OKC Thunder Continues to Make History With Uncommon Core

It hasn't looked pretty nor smooth thus far for the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2025-26 campaign and yet they sit at 2-0.

This has been a season defined by guts and grit for the OKC Thunder with two games under their belt, both going to double overtime before the Bricktown ballers pulled out a pair of wins. It marks the first time that any NBA team has begun their season with back-to-back double overtime contests.

The amount of adversity the Thunder have battle through to get to this messy wins is admirable and a sign of just how uncommon this championship core is.

Oklahoma City was down seven players in this game - six of whom are set to play a major role in this rotation - including All-NBA swingman Jalen Williams, Defensive aces Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace, sharpshooter Isaiah Joe and depth pieces Kenrich Williams and Nikola Topic all in street clothes.

Missing out on these massive pieces to start the season hasn't hindered the Thunder's ability to start 2-0 with a win over the reigning Eastern Conference Champions.

Indiana looks much different than they did this past June. Of course star Tyrese Haliburton is out for the season after suffering a ruptured achilles in Game 7 of the NBA Finals and Myles Turner now plays for the rival Bucks - but the Pacers also missed scrappy guard TJ McConnell who was out with a hamstring injury and would've been big in this late game scenario for the Pacers.

This is a lot of basketball to play in a short order, but the Oklahoma City Thunder just found ways to win.

Take Thursday night for example. The second straight game in which OKC doesn't shoot the ball well (28% from 3), they didn't win the turnover battle as each team had 14, their typical fast break dominance swung the other way with the Pacers leading fast break points 23-13. The Bricktown ballers often win points in the paint but on Thursday it went to Indiana to 56-50.

However, Oklahoma City was able to clean the glass at a better rate than Indiana hauling in five more rebounds than the Pacers and lean on a career night from superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and bench booster Ajay Mitchell.

Gilgeous-Alexander went for 55 points on 15-for-31 shooting from the floor (48%), 2-for-7 from 3-point land (28%) and a jaw-dropping 23-for-26 at the charity stripe. The league's MVP was in attack mode all night scoring double-digit points in three of the four regulation periods and posting a combined 15 points in the two overtime frames.

Mitchell notched a career high 26 points while Aaron Wiggins was the team's best 3-point shooter knocking down five of the team's 10 triples on 50% shooting en route to 23 points. Oklahoma City got just enough to sneak out a 141-135 win.

This young core just continues to make history.