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One night, you're accepting another yearly award. The next night, you hit the shot of the day. As Shai Gilgeous-Alexander calmly found his spot in the mid-range, he swished in a jumper to send it into overtime and save his squad from another day full of ridicule. Walking to the bench, he was zeroed in on a badly-needed win.
The Oklahoma City Thunder survived a scare in their 129-125 overtime win over the Utah Jazz. Once up by 20 points, they almost went back-to-back for the worst losses of the season.
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Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 46 points on 14-of-26 shooting, six rebounds and six assists. He shot 1-of-8 from 3 and went 17-of-19 on free throws. He also had one block and one steal.
Say what you want to say about needing this Superman effort to beat the lowly Jazz, but these types of games add bulletin points for Gilgeous-Alexander's MVP case. There's no way to really argue that the Thunder deserved this win. The same problems that have popped up in recent weeks remain — bad rebounding efforts, poor shooting, a streaky defense.
Didn't matter. Gilgeous-Alexander is the ultimate equalizer. The Jazz had zero answers to stop one of the NBA's best scorers. He got to his spots in the mid-range. The drives to the rim were unguardable — even with two seven-foot players in Utah's frontcourt.
And for the first time in forever, Gilgeous-Alexander had a busy night at the free-throw line. He had double-digit attempts for the first time since Dec. 5. Well over a month. That's what happens when one of the worst defenses filled with young defenders has to go through some serious growing pains.
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The only real criticism you can throw at Gilgeous-Alexander was continuously hunting the knockout punch. A handful of stepback 3-pointers hit the front of the rim. That's graduated into a reliable weapon for him, but it wasn't there tonight against Utah. Nevertheless, the shot of the night is all that mattered — his game-tying bucket at the end of regulation.
We haven't had a lot of chances to see Gilgeous-Alexander get a highlight like that. More often, he's sat out the entire fourth quarter or put this type of game away earlier in crunch time. But in a now-or-never moment, he barely avoided being on the wrong side of another upset.
"Coach drew up a play. I kinda knew I was going to get it. Coach is going to do whatever play it is. He's coached me long enough to know my tendencies and where I like to get to. Once I get the ball to position, I honestly try to do what's comfortable above all and live with the results after that," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "It's not a secret I like to go left and shooting mid-ranges. Both of those things happened in that play."
Gilgeous-Alexander carried that momentum into overtime. He scored nine points in the five minutes. A couple of free-throw trips allowed the OKC crowd to let out a loud 'MVP' chant. Man, what an outing. And to think he was questionable the entire day.
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While the Thunder swiped off the sweat from their eyebrows, they shouldn't relax too much. They really had no business winning this game. For most of the night, it felt like they were staring down the possibility of perhaps their two worst losses of the season happening in back-to-back games. Gilgeous-Alexander knows they have to be better than this.
"You gotta look in the mirror. You have to take accountability. You have to be willing to embrace it as well. Sam told me this a long time ago — success isn't linear. It goes up and down. You stick at it long enough, you eventually get where you want to go," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "It's no different than any other sport. Every team goes through rough patches. Nobody has gone 82-0 in an NBA season for a reason. It's a hard league. The hardest basketball to play in. We're going to have games where we don't look our best. It might be two games, two weeks or two months. But taking the steps forward is the only way you get better and not let it get worse."
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander adds to MVP case in Thunder's win over Jazz
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