NBA playoffs 2025: Thunder's thrashing of Grizzlies in Game 1 is one for the NBA record books
The Thunder responded with an emphatic answer on Sunday in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies. Oklahoma City opened a 32-20 first quarter lead that it extended to 68-36 at halftime.
When it was over, the Thunder cruised to a 131-80 win. The margin of victory fell short of the NBA playoff record of 58, set by the 2009 Denver Nuggets and 1956 Minneapolis Lakers. But the 51-point margin is the fifth-largest in playoff history and the largest ever for a Game 1. The previous Game 1 record was 47 points.
Memphis waved the white flag at the start of the fourth by sending its starters to the bench. The Thunder responded in kind, then extended their lead to as much as 56 points (129-73) late in the fourth quarter.
It was the sort of thrashing that's sometimes seen in high school or college when a team is completely outmatched. To see a blowout like this in the NBA is rare. To see it in the playoffs is even more so.
Oklahoma City opened its lead with a dominant first half that's not been seen in the last 28 seasons by a team that didn't feature LeBron James. Per the Associated Press, Oklahoma City's 35-point second-quarter lead (61-28) is the third-largest in the first half of a playoff game since the NBA started tracking play-by-play statistics in 1996-97. James' Cleveland Cavaliers held a 41-point lead in the 2017 playoffs and a 38-point lead in 2016.
Oklahoma City then kept on the gas with a 44-27 advantage in the third quarter.
The win signaled an extension of a dominant regular season in which the Thunder rolled to a 68-14 record with the largest average margin of victory in NBA history (12.9 points per game). Despite this, there was chatter about the lack of playoff experience from a young core that's played in just two postseason series together while advancing to last season's Western Conference semifinals.
Sunday's win should put those concerns to rest. It was a dominant performance during a down game from their MVP candidate and NBA scoring champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored fewer than 20 points for the first time in 73 games.
Gilgeous-Alexander tallied a season-low 15 points while shooting 2 of 10 in the first half and 4 of 13 for the game. In fact, no Thunder player scored more than 21 points in what was truly a team effort that should put the rest of the NBA on notice — as if it wasn't already.
Six Thunder players scored in double figures, led by 21 points from Aaron Wiggins off the bench. Jalen Williams posted a plus-44 in the plus/minus column.
Memphis' Desmond Bane countered with a minus-51 while scoring nine points and turning the ball over four times. Per StatMuse, that's the worst plus/minus rating for a player in an NBA playoff game in the 21st century.
But Bane wasn't the only Grizzlies player stifled by Oklahoma City's swarming defense. Ja Morant was the only Memphis starter to log more made field goals than turnovers.
Only one Memphis starter had more buckets than turnovers. pic.twitter.com/T2yGksOv9w
— StatMuse (@statmuse) April 20, 2025
In total, the Thunder forced 22 turnovers and limited the Grizzlies to 34.4% shooting from the field and 17.6% shooting (6 of 34) from 3-point distance. Oklahoma City countered with just eight turnovers of its own while shooting 50.5% from the field and securing a 54-43 rebounding margin.
It added up to an overwhelming effort from the NBA's best team and a message that Oklahoma City's regular-season dominance through 82 games was certainly no fluke.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
3 minutes ago
- New York Post
Danilo Gallinari's pregnant wife speaks out after shark attack: ‘I'm traumatized'
Eleonora Boi, the pregnant wife of former NBA star Danilo Gallinari, revealed that she's still scared after being hospitalized following a recent shark attack in Puerto Rico. 'I have to say that I'm traumatized,' Boi said on 'Good Morning America' Thursday. 'I started crying and screaming, and I was screaming for help in Italian.' Boi originally detailed the 'worst day of my life' when she posted a photo of herself on Aug. 1 in what appeared to be a hospital. The 'Good Morning America' segment said Boi, a journalist, was swimming with Gallinari and their two children — a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son — in 'waist-deep' waters in Carolina when the attack happened. Boi noted in her Instagram post that the beach was quite populated at the time. 'I felt a strong pain and my thigh was burning, but my idea was, 'Maybe it's a huge jellyfish,'' Boi recalled. 'But, in reality, it wasn't a jellyfish.' The family fled the waters right after the attack, and a good Samaritan helped Boi. The segment noted that an unidentified woman put pressure on her wound with a towel until others arrived to help further. 'Oh, my God, I was saying, 'I don't want to die,' and 'I want that my baby is safe,'' Boi said. 'And I was crying. I was desperate, really desperate.' Boi is quite thankful for the help the woman provided at her moment of need. 'She was an angel. Danilo was with me, and she helped so much,' Boi told the network. 'I would like to say thank you to this woman, because I don't know her name, and I just want to say thank you to her because she helped a lot.' Boi landed in the hospital, where she underwent hours of tests. Since she was six months pregnant at the time, doctors had to perform several hours of tests to ensure the child — Gallinari said it's a boy — was OK and that they could proceed to surgery. Boi is expected to make a full recovery and has weekly visits scheduled with a doctor, per the ABC interview, but she's still struggling with the moment. She initially joked on Instagram about how the shark would be hearing from her legal representatives soon. 'I have to be honest, it's not easy,' Boi said. 'When I remember, I'm still scared. It's difficult.' Boi and Gallinari married in 2022, per People, and he spent this past season in the top basketball league in Puerto Rico following 14 seasons in the NBA, including time with the Knicks from 2009-11.
New York Times
3 minutes ago
- New York Times
Ranking the NBA's 40 best big men, plus schedule highlights
The Bounce Newsletter | This is The Athletic's daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox. Today is the five-year anniversary of the first Play-In Game/Tournament result. The Blazers beat the Grizzlies to secure the final playoff spot in the Western Conference during the bubble. Soon the Play-In Tournament would morph into four teams playing for the last two playoff positions in each conference. While it can provide some exciting basketball, let's celebrate its main outcome, which has been limiting outright tanking down the stretch of each season. To the Play-In! 🥂 Who are the best big men in basketball? Oh, you know you love it! You know I love it. You know the internet is waiting for it? Everybody loves arbitrary rankings! I compile a list with super computers and random guessing, before resigning to 'this is good enough' as the criteria and mode of production. I throw together a couple of graphics via Canva. And the next thing you know, we've got some prime content before the season starts. Advertisement We're going to start ranking some positions! We'll eventually get to lead guards, shooting guards, wings and forwards. But today, we're harkening back to a time when big men ruled the NBA earth! We've taken all of the big men in the NBA and churned out a top-40 list. Some big men were left off this list, but we feel pretty confident you won't entirely hate this. There are seven tiers of big man for the 40 who made the cut. Let's dive in and see just how perfect this carefully curated list is! No offense to any other great big men in this league, but we should all be able to agree that Jokic is in his own tier. Sorry, Sixers fans, but Big Honey is by himself here. After that, I feel very confident putting all my chips in with Wemby as the second best big man in the league. Mostly, it's because I don't believe Embiid can sustain health enough to be the clear-cut number two, and Wembanyama is going to get even better. Davis might have a chance of being higher if he'd stop fussing about playing center. Next part of the list might be controversial. Mostly, there are plenty of Sabonis people who will think he should be higher. I don't think he's bad by any means, but I do believe his lack of defense and inability to play with other big men lowers his ceiling. Also, it wouldn't shock me if Şengün ends up climbing this list quickly. Keeping Mobley out of the top 10 was legitimately tough, but he got the squeeze. I'm hoping he makes this look so stupid in the upcoming season. Zubac still feels super underrated to me, and some may quibble with how high Hartenstein is on this list, but he's phenomenal. Holmgren could also end up making his placement look stupid, but he has to remain healthy. Maybe Turner should be higher than Allen? Gafford could easily be higher than both of them. I've never been a big Vucevic guy, but his offense is still a tough matchup. And while some don't like the Raptors' payroll, I do not think Poeltl is a problem contributing to it. He's super underrated. Yes, I'm already buying the Hansen hype. No, I don't care if it takes a little bit for him to realize it. I'm going all in, and I believe he's a top-25 big man right away with his skill and size. I'm interested to see what Lively and Ware do this season, because they could easily vault themselves into the top-20. Last note for now: I'm still not certain Ayton will be someone JJ Redick likes coaching. Another franchise sold for over $4 billion 🏀 Cane you believe it? The Carolina Hurricanes' owner is purchasing the Blazers. $4.2 billion for the franchise. 🏀 Re-draft 2024! Sam Vecenie decided to re-draft last year's NBA Draft class. Zaccharie Risacher is not number one. 🎧 Top 100! 'The Basketball 100″ book is now also a podcast series, and it's asking the tough questions. Is Kyrie Irving the best number two ever? 🏀 Prodigal son? Kent Lacob is leaving his great job with the Warriors. Why is he leaving his dad's business? 📈 Rise to EuroLeague. Dubai basketball is having a moment. 'This is a story from a movie.' Porter is saying the quiet part out loud Did you know former Denver Nugget and current Brooklyn Net Michael Porter Jr. has a podcast? At this point, is there any player you'd be shocked to learn is also a podcaster? Almost everybody has a podcast these days, so a lot of the things said by current athletes can get lost in the noise. One interview that didn't get lost in the noise this week was MPJ jumping onto someone else's podcast and saying something alarming. This is what he said about potential gambling scandals: 'Think about it. If you can get all your homies rich by telling them, 'Yo, bet $10,000 on my under. This one game I'm gonna act like I got an injury and I'm gonna sit out. I'm gonna come out [of the game] after three minutes.' And they all get a little bag because you did it one game. Advertisement 'That is so not okay, but some people probably think like that. They come from nothing and all their homies have nothing. If I come out of the game after three minutes and y'all all hit on my under, we're all getting a little bag. Obviously my brother (Jontay Porter) went through his situation, Malik Beasley is going through a situation right now. Terry Rozier was in some hot water. But the whole sports gambling entity, bro, it's bad and it's only gonna get worse.' MPJ mentioned players getting death threats, and then said players can't win anymore because they're either messing up someone's under bet or over bet. He's not necessarily wrong. Sports gambling being more and more accessible now is going to make it a reality, whether the NBA is getting a cut of the gambling money from sponsors or not. And while some in my industry (myself included) may be uneasy with sports gambling being so embedded, the truth is that it also helps the economics of coverage, helping people make money across whatever the NBA touches. Full disclosure: We have a partnership with BetMGM! This stuff is everywhere. The NBA can't be happy about the messaging here, though. It's what so many people know and fear with the intertwining of gambling and the NBA. But we're in too deep now and it's something the league and federal authorities will just have to monitor as much as possible. Elsewhere, MPJ had this to say on a different platform, discussing vices like gambling for his brother: 'Everybody has different vices. Everybody has different things that they struggle with. That can go with people who struggle from alcohol, people that struggle with drugs. You know, for example, my brother struggled with gambling. My vice has always come in the form of women. And when I'm far from God, and I'm not in my word, l'm not praying, l'm not prioritizing Him, like that seems to be the place that the devil gets me, is in the space of women.' Advertisement This is honestly such a funny quote to me. Friends and I have laughed about it for days. We'll laugh about it for months, if not years. It's a hilarious pseudo-flex by Porter, just mentioning that he gets a lot of women. And you might be wondering, 'Zach, did you just create this section as a Trojan horse just to present this second MPJ quote?' Yes, yes I did. Keep an eye on these five (40?) games The NBA released its full schedule yesterday. Something I like to do every year is mark a lot of games down that I'm excited to see. Last year, we had about 35 games in the mix. This year? I had to cut it down to this list of 40, just to not make it an entire book. A sample: Western Conference finals preview? Nuggets at Thunder, 9:30 p.m. ET, Feb. 27, ESPN This is the matchup I'm looking forward to the most, and we get it at least four times this season. Denver and OKC have each won a championship in the last three seasons, and we assumed both are running the league for the foreseeable future when they were crowned champs. The Nuggets got cheap and let their depth go, then finally loaded back up with their bench and positions of concern after trading away our guy Michael Porter Jr. this summer. The Thunder had one of the most dominant seasons we'll ever see, have their entire roster intact and look even scarier. But last time, it took them seven games to take out Nikola Jokić and a weak supporting cast. With Denver reloaded, are the champs going to be able to keep beating them? KD in the desert: Houston Rockets at Phoenix Suns, 9:30 p.m. Nov. 24, Peacock This is a bit of a two-fer with Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks facing their old team, but this will primarily be about Kevin Durant coming back to Phoenix to face Devin Booker and his old team. They gave him the exit he wanted, but I'm guessing there won't be a gift basket of gratitude coming from him. He'll want to drop 40 and get a W. Eastern Conference measuring stick 1: Hawks at Magic, 7 p.m., Oct. 24, League Pass Both Orlando and Atlanta are looking to be the team that takes advantage of the wide-open East. They both have good young talent. They've both added key veterans. And both of these teams expect to have massive steps forward this season while jockeying for home-court advantage in the first round. Şengün versus Wemby: Rockets at Spurs, 7:30 p.m., Nov. 7, Prime Video Alperen Şengün and Victor Wembanyama have had some interesting battles in their two years. Wemby shut down Şengün a couple of times early last season, which was probably payback from a Wembanyama rookie-year showdown when Şengün had 45 points on the Spurs' franchise guy. Şengün has been trying to go through Wemby's chest every time they play, and Wemby is having to learn how to battle against that brawn. 1 versus 2: Spurs at Mavericks, 9:30 p.m. October 22, ESPN There wasn't debate about whether Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper should be picked first in this draft. This wasn't a Greg Oden-Kevin Durant or Derrick Rose-Michael Beasley situation. Still, getting the first and second picks together is often noteworthy, and the Mavs and Spurs is a fun matchup anyway. Advertisement One more reminder: Check out all of the games for more of the most interesting matchups. Even Jazz games made the cut! Streaming links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
USA Today
34 minutes ago
- USA Today
Warriors announce 2025-26 regular-season schedule
Mark your calendars, the Golden State Warriors' 2025-26 regular-season schedule is here. After a handful of games have been scheduled on the calendar, including the season-opener and Christmas Day, the entire 82-game regular-season schedule has been released by the NBA. Starting with a primetime contest on opening night on Oct. 21, the Warriors' regular-season campaign will begin with a game against the Los Angeles Lakers on NBA on NBC. The Warriors will then host their home opener two days later against the Denver Nuggets. In early November, the Warriors will travel for their first extended road trip with six games on the road. The Warriors have multiple three-game road swings and a four-game road trip before setting sail for another six-game road trip in mid-March. The Warriors will play a franchise-record 34 nationally televised games with contests spanning across NBC, ESPN, ABC, Peacock and Amazon Prime Video. The Warriors are tied with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks with 34 nationally televised games. The Minnesota Timberwolves and Houston Rockets are the next closest teams with 28 games in primetime. Stay tuned to Warriors Wire for more information nd breakdowns regarding the 2025-26 schedule. This post originally appeared on Warriors Wire! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
