Paul Pierce issues stern warning to Thunder as series shifts to Dallas

On Thursday evening, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder dropped their first game of the NBA playoffs with a frustrating home loss to Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks in Game 2 of their second round series. Although Gilgeous-Alexander had arguably his best game of the playoffs so far, the MVP runner up’s Thunder teammates largely let him down in this one, as Oklahoma City had a rough shooting game from beyond the three-point line when compared to Dallas, who was red hot for most of the night from the land beyond.

The series now shifts to Dallas with the Mavericks holding home court advantage, and one person who is a tad worried for how the Thunder will react to that hostile road environment is former Boston Celtics NBA champion Paul Pierce, who recently took to FS1’s Undisputed to relay his concerns.

“On a scale of one to ten, my concern for the Thunder… would be a nine,” said Pierce, per Undisputed on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter. “At first I thought seven, but it should be a nine, because this is, for the first time as a group, they’re going to see what it really feels like to be on the road in a real playoff setting… they’re going to see what a real on the road playoff environment is going to look like, because I don’t think they saw that in New Orleans. Dallas is a different place than New Orleans. The fans are way different.”

A concerning loss

While it’s true that certain role players like PJ Washington and Tim Hardaway Jr. got hot in the Game 2 Mavericks win, the Thunder should probably be a tad concerned that Kyrie Irving registered only nine points in a game his team won. Furthermore, although Doncic had a solid game, the Thunder have yet to experience a true Doncic eruption, which is due to happen at least once this series in all likelihood.

As Pierce referenced, the Thunder had no issues winning on the road in their opening round series vs the Pelicans, which Oklahoma City won in a four game sweep. However, the Mavreicks do boast one of the louder home environments in the NBA and went 2-1 in their arena in their first round series win vs the Los Angeles Clippers, with the two victories both coming in blowout fashion.

It will be interesting to see what the Thunder choose to do about starting guard Josh Giddey, who has been far and away the worst player on the floor for either team this series and saw himself benched down the stretch of the Game 2 Thunder loss. Giddey being played off of the floor in a playoff setting was indeed a potential problem that most saw coming from a mile away, but seeing the third year guard’s struggles in real time has been quite jarring.

In any case, Game 3 is set to get underway on Saturday afternoon.