Oklahoma City Thunder has the NBA’s best record that comes into the last day before the All-Star break.
They would like to keep it that way.
Thunder will look to unlock the top plate before the break as they tip against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Thursday in Minneapolis.
Oklahoma City, which sits half a game ahead of Cleveland Cavaliers in the total NBA position, rides on a winning line in seven matches after strucking the visiting Miami Heat 115-101 on Wednesday.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a game-high 32 points and drew nine assists in the victory. Luguentz Dort added 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting while playing Lockdown defense against Miami.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault praised Dort’s efforts to help Oklahoma City limit Heat All-Star Tyler Herro to 14 points on 5-AV-12 shooting.
“These are fantastic players that he is guarding,” Daigneault said. “Herro is a fantastic player. Good, good player.
“It’s just amazing how hard (Dort) makes you work for your things. It’s really the secret sauce. It’s not that he can squeeze them and lock them in him, even if he comes to it in the gaming distances. These. guys are too good. But only the physical energy and focus that they have to exercise when playing against him is what is always impressed with him.
“He’s the kind of guy you look at, monitor you, it’s like, ‘man, I have to earn every point I get tonight.’ His relentlessness with it and his spirit with it is just so impressive.
Timberwolves comes from a 103-101 home loss to Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday. Despite the absence of Buck’s best two players, Minnesota lost two players, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.
Anthony Edwards led Timberwolves with 28 points, but he missed a final second shot that could have given the Minnesota victory.
The Minnesota coach Chris Finch said he would continue to rely on younger players on his way into the last game before the break. Three beginners received significant playing time on Wednesday, with Terrence Shannon Jr. Which scored 11 points, Rob Dillingham adds two and Jaylen Clark is kept speechless in 14 minutes.
“I think it’s good for the players to feel some pressure, I really do,” finch said. “Fifty -five games during the season we must start to be as we can really be … I think it is important to realize that all these games will really do something when we add them all at the end of the season.
“So if it gives pressure that players cannot handle, they may not be players with whom we need to go to war.”
This is the second of four meetings during the regular season between Thunder and Timberwolves. Oklahoma City won the first matchup 113-105 at home on December 31 behind 40 points on 15-for-23 shooting by Gilgeous-Alexander.
Thursday will represent another homecoming for Chet Holmgren, who played in high school at the Minnehaha Academy in the twin cities before going to Gonzaga.
Holmgren took Wednesday due to rest, and he is expected to join the Oklahoma City lineup again on Thursday as he prepares to take on Minnesota great men Rudy Gobert and Naz Reid.
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