The Oklahoma City Thunder continued their franchise-best start to a regular season on Monday night with a 126-109 victory in New Orleans against the Pelicans as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 30 points and 7 assists, resting the entire fourth quarter for the 8th time already this season. Now, OKC hosts the Sacramento Kings—the third meeting between these two teams already this season—as the Thunder looks to move to 15-1 on the season.
The Kings are streaking in all the wrong ways, losing their last 6 by an average of 22 points. That streak began with a 132-101 loss to the Thunder in Sacramento back on November 7th. It’s unlikely to go much better for the Kings tonight as Domantas Sabonis is out for yet another meeting with his former team.
OKC has yet to play at full health—most notably, Jalen Williams has yet to play a game—but the Thunder’s depth continues to terrorize the league. Sure, the Thunder has had arguably the weakest schedule played so far, but they’re not just winning games: they’re blowing teams out on a pretty consistent basis.
The Thunder is on pace to win a remarkable 77 games, 4 games better than the 73-game record set by the Golden State Warriors in the 2015-16 season, but there is a lot of basketball left to play. Regular-season wins are nice, but when it comes down to it, winning the last game is more important than winning the current one. Mark Daigneault is still experimenting with substitutions, younger guys continue to define their roles as they improve, and if OKC can’t maintain their dominance throughout the season, it won’t be the end of the world. For now, though, it’s hard to see them losing too many games.
Game Details
Tip-Off: 7 PM CT
Location: Paycom Center (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
Television: FanDuel Sports Network Oklahoma
Radio: WWLS 98.1FM OKC The Sports Animal
Twitter: Follow @ZacharyLowNBA for live tweets and discussion during the game
Game Notes: Oklahoma City Thunder Official Game Notes, Sacramento Kings Official Game Notes
Projected Starters
Thunder
- PG: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
- SG: Cason Wallace
- SF: Luguentz Dort
- PF: Chet Holmgren
- C: Isaiah Hartenstein
Kings
- PG: Russell Westbrook
- SG: Keon Ellis
- SF: Zach Lavine
- PF: DeMar DeRozan
- C: Drew Eubanks
Injury Report
Thunder
- Branden Carlson (nasal fracture) is AVAILABLE.
- Thomas Sorber (right ACL surgical recovery) is OUT.
- Nikola Topic (surgical recovery) is OUT.
- Aaron Wiggins (strained left adductor) is OUT.
- Jalen Williams (right wrist surgical recovery) is OUT.
- Kenrich Williams (left knee surgical recovery) is OUT.
Kings
- Dylan Cardwell (G League — two-way) is OUT.
- Keegan Murray (left thumb UCL injury recovery) is OUT.
- Daeqwon Plowden (G League — two-way) is OUT.
- Domantas Sabonis (left knee soreness) is OUT.
- Isaiah Stevens (G League — two-way) is OUT.
Head-to-Head
- Since arriving in Oklahoma City in 2008, the Thunder is 39-23 against the Kings (22-7 at home, 17-16 on the road).
- Since arriving in Oklahoma City in 2008, the Thunder has won the regular season series against the Kings 10 times, lost it 3 times, and tied it 2 times.
- The Thunder went 3-0 against the Kings last season (1-0 at home, 2-0 on the road).
- OKC is 2-0 against Sacramento so far this season (1-0 at home, 1-0 on the road).