NBA Finals: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the child God who has Oklahoma City Thunder
There is a different breed of players. It is not easy to detect it. They are men who are usually hidden among other imposters who also usually excel from the average with extraordinary numbers. With surreal statistics. False idols shine, but they are not gold. You have to see many games to find the genuine. Spend months, years, even decades. The real ones, those who modify situations, appear on droppers. It is something like looking at a river and waiting for the fish jumping. It can happen or not. But you have to be ready: When it happens, it’s wonderful. They are moments of the games in which everything seems to be finished, but a click turns the wheel again. There is a more twist, A change of libretto that will modify everything. The ball in those moments is a fireball that most dodges. But this kind of geniuses does not.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander belongs to this condition. He broke, this Friday night, a new wall for his career. Because the Thunder did not have a good time to the Pacers in the Gainbridge Fieldhouse. It seemed that Indiana stayed with the fourth game for intensity, by team game, for having solutions in several hands.
Shai, the NBA MVP, the different of Oklahoma City, decided something else. He put the ball under his arm and changed the rules for the Thunder to win the 111-104 game. Here, tonight, I command. Jr Moehringer wrote in Andre Agassi’s biography, that jewel entitled Open: There are men who are thermometers and others who are thermostats. The first measure the temperature, but There are other extraordinary ones, which modify it.
That did Gilgeous-Alexander tonight in the NBA finals. He showed that his thing is not just an excellent regular season. It is not, said with respect, in the same room as Joel Embiid. At all. Nor is it just a beautiful history of overcoming: from beggar to a millionaire. Underestimated to NBA superstar. Today Shai sat at the forbidden table of the greats of this sport. Of the legends seriously. In scenarios that do not admit falsifications or scams. Who narrowed his eyes tonight, who approached the screen almost in detail, surely detected in those fine stroke movements, in that dance in Shai’s foot tips, to Kobe Bryant. To Michael Jordan. He lived again that tingling that produce escorts capable of subjecting the toughest rivals with their own hands.
And not in the first quarter. In the last. In the clutch. When the time, determining variable of a game made with that raw material, is scarce. When each ball weighs double. The triple When nobody wants.
At that time, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wanted.
In attack, Indiana led Oklahoma City to the land he wanted. The Thunder had only ten assists throughout the game, abused the individual game, and only spotly three triples at night. A ridiculous number. But one of those three shots from behind the arch did Shai at the decisive moment, when the clouds anticipated a storm against.
When it seemed clear that they would lose the game.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander changed the fate of the fourth game
Shai changed the series signaling posters. Until today, we knew that Indiana dominated in the last rooms. Tonight, it was the other way around. OKC won the Pacers 15-7 in the Clutch, and Gilgeous-Alexander scored 14 points of those 15 in that period. Crazy. Not only that: made 15 points in the last quarter, with 8-8 in TL. In a NBA final game They were numbers that only Michael Jordan had. When? In game 6 of the 1998 finals against jazz (16 units, 8-8 in free).
Gilgeous-Alexander is immersing us all in history. We saw this film: adversity, fall and redemption on time. At the right time. Jalen Williams (27 points, seven rebounds), was again the Shai scottie pippen. Silent, efficient, always taking care of his back. Something that once happened with the mythical bulls of the nineties is happening: there are several excellent players, but when the drama stalks, when the script needs a hero, the Canadian base is imposed.
The fruit is not yet at all mature. A pinch of narrative is missing: the crucis of its epic history is just starting to gesture. In spite of everything, without alerting your own and strangers too much, The Thunder begins to understand that he has, in his ranks, to his own child God.
Today, with the almost lost game, the miracle arrived from his hands. Now, the series returns to Oklahoma City matched two games per side.
Faith is the last thing that is lost. You never have to surrender. Believe, always believe.
From Toronto to the top of the world.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
And everything else, too.
