How Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's impact against Lakers went beyond box score

Turning things up in the second half, Gilgeous-Alexander had 21 points. With the Lakers fading away from their extreme double-team gimmick, the 27-year-old welcomed one-on-one looks. Back-to-back fourth-quarter buckets showed he was fully back to being a one-man win machine. When he wasn't putting up points, he dissected Los Angeles' defense by finding the open man. A full-on clinic by one of the NBA's best scorers ever.

If you're going to rank all of Gilgeous-Alexander's playoff series, this is probably near the bottom of the list. It was a pretty forgettable four games where his below-average numbers mattered very little. But when push came to shove with closing this out, he was the one to carry the Thunder to the finish line.

But if you ask Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault, he went on a soliloquy on why Gilgeous-Alexander's surface-level numbers from this series didn't reflect what he brought on the court. The point-rebound-assist cult might mock the reigning MVP for his below-average standards, but there's more nuance to basketball than just box-score stats.

"The counting stats can get in the way of recognizing that there are different ways to have a heavy impact. Let's talk about the double teams. We offensive-rebounded early in the series way more than we normally do. A lot of that has to do with them being off our body. They're off our body because they're doubling him. He's contributing to offensive rebounding. Everybody else on the team is playing to an advantage when two guys are on him and the ball comes out. So the confidence and the aggressiveness that those guys were able to establish early in the series certainly showed up for us tonight," Daigneault said. "That's a result that the downstream affected the double teams. The Lakers were playing a scheme that required a lot of energy here. And if you look at the way that we performed in the second half of games in this series, I think there was a fatigue factor to that. Some of that's our depth, but the other part of that is that there were running around defensively. Why were they running around? Because they're double-teaming him. I think you look down and you see 18 points or 22 points, and it's easy to rush to a conclusion on that. But if you are really evaluating total and global impact — even with 18 points — the domino effect of the double teams is huge. Him not fighting the game in those situations, reeled back the double teams. And then he kinda hid in the grass. And then tonight, he wouldn't close that thing. Remarkable poise and maturity from him. I wanted to point that out because impact takes on different faces. His impact was on all four games."

Wow. What an answer. There's definitely a lot of truth to that. As dominant as Gilgeous-Alexander is, you can't truly erase him from a game. The opposition will feel his impact one way or the other. Whether it's with his own points or the kind of scoring looks he creates simply by demanding all five players' attention.

After a couple of low-leverage NBA playoff series, Gilgeous-Alexander will see the competition level uptick tenfold — regardless of whether it's the San Antonio Spurs or Minnesota Timberwolves. The Thunder earned the right to have a stress-free journey to the 2026 Western Conference Finals. Now, they're two high-leverage series wins away from the reigning MVP to enter some serious legacy discussions.

“We've done our job so far. That's all it really means. We've gone out there, we've executed, we played at a high level, and we've been able to win eight tough games against really good opponents. That's all it really means," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Nothing's guaranteed. In the playoffs, no two games are the same — especially when you change opponents. The challenges are all coming up, I guess you can say. Everything that we've done so far is behind us. We still have a huge target on. We have two more series to win to reach our ultimate goal. That's what we're focused on."

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: How Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's impact against Lakers went beyond box score