OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Memphis Grizzlies 131-80 in Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference playoff series on Sunday, the fifth-biggest margin of victory in NBA postseason history.
The 51-point margin was seven points shy of the record and was the largest Game 1 win in NBA playoff history.
Jalen Williams scored 20 points and Chet Holmgren had 19 points and 10 rebounds.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league’s scoring champion with nearly 33 points per game, scored just 15. The Thunder still shot 50.5% from the field.
“We played to our identity,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Nothing more, nothing less than that. We were who we were all year … and it’s going to be the key to our success, just staying true to who we are.”
Gilgeous-Alexander had said several times since Oklahoma City’s loss to Dallas in last season’s Western Conference semifinals that he would be intentional about getting his teammates better prepared for this postseason.
So far, so good.
“I have a great group of guys around me, and I know that,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And I’ve known that for a long time. … They obviously played amazing.”
There have been two 58-point playoff margins in NBA history: Denver beating New Orleans 121-63 in 2009 and the Minneapolis Lakers beating the St. Louis Hawks 133-75 in 1956. The Los Angeles Lakers beat Golden State by 56 (126-70) in 1973 and the Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks by 54 (120-66) in 2015.
Ja Morant scored 17 points for Memphis on just 6-for-17 shooting. Jaren Jackson Jr., who averaged just over 22 points in the regular season, scored four points on 2-for-13 shooting. The Grizzlies shot just 34.4% overall.
The Thunder, who finished the regular-season with a league-best 68-14 record, took control with a 20-0 run that gave them a 55-22 lead in the second quarter. They took a 35-point lead into halftime.
“I just felt like after that, the energy just kind of wasn’t there and we were just trying to talk to ourselves to get back into the game,” Morant said.
This was Memphis’ first playoff game under interim coach Tuomas Iisalo. He coached just nine NBA regular-season contests before the play-in games.
“If you’re in a playoff series, it’s a best of seven,” Iisalo said. “It doesn’t matter if you win by one point on a buzzer-beater or you win by 50 points, you get one win. So luckily for us, there’s only one way from this and that’s up. And we will analyze it and learn from it. And then we will fix those things that hurt us.”
Game 2 is Tuesday, and Thunder coach Mark Daigneault expects a closer game.
“They played 36 hours ago and had an emotional game, had to turn around and play at noon today, which is a really tough turnaround,” Daigneault said. “So they’re going to be better Tuesday. So I thought we did a good job. But I don’t think we can expect that from them (again). You know they’re going to play a lot better than that.”
