Getting the ball knocked out of his possession as he tried to split the defense, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s ball security looked mortal. De’Aaron Fox stole it away as the reigning MVP’s nightmare series continued. The scoreboard kept ballooning. He couldn’t do anything to stall San Antonio’s momentum.
Nothing went right for the Oklahoma City Thunder in their 103-82 Game 4 loss to the San Antonio Spurs. The 2026 Western Conference Finals is tied at 2-2 apiece.
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 19 points on 6-of-15 shooting, seven assists and four rebounds. He shot 0-of-1 from 3 and went 7-of-7 on free throws. He also had two steals.
No real way to spin zone this — Gilgeous-Alexander was flat-out bad. Usually, you could justify a meh box score with a beautiful game-controlling tempo. Nope. The Thunder offense sank below NBA-competence levels. He was at the top of it. Fair or not. The drives to the rim were there, but the jumper completely abandoned him. More importantly, the playmaking was mostly erratic.
When the Spurs ran up the scoreboard, Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t provide timely answers. It might be an unfair burden to shoulder on one player, but he knew what the deal was once the Thunder ruled out Williams and Mitchell. OKC’s offense would go as far as he’d take him. Turns out, not far from the start line.
“They just punch us in our face early. Two games in a row, they’ve come out the aggressor. Last game, we’re able to course correct. Tonight, we just didn’t do so. We just got to do a better job of starting the games,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Obviously, it’s a little bit more challenging when you’re on the road and we know that. But we got to go out there and do it if we want to win games, especially against a team that good.”
Let’s see if Gilgeous-Alexander can change the series narrative. So far, he’s played at an acceptable level. But this was the first time that he was completely invisible. The Thunder can’t afford that the rest of the way. The 30-point scorer needs to return to being an efficient walking 30 points. Through four games, that just hasn’t happened yet.
As unfair as it is, the Thunder have to learn on the fly to play without Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell. You saw their importance in this one as they struggled to create even the most elementary halfcourt offense. You can’t win under those circumstances. No amount of coaching will make up the gap. We’ll see what their statuses are for Game 5, but it’s feeling like the task may be a little too tall for this group if both are sidelined again.
“It changes things. Play through the bigs a little bit more. Guys have different strengths out there. Two of our handlers, creators are out. But guys are good off the ball. We played a fair amount of games this year with no handlers, so we’ll be a little bit used to that. I think it’s just a snowball effect,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “When you come out with the right energy, things like that work out and the offense has flow. I don’t think we came up with the right energy today. It just trickled down. We were stagnant on both ends.”
As cliche as it sounds, the good news is that none of this carries over to Game 5. It’s back to square one for both teams. And while the Thunder did their quote-unquote job of regaining homecourt advantage, they have to play much better throughout the entire game. Playing catch-up doesn’t feel like a replicable game script to get by the Spurs. Especially without Williams and Mitchell.
“The series is 2-2. Basically 0-0. It’s the first to two games now,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s not at the front of our minds, but it’s a fact. It’s the reality of where we are.”
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander reacts to Game 4 loss to Spurs: ‘First to 2 games now’
