3 Takeaways From OKC Thunder's Game 1 Blunder

The Oklahoma City Thunder had a Game 1 victory in its grasp — only to throw it all away in the end.

A costly late-game decision allowed the Denver Nuggets to creep back in the contest and steal a 121-119 win in Oklahoma City. Nikola Jokic nearly got in foul trouble, but found a way to stay on the court down the stretch and put up 42 points, 22 rebounds and six assists.

The Thunder played a sound game overall, but the costly mistakes added up. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's 33 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists started off the series with an encouraging sign — it just was made irrelevant by the final outcome

With that, Oklahoma City loses the first game of its 2025 playoff run. The Memphis Grizzlies were a relatively easy opponent to get through, but Denver proved it isn't going to be walkover by any means.

Here are three takeaways from Monday night's loss:

A Damaging Decision

Just 11 seconds remained on the clock of the fourth quarter, seemingly with near certainty that the Thunder would pull away with a win.

After some back-and-forth trips to the charity stripe, Gilgeous-Alexander found the gap for an emphatic dunk to put Oklahoma City up 119-116. Now that the Nuggets had the ball back, they had two glaring weakness — zero timeouts and stranded without Jokic.

All the Thunder had to do was defend Denver — without its best player even on the court — for a single possession. Even if a Nuggets player hit a shot, at best the game would be sent to overtime. Instead, Oklahoma City immediately fouled Aaron Gordon and sent him to the free-throw line.

Gordon went on to make both of his attempts, and Denver executed the next inbounds play to prevent the ball from getting to Gilgeous-Alexander again. That left Chet Holmgren with one of the biggest moments of his young career on the line — but one he isn't going to remember.

Holmgren missed both of his free-throw attempts, and from there, the Nuggets pushed the pace. Russell Westbrook hit Gordon across the court on the fast break, where the forward knocked down a 25-footer to give Denver the win.

Single moments aren't often the deciding factors of games, but it could be argued this was one of those cases. Leaving so much time on the clock and letting the Nuggets get back Jokic was a grave mistake — yet also one that could've easily been avoided. It was a rare lapse of judgement from head coach Mark Daigneault, though he stood by the decision once the dust settled.

"“I thought we executed the fouls pretty well," Daigneault said. "It didn’t go our way tonight, but it’s worked out well for us in the past … I didn’t think that’s why we lost the game.”

J-Dub Has to Step Up

As much as Holmgren and Daigneault can equally be pinned for the final stretch of last night's loss, Jalen Williams' presence wasn't nearly as felt as it should've.

The forward finished with 16 points, seven rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks on just 5-of-20 shooting from the field in 37 minutes. While his +/- of -6 wasn't nearly as low as some of his peers, his help hardly played a role down the stretch.

Williams truly cemented himself as a co-star alongside Gilgeous-Alexander this season, but performances like these make that hard to stand by. The Thunder need him to produce over 20 points per game on good effiency, especially against a Denver team that has a wealth of playoff experience in the past.

As this series progresses, Williams will need to adjust and figure out ways to be better involved offensively. A 2-of-9 clip from behind the arc is definitely not going to cut it, nor should Gordon outscore him in any game situation.

Caruso is a Huge Asset

If you needed any further confirmation that swapping Josh Giddey for Alex Caruso was a great decision by Oklahoma City, then go back and watch this game.

Only rivaled by Gilgeous-Alexander — Caruso was probably the best player on the court for the Thunder in Game 1. The guard dropped 20 points, six assists, five steals and two blocks with 7-of-12 shooting from the field and 5-of-9 from the 3-point line. His impact couldn't be missed throughout the entire night.

It's hard to imagine too many more offensive performances of this nature for Caruso in this series, but the 3-point shot has seemed to fully come back around again. The one thing that absolutely won't go away is his defense, and it isn't going to get any easier for the Nuggets to avoid.

It didn't matter if you were even Jokic — Caruso was going to attack somebody on every single possession. Even with a commonly smart pass to an open man from the big man, those were often times broken up or taken away by Oklahoma City's shining role player.

Against a Denver team with a lot of offensive playmakers, Caruso's value is going to be one of the highest in the series. Expect him to be a constant in conversation as the wins get even more crucial.