How Chet Holmgren went toe-to-toe with the reigning MVP and has OKC daring to dream

For six minutes, you could see exactly why the Thunder felt like they needed to back up the Brinks truck for Isaiah Hartenstein this summer … and why his season-starting absence with a fractured bone in his left hand seemed particularly damaging for Oklahoma City against a Denver Nuggets team it spent all of last season dueling for the West’s No. 1 seed.

It’s not exactly surprising when Nikola Jokić gets where he wants when he wants to do whatever he wants; that’s kind of what three-time Most Valuable Players do. But as he blithely ambled through the visiting Thunder in the early going on Thursday — six points, three assists, two rebounds, a block and a steal in the first half of the first quarter, completely controlling the game — it seemed like you could see the limit of Oklahoma City’s pre-existing structure.

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Yes, playing the über-skilled Chet Holmgren as your full-time center affords a great many benefits for a Thunder offense that wants to go five-out as much as possible. But relying on a 7-foot-1 bundle of bamboo stalks to body up, block out and bear down on a massive, mauling monster like Jokić all by himself — rather than tag-teaming with another, burlier 7-footer in Hartenstein in the Length on the Ball with More Length Behind coverage that the Timberwolves deployed so well in the 2024 playoffs — seemed like a recipe for getting pushed around inside, giving up offensive rebounds, and generally being unable to slow down a Denver offense designed to pulverize.

And then the game kept going, and it became clear that, quiet as it’s kept, bamboo’s a hell of a lot stronger than it looks.

TNT color commentator Stan Van Gundy said it multiple times on Thursday night, but only because it bore repeating: In a game featuring the top two finishers in 2023-24 MVP voting, winner Jokić and runner-up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, it was Holmgren, just beginning his sophomore season, who often looked like the best player on the floor. After that shaky early start, Holmgren shined, finishing with 25 points, a career-high-tying 14 rebounds and five…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-10-25 15:14:00

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