DENVER — The most tangible opening night difference between the 57-win Thunder that nearly made the Western Conference finals last May and the updated version currently attempting to break through that ceiling might’ve been the scattering guard who spent a majority of his 19 minutes Thursday night springing into passing lanes and back-tapping offensive rebounds.
The Josh Giddey minutes are now the Alex Caruso minutes. The Thunder would never frame it that way. They’re entirely different players with different responsibilities. But they were swapped straight up for each other this summer, and Caruso essentially steps into the bench rotation spot that would’ve been scripted for Giddey.
Caruso went scoreless in the Thunder’s 102-87 road win over Denver on Thursday night. But he had six rebounds, four assists and blew up the rhythm of a handful of Denver possessions. He finished with a team-high plus-19 and had his teammates glowing postgame.
“Defensive leadership,” Jalen Williams said. “Leadership in general. He’s old.”
“Old as hell,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Like 30.”
A 30-year-old is a wily veteran to these Thunder, especially someone with a championship ring.
“He just brings a defensive mindset,” Williams said. “He kind of talks people into being in the right position. It’s good having someone who has won at the highest level. Because of that, we rotate better and it makes everybody else talk.”
After Thursday morning’s shootaround, Thunder coach Mark Daigneault used a specific example. He had his young team out there readying to go through some traditional Nuggets’ offensive sets, and their newest rotation player was already their most vocal and knowledgable.
“He’s on the side and he’s calling out what we should be doing,” Daigneault told The Athletic. “Contact switch. Rotate this way. His fingerprints are all over everything.”
Daigneault spotlighted Caruso’s versatility as a particular fit within the Thunder’s more position-less approach. They are currently thin in the frontcourt and like to use Holmgren as a floor spacer and occasionally an initiator, meaning they need others to occupy the role often reserved for a traditional center. Caruso will slide into that spot at times.
“He’s the easiest person to do that with because he’ll just pick it up,” Daigneault said. “Then defensively, he’s guarded the primary guy in Chicago the last three years, I think, because the way their team was constructed. But with the way our team is constructed, I actually think he’s got an elite ability to help. So if you can get him in situations where he’s not guarding the guy that’s got the ball, he’s got a Draymond Green mentality and he’s super aggressive and he anticipates everything.”
Caruso wrecked several Nuggets possessions as an off-ball helper in the opener. It’s clear he already has the trust of his younger teammates.
“You talk about feel for the game,” Holmgren said. “I think he’s up there in the top 1 percent of players in general. He’s extremely talented at things you can’t teach — tip-out rebounds or reading plays before they happen. He’s a winner. He doesn’t talk about anything but winning plays. He never says, ‘Oh, I was supposed to get the ball there so I could shoot.’ It’s all talking through coverages and plays and making sure you’re here on time. It’s really refreshing having someone of his level on our team.”
What else is different for the Thunder as they step into the role of West favorite?
Holmgren’s durability
The signature sequence of Holmgren’s eye-popping opener against Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets came during the third-quarter separation stretch. He held steady against a Jokic power post move, wiped away one of his lefty hooks without even the hint of a foul and then beat him down the floor for a transition dunk.
Here’s the sequence that put the Thunder up 14.
CHET HOLMGREN 😤 pic.twitter.com/LaelYq5HN8
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) October 25, 2024
Holmgren didn’t want to ascribe too much importance to the sequence postgame.
“I don’t like to sum up four months of work in one play, one quarter, one game,” Holmgren said.
But Holmgren did concede that he gained muscle this summer, and it has translated into a better version of himself. He bounced off interior contact better on the offensive end and went 11 of 13 on 2s, finishing with 25 points, 14 rebounds, five assists, two steals and four blocks.
“I put on a few pounds,” he said. “But more I just feel better moving, taking contact. I can definitely notice (the added strength) out there.”
Chet Holmgren: “I put on a few pounds. But more I just feel better moving, taking contact. I can definitely notice (the added strength) out there.” pic.twitter.com/E36e1A6AWZ
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) October 25, 2024
Holmgren’s ability to hold up on the interior as the lone big and stay out of foul trouble will be particularly important over the season’s first month. Isaiah Hartenstein broke his hand and will miss at least the next month. Jaylin Williams and Kenrich Williams — Holmgren’s other two backups — remain out indefinitely to start the season. Jaylin is returning from a hamstring issue. Kenrich is recovering from offseason knee surgery.
Without his three backups, Holmgren held his own in the opener.
“I think it’s a testament to what he’s done with his body,” Daigneault said. “He just played minute for minute with Jokić, who is very physical, and didn’t flinch, almost got stronger … What he did minute for minute with Jokic is not to be taken lightly.”
Hartenstein’s eventual return
The biggest potential rotational readjustment for this season’s Thunder can’t come until at least December. Before the playoffs, they’ll want an extended look at what the Holmgren and Hartenstein lineup combinations might look like, adding some bulk and rebounding while potentially sacrificing some floor spacing.
“I’m not glad for the injury, but the timing of it allowed us to see a little bit (in the preseason) and allowed him to get a feel,” Daigneault said. “It looked pretty good.”
Holmgren and Hartenstein played together against the Spurs and Nuggets in a pair of preseason games. They had a couple nice offensive connections, flowing well together. Here’s a dribble handoff action between the two seven-footers.
— 50ClipsDeNBA (@50ClipsDeNBA) October 8, 2024
In his six seasons, Hartenstein has only taken 87 3s and made 27. He’s not a threat who’ll scare defenses from deep. But he’s an excellent passer, and that ability as a high IQ hub is part of what enticed the Thunder to splurge on him in free agency this summer.
“A big part of it is how he plays in the pocket on offense,” Holmgren said of learning Hartenstein’s game in preseason. “He sees the floor before things happen.”
“We don’t look at him as just a five,”Daigneault said. “We don’t just look at him as filling a need. We don’t just look at him as next to Chet. The guy is an elite rim protector, an elite point-of-attack five man defensively. He’s also an incredibly intelligent screener. He understands advantages, how to create them, how to take advantage of them. He can pass. He’s unbelievably skilled. He rebounds both ends. When you got a guy like that at that size, you just get him on the court.”
Playoff lessons
Daigneault rewatched all six of the Thunder’s playoff games against the Mavericks right after that second-round series ended last May. He did it again recently and assigned playoff-slanted film assignments to his staff in recent weeks, digging for potential lessons learned from this core’s first jaunt through the gauntlet.
“Find the things that are relevant in the biggest games that we’re not covering enough,” Daigneault said. “But you also know you’re not going to play 82 games against Dallas.”
The Thunder crushed the Mavericks in Game 1, and they stole Game 4 in Dallas. The series was 2-2 heading back to Oklahoma City, and it felt like the Thunder had regained control. But they lost Games 5 and 6, the two most disappointing nights of their season. Even at the time, Daigneault came out of those final two games believing they’d generated better offense than before in the series. So it’s interesting to hear him reflect on it now.
“They played us differently (after Game 1) when they started bumping the five man low,” Daigneault said. “That changed the feel of the series for us, and we really had to adjust. (Games 5 and 6), I liked how we attacked. I like the quality stuff we got, and I liked the tempo against that particular team. You can’t allow them to dictate the tempo as much as they did in Games 2 through 4. In Games 5 and 6, we loosened the game up, especially in Game 6 in a way that, if I were to replay it all over again with the lessons, the exact same teams and the lessons that we learned, we would have probably gotten more aggressive with tempo earlier in the series and would have gotten to where we were in the last couple of games in terms of how to manipulate their defense in their scheme.”
But that’s the life of a young core growing through the fire.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s leadership style
Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 28 points, seven rebounds, eight assists, two steals and three blocks in the opener. After the game, he delivered one of the night’s better soundbites when asked about the togetherness of this young evolving group.
“A part of it is the front office and the group of guys they bring in,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They do a really good job of picking people to be a part of the organization and not just players. From there, we all have the same goals in mind. We want to win and we want to win big. But we all know it’s about day-to-day tasks and checking day-to-day boxes to get to our end goal. That’s all at the front of our minds. So egos and numbers and statistics doesn’t come into play. When you win big, all that other stuff will come — the money, the accolades, everything you want will come.”
(Photo of Chet Holmgren: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
