It wasn’t a great outing on Monday night, but the Oklahoma City Thunder got the job done.
The Thunder, thanks to a late fourth-quarter run, fended off the New Orleans Pelicans 97-89 in Game 4 of their opening-round playoff series. The win completed the series sweep, and officially sent the top seeded team in the Western Conference into the next round — which is something the Thunder haven’t done in nearly a decade.
After a tight battle through the first 36 minutes, the Pelicans appeared to be running away with the game early in the fourth quarter. They entered the period with a one-point lead, which was their first entering the final period all series, and nearly pushed it to seven points right out of the gate.
The Thunder, though, responded immediately with an 8-0 burst of their own to get right back in it, thanks largely to back-to-back 3-pointers from Josh Giddey. They quickly pushed that to a 18-2 run and held the Pelicans to just one field goal — a C.J. McCollum layup — the rest of the way. The Pelicans managed just 18 points in the fourth quarter while the Thunder sealed the eight-point win, which gave them their first series win since the 2015-16 campaign when they reached the Western Conference finals.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led Oklahoma City with 24 points and nine rebounds in the win. Jalen Williams had 24 points and eight rebounds, and Giddey finished with 14 points. All four of his 3-pointers came in the fourth quarter to help power the final run.
The Pelicans struggled for much of the night offensively while Zion Williamson — who injured his hamstring in their first play-in tournament game and has been recovering ever since — watched on from the bench. They shot just 3-of-19 from the 3-point line as a team in the first half, and Brandon Ingram entered the fourth quarter having made just one of his 10 field goal attempts. He finished with eight points and shot 2-of-14 from the field. The Pelicans didn’t score more than 92 points in any of their four playoff games.
McCullom led the Pelicans with 20 points in the loss, and Jonas Valanciunas had 19 points and 13 rebounds. The Pelicans finished shooting just 8-of-34 from behind the arc, and they had 18 turnovers as a unit.
This post will be updated with more information shortly.
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