The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the New Orleans Pelicans 124-92 to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round series in the Western Conference of the NBA.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander hit 33 points for the first seed to shake off concerns that the home teams were struggling in the second game.
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It was a tough night for the Pelicans, who struggled once again without top scorer Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram could only fire off 10 shots across all four quarters for the visitors.
The Thunder will travel to New Orleans for Game 3 and Gilgeous-Alexander says his team-mates prioritise winning every single game and ignore the outside noise.
He said: “I think it just goes back to us prioritizing winning.
“And all those things are distractions that get in the way of winning.
“Every night, all 15 of us go to bed and want to win the next game, want to win the next day. And we do everything we can to do so.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander shows full command of the floor and leads the @okcthunder to a 2-0 series lead!
Chet Holmgren: 26 PTS (9-13 FGM), 3 3PM, 7 REB
Jalen Williams: 21 PTS, 5 REB, 7 AST
Lu Dort: 15 PTS, 4 3PMGame 3: Saturday, 3:30pm/et on TNT pic.twitter.com/K5Cah3xmsL
— NBA (@NBA) April 25, 2024
The Thunder made 14 of 29 3-pointers in the game and it was an all-around impressive performance from the starters and bench.
Coach Mark Daigneault added: “Now, the challenge is to continue to grow and learn and improve with the series because the Pelicans are going to improve.
“They’re a good team that’s going home and they’re well coached. They’re going to get better, so we have to continue to get better.
“In the first game, I thought both teams were kind of calibrating.
“And, tonight we had much quicker recognition of the way that they were guarding us, where we wanted to attack, and we got to those things pretty well.”
