Oklahoma City (AFP) – Oklahoma City superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has piled up the individual accolades in leading the Thunder to the NBA Finals, but the Canadian guard says a title triumph against the Indiana Pacers is the prize that matters.
“I don’t play for the individual stuff, I don’t play for anything else besides winning — I never have in my whole life,” Gilgeous-Alexander said Wednesday, a day before the Thunder host the Pacers in game one of the best-of-seven championship series. From youth basketball in Canada through university basketball in the United States, Gilgeous-Alexander said his focus has been on winning titles.
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“Now I’m 26, I want to win the NBA championship,” he said. “It’s always about winning for me.” With that goal in his sights, Gilgeous-Alexander delivered a spectacular season that saw him supplant Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic as the NBA Most Valuable Player.
“SGA” averaged 32.7 points, 6.4 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 1.7 steals, and 1.0 blocked shots per game in leading the Thunder to an NBA-best 68 regular-season wins. He became the first player to lead the league in games with at least 20 points (75), 30 points (49), 40 points (13), and 50 points (four) in a season since James Harden in 2018-19.
Named MVP of the Western Conference finals after the Thunder dispatched the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games, Gilgeous-Alexander could become the first league scoring champion since Shaquille O’Neal in 2000 to win the NBA title in the same season. Gilgeous-Alexander said it had been “a long week to wait” since polishing off Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves — which followed a seven-game victory over Jokic and the Nuggets in the conference semi-finals.
He acknowledged after the conference semis that he’d been nervous in the run-up to game seven — but that experience has only helped him in the build-up to the Finals. “As these playoffs go on, you get better in controlling the situations, controlling your emotions. You understand what’s coming,” he said.
“I just figured out how to navigate through all the emotions and the nerves and the waiting process, which is just plugging into my loved ones, trying not to think about it so much, stress about it so much — just enjoy life and stay in the moment.”
In addition to not looking too far forward, Gilgeous-Alexander said he is also not yet looking back on what has been a historic season for the Thunder. “I’ve been so focused on just game one,” he said. “Trying to be the best version of myself for this group and trying to make sure that we’re clicking on all cylinders on the biggest stage of our careers has been on the forefront of my mind and all I do worry about when I worry about basketball.”
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