Why Thunder’s Mark Daigneault took ‘risk’ of challenging controversial Shai Gilgeous-Alexander foul

After Gilgeous-Alexander completed a lob to teammate Chet Holmgren to give Oklahoma City the one-point lead with 20.1 seconds left, all they needed was one defensive stop which would have likely forced a Game 7. However, P.J. Washington was open for a three-point shot, hesitated as he dodged the MVP finalist, shot the ball, but Gilgeous-Alexander was called for the foul.

This all happened with 2.1 seconds left on the clock, but instead of letting Washington shoot the free throws, calling a timeout, and designing a play to win or send the game in to overtime, Daigneault challenged the foul. The officiating crew ruled that the play stands and the Thunder would lose their timeout.

The game plan now for the Mavericks was simple with Washington at the charity stripe, hope to take the lead after the first two free throws and intentionally miss the third so the Thunder are forced to shoot full-court to win. It was executed perfectly leading to Dallas moving on and Oklahoma City being sent home as their star in Gilgeous-Alexander whole heartedly regrets fouling with 2.1 seconds left.

“I shouldn’t have fouled him. We talk all year about the little things that go into winning games, being disciplined,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It sucks. If I had the moment back, I wouldn’t have fouled him. Just let him miss or make the shot.”

What the pool report said about the late foul after the Thunder’s loss

Gilgeous-Alexander did have an impressive performance Saturday night as he scored 36 points to go along with eight assists and three rebounds. Crew chief Tony Brothers worked the game as a referee and stood by the call in the pool report that the star initially hit the ball, but then initiated contact on Washington according to Tim MacMahon of ESPN.

“Since the ball was not dislodged by the contact, the ensuing contact to the arm is illegal,” Brothers said. “Had the ball been dislodged when Shai hit it, the contact afterwards would have been deemed marginal.”

The ultimate deciding factor to Oklahoma City’s series loss to Dallas

If there was an aspect of each game that pretty much equated to the success of the Mavericks in the series, it is how much they won the rebounding battle against the Thunder. Dallas’ big men in the likes of Daniel Gafford and especially Dereck Lively II, who racked in 15 boards Saturday, controlled the glass as throughout the series the Thunder tried to find anyway to bring in more size.

“Trying to help out on the glass specifically,” Daigneault said. “Not just on the glass. They were finding bigs on some of the dunk-downs. (We were) just trying to get more cumulative size on the floor.”

Despite the series loss, the Thunder have an incredibly bright future ahead of them as some could point to inexperience at the biggest stage being the issue with the team. However, their rebounding rate was mediocre during the regular season and even worse in the series against Dallas as they won that category in all but one game.

So getting another big-man whether it be a power forward or back up to Holmgren could be the move next season, even though Daigneault said after the game he is “not going to make commentary on our roster.”

“I’m not going to make commentary on our roster,” Daigneault said via The Athletic. “Clearly our roster was good enough this year to win a lot of games, be the one-seed in a tough conference. We had everything we needed. Tonight, in this series, they were better, but I wouldn’t look at that as an indictment on anything. It’s painful. We thought we had a chance to accomplish something special. But we can turn this pain into growth.”

Daigneault on what went wrong in the series against the Mavericks

While Thunder fans have a lot to look forward in the future and even reflect kindly on this season as they finished with the No. 1 seed among a packed Western Conference, they still played disappointingly in the semifinals. Even though they have been a very good offensive team this season, especially from three, they experienced a lot of skids as Daigneault talks about what went wrong.

“There are only so many ways you can get played,” Daigneault said. “There’s a limited number. We’ve seen them all this year. As time goes on, you get more comfortable attacking them. In a playoff series, they all get thrown at you. Whatever vulnerabilities you have, the other team is going to try to expose. We tried to do it to Dallas and New Orleans. They tried to do it to us. That’s how you learn.”

Gilgeous-Alexander says Thunder “took a step in the right direction”

Gilgeous-Alexander should still receive praise for all he did this past season as he was second in league MVP votes behind Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic. He averaged 30.1 points. 5.5 rebounds, and 6.2 assists per game while shooting 53.5 percent from the field as he talked about the lessons that have been learned.

“I guess how to course correct,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “The best teams are able to figure out the issue and fix the problem (snaps fingers) in a really fast time. That’s what ultimately allows you to win quarters, win games. You see it all over the league. You just saw it with Denver, their ability to course correct and get back on the road. This is a learning experience for all of us.”

“We can feel it,” Gilgeous-Alexander continued about the trajectory of the Thunder and their future. “We definitely took a step in the right direction this year, to say the least. This moment stings. You don’t ever want to lose. But there were definitely some good things to come out of it. Moments like this is what makes champions.”

No doubt there is a lot to look forward to as a Thunder fan in the future, but for now, the team will watch the rest of the playoffs from their homes. However, any team in the Western Conference should be petrified as Oklahoma City will be hungry next season as they have legitimate championship aspirations.