Thunder’s Alex Caruso making NBA history as OKC tries to close out Spurs originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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Alex Caruso knows what time it is.
It’s hard to explain what the Oklahoma City Thunder backup guard is doing right now other than to simply shrug, note that it’s the playoffs and recognize that this is what Caruso does.
Caruso once became one of LeBron James’ favorite teammates with the Los Angeles Lakers because of his knack for making winning plays when it really mattered.
A couple of teams later, Caruso is doing the same for the Thunder.
He’s just adding blistering 3-point shooting to the mix this time around.
Right now, Caruso has had the biggest leap from regular season 3-point percentage to postseason 3-point percentage of any player in NBA history:
Alex Caruso is shooting 47.7% from three this postseason, 18.4% higher than he did in the regular season (29.3%).
That’s on pace to be the biggest jump in 3P% from the regular season to the playoffs in NBA history (min. 50 attempts in both).
— Keerthika Uthayakumar (@keerthikau) May 27, 2026
That could obviously still swing back in the other direction, because OKC has more basketball to play. The Thunder lead the Spurs in the Western Conference Final by a 3-2 series margin, and then would conceptually have the NBA Finals, too.
But right now, Caruso is a big reason the Thunder are in position to move on. He just keeps hitting shots, proving a red-hot Game 1 of this series wasn’t a fluke by continuing to hit shots the whole way.
Caruso isn’t just scoring. He’s still doing his usual defensive masterwork, along with helping keep the offense in a good rhythm.
Hitting these shots, though, makes it easier to keep him on the floor in any lineup construction, and it prevents the Spurs from sagging off him to help elsewhere.
It’s exactly what the Thunder have needed out of Caruso, and that’s pretty much what he does — delivering the right performance at the right time.