since the Thunder's home win over these same Clippers on October 25. Jaylin Williams missed his sixth straight game with a back problem, and Ajay Mitchell sat out a second straight with an ankle injury. The absences left the Thunder leaning on their star more than ever — and for 47 minutes, that was almost enough.
For the Clippers, the win was their second in three games after a 1-7 start to the season, and it moved them to 3-8. Lopez led the way with 26 points on 11-of-21 shooting, adding seven rebounds and four assists, while Garland finished with 24 points and seven assists. Derrick Jones Jr. and rookie Keaton Wagler each added 14. For the Thunder, the loss was a season-high third straight, dropping them to 8-5, and both teams now sit at 1-1 in NBA Cup group play.
The result also says something about where these two teams are headed. The Clippers, written off after their dreadful start, have now beaten one of the league's best teams in a game they trailed late — the kind of win that can steady a season. The Thunder, meanwhile, remain one of the NBA's elite sides, but their injury list is now the story: until Holmgren, Williams and Wallace return, every night will ask Gilgeous-Alexander to be superhuman, and some nights, even 40 points won't be enough.
