PHOENIX — Lost in the swell of officiating hullabaloo of the Phoenix Suns’ Game 2 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder was the biggest momentum shift of the series.
Phoenix feigned off a great first half from OKC to be within eight and put up a major fight in the fourth quarter to make the Thunder chain together a few key possessions to avoid dramatics.
Through all that, Oklahoma City All-NBA guard Jalen Williams tweaked his left hamstring in the mid-third quarter and didn’t return. Williams will be evaluated on a week-to-week basis, which would rule him out for the next three games of the series.
This came just as Williams started looking fully like himself through an injury-riddled season.
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Williams was 16-of-26 (61.5%) from the field with 41 points, 10 assists and two turnovers in 52 minutes of this series. During Game 2 in particular, Williams was getting downhill at will, exposing Phoenix’s on-ball defense that had been doing a great job covering for those limitations in a team-wide effort on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. That, however, opened up the floor to Williams, who was gliding through the lane with ease.
While Williams is sidelined, could this series change? Can Phoenix win Game 3 to become the first team to beat OKC in the first round the last three years? Show the Thunder they bleed a little bit? Briefly make this a series?
Williams was out for the first 19 games of the season due to offseason surgery on his wrist. He returned for 24 before the right hamstring popped up, sitting him down 10 games. Just two contests later, he re-aggravated it. That sat him down for 16 more and he played in seven of the 11 final games of the season.
To be clear, OKC still won 64 games without him. Maybe its status as title favorites would fade if Williams proves to be out long term, but the Thunder could still win it all in that reality, a ridiculous compliment to their supporting cast.
Initially in mid-January, Oklahoma City mixed through perimeter players to fill Williams’ spot. It started Aaron Wiggins, Cason Wallace, Ajay Mitchell or Isaiah Joe before Williams’ second stint out in March led to Wallace earning most of the starts, with Mitchell snagging a few too. But in the last game of the season when OKC played its main dudes, Wallace got the nod in a March 30 win over the Lakers, so perhaps he’s the guy.
“Anytime you lose an All-NBA player they’ll look a little bit different,” Suns head coach Jordan Ott said. “But Mitchell has played so well, Wiggins who hasn’t played much in this series is more than capable — they’ll be able to have other guys out there and it’s the same type of deal of how do we either take the possession away from them or make their shots as inefficient and low quality as possible.”
The choice for OKC is essentially offense versus defense.
Mitchell, a second-round pick in 2024, emerged as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate to provide a much-needed offensive boost as a supplementary ball-handler behind Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams.
The 6-foot-3 combo guard came into the league known for his rim pressure and clever pacing to find touch shots, a go-to trait that has carried over. Mitchell attempted 36% of his shots from 5-14 feet this season, ranking in the 99th percentile for his position, per Cleaning the Glass. He converted on an excellent 50% of them after a 48% knockdown rate as a rookie. His rim rate is also solid, right around 30% across two years, higher than any Phoenix guard.
“Credit to him, his first playoffs, appears ready for the moment,” Ott said of Mitchell. “I thought some of his catch-and-shoot shots were big for them. He’s able to playmake. He has the ability to get downhill, not only to score for himself but the passes to the rim. He’s got a little bit of everything. He has great iso game. And then defensively, he’s been much improved, even over the course of the year.
“They just found another guy that has quickly improved in their system and it just seems like another guy that they can go to in different spots, especially with Shai off the floor and be comfortable with them functioning at a high level offensively.”
Wallace received votes on Defensive Player of the Year ballots after leading the NBA in steals. He is a phenomenal on-ball defender with fantastic instincts, where you can tell offensive players show more caution around him than most. Despite being just 22 years old, Wallace is at a built 6-foot-4 and rarely gets pushed around by guards. He has been a game-changer on many accounts the past two years without touching the ball much. Erm, except when he takes it.
While Mitchell can hold up defensively, Wallace is still a question mark offensively. The No. 10 pick in 2023 likes to score around the rim too but shot just 61% there this season and is essentially only looking to get there or take 3s. He was a below-average 35.8% shooter on catch-and-shoot triples this season.
Williams was defending Jalen Green, so that level of responsibility could mean we see Wallace. Then again, the Thunder’s team defense has been as awesome as expected. Their help toward Green has been a mix between what Dillon Brooks (little help) and Devin Booker (a lot of help) have been seeing.
Green is getting a big man at the level of the screen to cut off his driving lane, while there’s always a help defender around the rim if he gets there. He’s allowed more freedom in the midrange, where rotators are near but not fully committing like they do with Booker.
On the second shot attempt, watch how Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren immediately recover toward the basket once Green drives on Alex Caruso.
arizonasports.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/green-middies.mp4On the last one, Luguentz Dort even briefly stops to slightly help off Booker in a late-clock scenario. These guys are good.
Green was 7-of-15 in Game 2 before missing seven of his final eight shots. He committed four turnovers in the fourth quarter. Most of that came while Williams was in the locker room, and Green’s shooting 35.9% in the series with 10 attempts at the rim, 14 in the midrange and 15 from deep. He’s got four assists and 10 turnovers, really struggling to either handle the ball on drives or make the right choice if he can get in the paint.
That is otherwise known as OKC’s gameplan working. It shouldn’t feel the need to lean defense because of Williams’ defensive matchup.
If OKC isn’t too afraid of Green, we could instead see a healthy dose of Isaiah Joe from OKC for maximum spacing in Gilgeous-Alexander’s favor.
Joe is a tremendous sharpshooter that boasts a 42.3 3P% despite how many of his attempts come at an increased degree of difficulty. Even though he’s essentially the seventh perimeter player in the rotation, Joe played 25-plus minutes 21 times this year, just as he did last season, so head coach Mark Daigneault has trusted him for a while now despite the litany of options at his disposal.
To that note, Daigneault went 10-deep in both games to begin the series. If he wants to hold onto that approach, that could mean Wiggins or Jared McCain get the call.
Wiggins was a key member of the rotation last season before falling out of favor this year as a scoring wing that is an OK shooter and serviceable defender. McCain, a trade deadline acquisition basically for nothing since OKC was looking to offload first-round picks it didn’t have room for contract-wise, can flat-out shoot it and score with his high IQ that has unsurprisingly blended in quickly.
The read from this vantage point is lots of Joe, or a decent sprinkling of McCain given the floor balance questions.
While Williams’ primary value to OKC comes via his complete offensive game on the ball and all-league defense, he’s also one of the Thunder’s best shooters. Without him, it’s going to be Dort, Caruso, Wallace and Mitchell all spacing the floor as below-average shooters. OKC is quietly shooting 32.6% from deep in the series. Expect Phoenix to be even more aggressive in its help toward SGA knowing the ball can’t spray around to a weapon like Williams.
The other guess is we see double-big lineups.
Backup 5 Jaylin Williams, known more last year for taking charges and leading the vibes on the bench, made a jump in his fourth season that has had Daigneault stick with a backup big in the rotation after winning a title without one. Last postseason, Williams was only consistently involved in the conference semifinals matchup with Denver, playing 74 of his 141 playoff minutes in that series.
Williams is an undersized big who can pass with lots of strength and decent mobility, but most importantly, he is a career 38.7% 3-point shooter. He and Chet Holmgren can maintain spacing together for five-out lineups while starting center Isaiah Hartenstein rests.
We saw that duo for only a few possessions in the fourth quarter of Game 2, but on the season, it was a healthy 329 minutes with a strong 16.3 net rating. Williams and Hartenstein, not so much, at just 25 total minutes.
Whatever Oklahoma City chooses to do without Williams, it does so with the gold standard of continuity and cohesion. It would be shocking to see the Thunder look lost and stumble, an insane statement to make about a contender missing its second-best player.
With that said, this still gives the Suns an opportunity. OKC looked the most vulnerable last postseason when its offense stalled out, and if Phoenix can get back to containing Gilgeous-Alexander as it did in Game 1, it could be in business.
Five numbers for the Suns to improve
Turnovers, duh.
They stand at 41-18 Suns and points off turnovers are 56-11 Thunder.
Ott said the Suns’ spacing was much better in Game 2 but the ball-handlers have to have an understanding of dribbling into crowds, instead taking the available shot, even though it isn’t the greatest of quality. In other words, a defense like OKC’s does not allow you to pass up a good shot for a great shot.
Phoenix was always going to turn it over a fair bit in this series. The issue is it’s about five too many a game, and they should be forcing more than five more than they are at the moment. Therein lies getting doubled up. The Suns would have to play pretty much perfect basketball in every other facet if this persists.
How about the 3s and ball movement to generate ’em?
When taking out the meaningless last game of the regular season and adding on both play-in games, the Suns are averaging 20.2 assists and 12.2 3-pointers a game over their last 10 fixtures. In the regular season, Phoenix had a record of 28-9 when it reached 25 assists and 14-3 when it hit at least 18 3s. The assist number hasn’t been hit in any of those 10 games, while the only time 18 triples was cracked was the play-in victory over the Golden State Warriors.
This is more than likely the fate of the offense now with the trio of Booker, Brooks and Green only having this period of time to figure out how to balance everything. But any return to form on the team offensive front would go a long way in this series.
To no surprise, Phoenix has struggled at the rim this past week. The Suns sported one of the league’s worst rim rates this season and have taken only 36 shots there through two games, compared to OKC’s 47. Phoenix has only made half of them, 18 for a 50% conversion rate, while the Thunder are shooting 72.3% inside.
Part of the struggle for the Suns is they are unable to take advantage of OKC’s aggressive ball-screen coverage, with its big often at the level of the screen. It can afford to do that, even to Suns ball-handlers that are poor pull-up shooters from 3, because the rotations and recoveries on the back side are simply sensational.
“It’s different for sure,” Ighodaro said of how quick and aggressive OKC’s defense is. “You want to be an outlet for the ball-handler because they’re putting two on the ball. I also gotta put pressure on the rim and they also have a low man. They fly around at a high level and we just gotta make those passes, swing the ball around, move them side-to-side a bit and be aggressive.”
The Suns possessing a bigger threat as a roller would let them capitalize on the space from there, whether it’s in the short roll or on catches and lobs at the basket. Mark Williams’ absence has loomed large in that regard.
How does that 50% get better?
“Transition,” Ott started with. “We don’t get (to the rim) often. We can manipulate maybe a little bit more out of pick-and-roll to try and open it up. Mark’s not playing, he’s the guy that can really score efficiently down there. I think (Khaman Maluach) can fill some of those gaps with his size and even the vertical spacing of it all. The easiest one is, when we get an offensive rebound, can we finish instead of kicking it back out? Some of those things that we’ve stressed all year we just gotta do at a higher level in the playoffs.”
That’s where Ighodaro has really been exploited, as his floater is not going in and all his work throughout the year to be more aggressive scoring at the rim has been for naught against a hyper-long and athletic Thunder squad that’s denied him there a few times.
Ighodaro has to convert on ’em.
“Yeah for sure,” he said when asked if he liked the looks. “I think I rushed a little bit at the rim, (not) finishing the shots I usually finish. Rim looks are good for us, chance to get to the free-throw line so I’m going to keep going after those.
Would Ott consider Rasheer Fleming then as a small-ball five off the bench?
He’s the best short-roll finisher on the team and could offer some pick-and-pop elements too, as well as being an obvious lob threat. He’s not going to create separation as a screen-setter and would leave the team without a rim protector on the other end, so it would be a big-time swerve, but if Ighodaro keeps struggling then it’s time to explore alternatives with drastic solutions. That’s why we saw Maluach in Game 2, so perhaps another rookie enters the fold.
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