After their postgame interview, Jalen Williams asked how many regular season games were left. He was told eight. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander then chimed in as he hopped off the stage: "That's when the real games begin."
The Oklahoma City Thunder don't care about your records or factoids. Bored with traditional stats showing their dominance, folks have pulled out ESPN-esque stats to show how historic this group has been this season. They've already broken the franchise record for wins and locked up the first seed over a week ago. The only dragons left to chase are those invented out of pure boredom in recent days.
The Thunder sit at 27-1 against the East this season. Their sole loss was against the Cleveland Cavaliers way back in early January. The 2015-16 Golden State Warriors have the record at 27-3. Only two games are left against the East in the Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons.
The Thunder also tied the 2016-17 Warriors for the most double-digit wins in a season at 48. Only the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers have more at 50. OKC will have eight more tries to either tie or break that record.
Another stat to demonstrate their superiority to the rest of the NBA — they've trailed on just 24.4% of possessions this season. In comparison, they've led by 15-plus points in 25.2% possessions. Despite all these fun facts and records, Gilgeous-Alexande remains unimpressed. He's only focused on a ring.
"We don't care not one bit about any of those records. They mean something but in the grand scheme of things, they don't," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "We're after one thing and one thing only. That's our ultimate goal to win. That's all that's on our minds. Everything else we don't care about. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but as long as we're taking steps in that direction, that's all we care about. Everything else just comes with ...
