Huffing and puffing for air, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was absolutely exhausted. The usually-stoic NBA superstar provided the world a glimpse of the workload he'll have to shoulder for the next two months. This is the new grim reality that the Oklahoma City Thunder are living in.
Gilgeous-Alexander absolutely carried the Thunder to a 117-102 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. He finished with 43 points on 14-of-35 shooting. That included an eye-popping 13 shot attempts in the fourth quarter as he carried them across the finish line for the much-needed morale boost.
It wasn't pretty and the selfish style of basketball goes against Gilgeous-Alexander's nature of playing within the flow of the offense, but the Thunder are in a dire situation. As most
know by now, they're going to be without three of their four best players for the foreseeable future.
The Thunder became the first NBA team in 50 years to lose three starters on the same night for 20-plus games in a row. A costly win over the LA Clippers on Oct 25 has completely junked up their championship ambitions. Now, it's about pure survival mode.
Jalen Williams is out for most — if not all — of the 2026-27 season with a fractured fibula and a dislocated ankle. Same for Cason Wallace with a torn labrum. Both required surgery. Chet Holmgren also sustained a torn patellar tendon. He's out for two-plus months and opted for a biological treatment to return sooner.
Considering the circumstances, the Thunder are scrambling to salvage the 2026-27 season. Punting a couple of games due to shock, they've reached the acceptance stage of their grief. It looks like OKC has made the conscious decision to fully lean on Gilgeous-Alexander's scoring superpowers until help arrives.
Count Holmgren and Williams as two supporters of OKC's desperate, but just, new strategy. Gilgeous-Alexander left it all on the floor in Cleveland. His 35 shot attempts were a career high. Expect more video-game-esque numbers like that until New Year's arrives and OKC is gifted one of its All-NBA talents back.
Holmgren wrote on his Instagram story: "Dump that clip 2. Reload and dump it again." Williams expressed a similar message in his social media story by simply saying: "05/06." — referring to Kobe Bryant's legendary season that year where he averaged 35.4 points on 27 shot attempts a night.
I guess we'll see if Gilgeous-Alexander can handle the Herculean workload for the next two months. It's not something the Thunder want to do — the plan before D.C.C. (Dub, Chet, Caso) happened was to phase in an off-ball role to save his legs for the NBA playoffs — but now, it's a necessity for pure survival mode.
Entering Monday's game with a better mindset, Gilgeous-Alexander left it all on the floor. Let's see if he can do it again on Wednesday against Cleveland, and then on Friday against Memphis, and then so forth and so on until Holmgren and Alex Caruso provide some help.
Chet Holmgren watching the game pic.twitter.com/2EX7QampaR
— Clemente Almanza (@CAlmanza1007) November 3, 2026
Jalen Williams calling this SGA’s ‘05-06 Kobe year pic.twitter.com/5CjiX9ghPC
— Clemente Almanza (@CAlmanza1007) November 3, 2026
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: 2 injured All-NBA teammates invoke Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to go full '05/06' Kobe mode
