Tip-off: 6:30pm @ Target Center, Minneapolis | Broadcast: ESPN
⚡Pod preview: Put your hand in the cookie jar
If the Thunder could just shoot in the playoffs like they do in the regular season, this run would not feel so shaky. Brandon gives the players important advice from this week's pickup corner on the podcast:
⚡ Annoying
It's annoying to lose. One bonus reason to root for the Thunder returning to form: so we can move on from the latest of the annoying narrative tropes that have turned the likes of Nikola Jokic and now Anthony Edwards into scrappy, lovable playoff underdogs. Remember when the internet scrutinized SGA smiling for 1.3 seconds on camera after a postseason loss? Anthony Edwards' smile apparently isn't such an unserious liability for the Wolves. Brian Windhorst paints it like it's beaming from the heart of a champion:
Anthony Edwards and the team flight that led to Minnesota's 42-point blowout over OKC - ESPN
If you read the ESPN comics, good guy Ant is leading the ragtag Wolves against the big bad Thunder and the enforcement of legal guarding rules when SGA drives, with their lovable shover, a gigantic Sixth Man of the Year, an all-time rim defender, and an all-time...pouty chucker at his side. In my book, Minnesota is a highly pedigreed, expensively assembled title contender who doesn't need our sympathy.
⚡Prediction: OKC 128 MIN 125 (Thunder in 5)
If the Thunder stop taking two steps forward and one step back, my predictions will start coming to fruition. Their regular season identity: a juggernaut defense with an efficient, SGA-fueled offense has only partially held in the postseason. Until Game 3, they'd dominated (in character) most of the 2025 playoffs while losing some close games (out of character). But after getting off the heartburn against Denver, they once again find themselves pretty even with their playoff matchup, one loss away from another super-stakes Game 5 at home.
Either because they play much better and/or because Mark Daigneault ditches the double big lineup, I am still optimistically expecting the Thunder offense to resurrect and stabilize their funky postseason identity.