There’s a minute left in the third quarter during Game 3 of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s first-round series against the Suns, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is sending 17,071 spectators into a tizzy.
Sizing up Devin Booker at the top of the key, Gilgeous-Alexander takes a dribble to his right and drives hard toward the lane, where a bump from Booker knocks him off-balance. A foul is called, SGA marches to the line for his fifth and sixth free throws of the night, and Booker pleads his case to the refs.
Two nights earlier, after Game 2, Booker had called out one official for a confounding technical foul and criticized the refs overall for “just whistling on one side”; the NBA later rescinded the technical but fined Booker $35,000 for his comments. But here in Phoenix, Booker has an entire arena sharing his frustration. As replays of the foul cycle through on the jumbotron, Suns fans boo in dismay and yell obscenities. But SGA calmly sinks both free throws to stretch OKC’s lead to nine.
Oklahoma City is trying to become just the ninth NBA team to win back-to-back titles and the first to do so since the 2018 Warriors. This decade is littered with teams that won the title and then failed to make even the conference finals in subsequent years. That pattern holds for the 2021 Bucks, the 2022 Warriors, the 2023 Nuggets, and the 2024 Celtics, as the league’s rapid evolution and restrictive collective bargaining agreement have made it hard to sustain dominance.
This season, the Thunder have dealt with the usual challenges of a marathon title defense—Jalen Williams missed 49 games, first recovering from offseason surgery, then dealing with a litany of hamstring injuries that have undermined OKC’s continuity and sidelined him for the last two games of the series against Phoenix.
But their continued success has also brought backlash, as players, coaches, and league observers have developed a disdain for how the Thunder rule the league. That’s partly because SGA is a brilliant scorer who’s mastered the art of drawing fouls and pissing you off while doing it. It’s partly because Lu Dort has developed a reputation for borderline-legal plays, including a midseason trip of Nikola Jokic three months ago. And it’s partly because of the stark contrast between OKC’s dogged, physical defense and the way SGA exploits contact on the other end.
There’s also competition circling. Unexpectedly, the Spurs have sprouted into a contender threatening to upend OKC’s plans to repeat—replete with an already growing list of battles and barbs that set up a potentially era-defining rivalry. And on Tuesday night, the Thunder will start their second-round series against LeBron James and the Lakers, who will try to leverage their size and experience to knock OKC off its square.
When you're ass, nobody cares what you do, good or bad. So if people are trying to put everything you do under a microscope, that means that you're doing something well and you're relevant. I think it's a compliment.Chet Holmgren
To maintain its perch, the team has relied on the brilliance of Gilgeous-Alexander, who averaged 33.8 points and eight assists in the first round. Midway through the fourth quarter of that Game 3 against the Suns, Gilgeous-Alexander encountered Booker again on a fast break. He tumbled into the Suns guard and finished a layup through contact to put the Thunder up 13 and on the path to a 3-0 series lead. With no foul call in sight, as Phoenix took an immediate timeout and the noise of the crowd died down, SGA yelled to his bench, “I don’t need it!” The implication was clear: The Thunder don’t care what you think about them.
Two days later, Shai scored 31 points and dished eight assists to lead his team to a sweep over the Suns. After the matchup, he posted to Instagram a picture of himself alongside Dillon Brooks, who was wearing a doctored jersey that read “Cancun on 3” and a caption that read: “Everybody wants to be villainous until the brooms come out & the dust settles & you realize who the villain is.”
Devin Booker and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander reach after a loose ball during Game 4
Six years ago, in Mark Daigneault's first season as head coach, the Thunder won 22 games. The next season, they won 24. To him, the idea that the entire NBA world would hold any strong feelings about OKC shows just how far the organization has come.
“The praise is louder than it's ever been. The criticism's louder than it's ever been,” Daigneault tells me. "Four years ago, we were rebuilding. There weren't a lot of Thunder jerseys. We go on the road this year, and there's more Thunder jerseys than there's ever been."
The players who have been around since the Thunder's lean years understand that the increased outside noise just comes with the territory of defending a championship. During the 2001 season, when the Lakers were in the middle of the NBA’s last three-peat, the feud between Kobe and Shaq dominated the news. By the time the Heatles won their second championship, there were already questions about whether the team could keep LeBron James in Miami for the long term. In 2017 and 2018, the Warriors leaned into their reputation as supervillains after acquiring Kevin Durant in free agency and ripping through the league en route to winning back-to-back titles.
The Thunder push back on the notion that they are villains, but they wear the extra attention (and negativity) as a badge.
“When you're ass, nobody cares what you do, good or bad,” says Chet Holmgren, who was drafted to OKC in 2022 and just wrapped his first All-Star season. “So if people are trying to put everything you do under a microscope, that means that you're doing something well and you're relevant. I think it's a compliment.”
For all the shifts in how OKC is perceived, the Thunder maintain that their principles, their play, and their organizational philosophy haven't changed.
Four years ago, we were rebuilding. There weren't a lot of Thunder jerseys. We go on the road this year, and there's more Thunder jerseys than there's ever been.Mark Daigneault
"The fans always look for the villain," says Dort, the longest-tenured player on the team. "Everything that I'm doing now, I've been doing for years. Whatever they got to say, they got to say, but my main job is to go out there and play the way that I play and [do] anything I can do to help my team win.”
That mindset extends from Daigneault and the culture he's created, which balances preparation and autonomy. OKC’s coach is measured and precise, with a laser focus that has helped his players expand their games without losing sight of the team concept. This season, Daigneult has had to balance the macro-challenge of keeping the group level amid the noise with the micro-challenges that present themselves from game to game or matchup to matchup. One thing he has never had to do is play the role of motivator.
“When they see a challenge, they're excited about a challenge,” Daigneault says of his players. “That's just the way these guys are wired. And I think they viewed the beginning of the season as a challenge. They knew all the same challenges that come with a long run.
“There's a lot of gasoline there,” he warns. “You just got to flick a match.”
Lu Dort leaves the court after his team defeated the Phoenix Suns in Game 4
In today's NBA, even the best teams must reinvent themselves. With a CBA that closes championship windows in a blink, front offices can’t rest on their laurels or assume that running it back with a title-winning team will cut it in the era of parity.
OKC avoided that pitfall in two key ways this season. First, by developing untapped potential on the fly. Last year, Ajay Mitchell was a two-way rookie confined to the pine as the Thunder cemented themselves in NBA history. This year, he’s filled in ably through J-Dub’s injuries and provided the Thunder with an extra dose of offensive juice off the bench. In 57 regular-season games, he averaged 13.6 points and 3.6 assists, surging to 79th in The Ringer’s top-100 player rankings.
When Williams went down with a hamstring injury midway through the first round, Mitchell was thrust into a more prominent role. In his first postseason start, he went 5-for-20, with more shot attempts than Gilgeous-Alexander. “Well, he wasn’t shy,” Daigneault quipped after the buzzer.
But Mitchell is still adjusting. The following game, he played much more in the flow of OKC’s offense, scoring 22 points on 16 shots and making a concerted effort to fit alongside Shai’s brilliance—a blueprint he’ll need to follow, as Williams has already been ruled out for at least Game 1 of the Thunder’s series against the Lakers.
Across the locker room, Jared McCain is the newest face on OKC’s roster. He represents the kind of opportunist, long-term thinking that Thunder architect Sam Presti is known for. As recently as last season, McCain looked to be part of the future in Philadelphia, finishing seventh in Rookie of the Year voting despite playing in just 23 games. But after an injured knee cut his season short and VJ Edgecombe emerged this season as a cornerstone in the backcourt, Philly began shopping McCain around. OKC pounced, sending a 2026 Houston Rockets first-round pick and three second-rounders back to Philly. When the deal was finalized, Sixers GM Daryl Morey said that Philadelphia had “sold high” on the young guard.
“It definitely hurts,” McCain tells me about Morey’s statement. “In my opinion, I try to prove the people right that really believe in me, whether it's my family, my support system. It's not about proving the team wrong or whatever, proving the GM wrong. Whatever he said, that's his opinion. I just try and be myself and not worry about that.”
In Oklahoma City, McCain fits right in. He played a limited role in the first round, but his shooting (nearly 40 percent from beyond the arc since he arrived in OKC) helped carry the Thunder through the homestretch of the season. Off the floor, his unapologetic sense of self, his knack for TikTok virality, and his propensity to get fits off make him look like he's straight out of central casting next to SGA, Holmgren, and J-Dub. In Phoenix, dressed in a divine denim number and sporting immaculately manicured nails, McCain gushes about his new surroundings.
The fans always look for the villain. Everything that I'm doing now, I've been doing for years. Whatever they got to say, they got to say, but my main job is to go out there and play the way that I playLu Dort
“It's been amazing, man,” McCain says. “It's been a blessing just to get to learn from these guys. They already have championships, and just being able to soak in whatever they're able to tell me and ask questions and do as much as I can to contribute.”
Oklahoma City also came into this season with a clear goal to reinvent itself tactically by learning from last year’s playoff run. Daigneault is the type of person who could find flaws in the Mona Lisa. Last postseason, he points out, the Thunder had trouble against Denver’s zone coverage, which took them seven games to figure out. When Oklahoma City reached the Finals, the Pacers’ full-court pressure nearly snatched the title from its grip. In response, Daigneault made it a point to build out a more robust offensive playbook to attack zones and to add layers to the backcourt to better combat surprises that might present themselves in a playoff context.
“If we had lost those series, that's what we'd be working on,” Daigneault says. “And our thing is like, well, let's not have to lose a series to work on those things. There's still a lot we can learn from, and there's still a lot of stuff we didn't do perfectly.”
The Thunder will face neither Denver nor Indiana this postseason. In Round 2, they’ll go against one of the smartest players in NBA history. And if they advance to Round 3, they could face the one team that’s presented the toughest challenge this season. That’s the thing about trying to go back-to-back: The challenges are always evolving. That’s why Daigneault takes issue with the idea of “defending” a title. In contrast, he wants his team to stay on the attack.
“No matter what happens, no one's taking the 2025 championship away from us,” he says. “That would be defending it. If they took it from you, then that would be defense. We've won the 2025 championship. No one can ever take that from us. We earned that. That's etched in the history books. It's also over because of that. And I think acknowledging that that is ours, it's earned. And also, that allows you to put it to bed and begin chasing the next.”
