MEMPHIS, TN — After their Game 4 win on Saturday to complete the sweep of the Memphis Grizzlies, members of the Thunder approached the boxes of Insomnia Cookies inside the locker room in waves. Dozens of cookies, an unusual sight in their quarters, as a way to celebrate making it a quarter of the way through the postseason.
And why not? They finished their first-round series before anyone, and now await either the Denver Nuggets or the Los Angeles Clippers to get them back out of hiding. As has seemingly become customary for this Thunder squad, it’ll have an abnormal amount of time to burn off the chocolate chips and snickerdoodles.
The conference semifinals have long been slated to begin May 5-6, with the potential to move up to May 3-4. After Aaron Gordon’s at-rim game-winner Saturday night for Denver, that series is knotted at 2 with the potential to last seven games.
With OKC having completed its first round in a four-game sweep by April 26, that could mean 7-10 days between games — that gap coming after a series in which there was a single off-day in between each game.
Ten days is a long time to be listening to elevator music.
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“We’ll always take it,” coach Mark Daigneault said after the Thunder’s 117-115 win Saturday. “We’re trying to win every game. You can’t choose how the series unfolds. We put our best foot forward and let the outcomes be what they are. But it’s good obviously physically to rejuvenate. Guys, I’m sure, are dealing with little things here and there that they get to get healthy and allow sample prep time.”
More: Oklahoma City passes first test with relative ease, sweep Memphis in first round
Daigneault noted that he felt the team handled the downtime well following the regular season, a week-long gap as it awaited the play-in results to discover its opponent. It was forced to do the same a year ago, when it finished as the youngest No. 1 seed in league history, abiding its time before an eventual date with the New Orleans Pelicans.
That series was a sweep, too, which wound up meaning eight days between the series-sealing win and the opening game of its second-round series with the Dallas Mavericks.
“We made some progress from last year to this year in terms of our process, but we’ve done a nice job of getting ourselves ready for the series,” Daigneault said. “We’ve played well in the Game 1s. I think we’ve maintained relative rhythm and sharpness for as much as you can without games. So we’ll try to replicate that and do it again this week. But it’s easier said than done.”
The Thunder won’t exactly be twiddling its thumbs. It’ll brace itself for two capable contenders, either of which will have emerged from their first-round series having been pushed closer to the brink than OKC has.
The first-round winners, even while smuggling boxes of cookies on their way out of the locker room, are cognizant of what the break offers — for better or for worse.
“Honestly, it could work both ways against us,” MVP finalist Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It could add a little rust, or it could add a little freshness. I think trying to find a balance in between those two is going to be important in this next — however long it is, until we wait for the next series. But we always say like the times in between the games is the days we have to win in the playoffs, and that’s where we’re going to try to tackle this next little break we get.
“Just try to be a better team than we were tonight. Than we were this series.”
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Joel Lorenzi covers the Thunder and NBA for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joel? He can be reached at [email protected] or on X/Twitter at @joelxlorenzi. Support Joel’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
