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Thunder-Warriors: 4 takeaways from an OKC smackdown

SGA continues his chase of multiple milestones and Jalen Williams finds his rhythm.

Brian Martin, for NBA.com

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 30 points to lead the Thunder to a 131-94 win over Golden State.

SAN FRANCISCO — After finishing 2025 with a league-high 86 wins – the fourth most in a single calendar year in NBA history – the Oklahoma City Thunder began 2026 in similar fashion, defeating the Warriors 131-94 to open the new year at 1-0.

Most Wins, Calendar Year

  • 89 wins: 1996 Bulls
  • 88 wins: 2015 Warriors & 2021 Suns
  • 87 wins: 2016 Warriors
  • 86 wins: 2025 Thunder

Here are four takeaways from OKC’s 30th win of the season.

1. Thunder overpower shorthanded Warriors

Playing without Stephen Curry (ankle), Jimmy Butler III (illness) and Draymond Green (rest), the Warriors faced a tall task against the league-leading Thunder.

OKC built a double-digit lead in the opening quarter, but the Warriors kept battling, cutting the Thunder lead to two (38-36) on a Will Richard 3-pointer with 7:19 to play in the second.

But Golden State would get no closer. Oklahoma City responded with a game-changing 19-0 run over the next 4 minutes and 20 seconds – capped by Luguentz Dort banking in a high-arching 3-pointer – to seize control of the game and never look back.

 

“They came out playing aggressive, with a lot of energy – nothing that we don’t expect from them,” said Chet Holmgren after the win. “We just had to settle in, get to our stuff and make plays. We did that in the second quarter and continued that through the game.”

The Thunder led by 19 at the half, then stretched the lead to 30+ in the third quarter before sitting their starters for the fourth. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played in 34 of OKC’s 35 games so far this season, but he’s only appeared in 17 fourth quarters. 

By the end of the night, OKC had held Golden State to its lowest point total (94), its lowest field-goal percentage (35.6%) and largest loss (37) of the season.

2. SGA extends streak, chasing 50-40-90

In the rafters of Chase Center is Wilt Chamberlain’s retired No. 13. He is the only player in NBA history to have a longer streak of 20+ point games than Gilgeous-Alexander.

Chamberlain’s record mark of 126 consecutive 20+ point games began on Oct. 19, 1961, when the Warriors were still in Philadelphia, and ended on Jan. 19, 1963, after the team had relocated to San Francisco.

With a game-high 30 in just 28 minutes, Gilgeous-Alexander extended his own streak to 106 games on Friday – hitting the 20-point mark with a pair of free throws with 7:03 remaining in the third quarter – to move within 20 games of Chamberlain.

In addition to his remarkable consistency, Gilgeous-Alexander has been incredibly durable, having missed just one game all season. If he does not miss another game, his target date to break Chamberlain’s record is Thursday, Feb. 12, when the Thunder host the Bucks (7:30 p.m. ET, Prime Video).

Along with chasing Chamberlain’s streak, Gilgeous-Alexander has another prestigious club within his sights this season: becoming the 10th member of the NBA’s 50-40-90 club – shooting 50+ percent on field goals, 40+ percent on 3-pointers and 90+ percent on free throws.

The 50-40-90 club includes: Steve Nash (4x), Larry Bird (2), Kevin Durant (2x), Mark Price, Reggie Miller, Dirk Nowitzki, Stephen Curry, Malcolm Brogdon and Kyrie Irving. 

How close is Gilgeous-Alexander to joining them? After Friday’s game, he’s shooting 56.1% from the field and 42.5% from 3-point range, both career-highs. The only mark he’s missing is free-throw percentage. After going 7-for-7 on Friday, Gilgeous-Alexander boosted his mark from 88.6% to 88.9% as he aims for a second season shooting 90+ percentage (career-high 90.5% in 2022-23).

If he does so, he could post the highest scoring average (32.1 after Friday) of any season in the 50-40-90 club. The only other player to average more than 30 on that level of efficiency? Steph Curry (30.1 in 2015-16).

3. OKC tries to join Golden State in 70-win club

On Dec. 10, the Thunder won their franchise-record 16th straight game to become the second team in NBA history to open a season 24-1 through 25 games. The other? The 2015-16 Warriors, who went on to win a record 73 games that season.

However, after that record-tying start, the Thunder dropped four of their next six games – including three to the San Antonio Spurs, who handed OKC its first consecutive losses since April. Since those back-to-back defeats, the Thunder have won four straight following Friday’s rout.

At 30-5 through 35 games, the Thunder have an 85.7% win percentage, which puts them back on a 70-win pace (70.29 to be exact). They would become only the third team in NBA history to win 70+ games in a single season, joining the 2015-16 Warriors and 1995-96 Bulls (72-10).

The Thunder already joined the Warriors and Bulls in the history books as the only teams to start 30-5 or better in consecutive seasons. The Bulls did it in 1995-96 and 1996-97, while the Warriors did so in three straight seasons: 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17.

4. Jalen Williams finding his rhythm

After playing through torn ligaments in his wrist during the Thunder’s championship run last season, Jalen Williams had offseason surgery to repair the injury, which forced him to miss all of training camp and OKC’s first 19 games of the season.

In Friday’s win, Williams finished with 12 points, six rebounds and two assists in 21 minutes in just his 16th game of the season as he continues to work his way back to last year’s All-NBA Third Team form.

Williams discussed his mindset of reintegrating himself with the Thunder in the middle of the team’s incredibly hot start to the season on NBA Nightcap on Prime Video. 

“It’s a little difficult when your team starts like 21 and zero,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a little harder, but it’s also easier at the same time. There’s not anything that I have to force. I think just having two hand surgeries has been more of the difficult part.

“Going five months without using my hand to my first reps being on a team where everybody’s going for us every night – and I’m trying to figure that out as well – that’s more of the hard part: trying to figure out where I fit in with the team. When somebody’s out, everybody else is doing more and more, so trying to complement them as I get back into something that looks more seamless.”

Three plays from Friday’s win showcased Williams at his best – crashing the glass for a putback dunk, running the break for an alley-oop finish, and going coast-to-coast with a full-speed crossover and a running finish off the glass.

When comparing this season to last, Williams’ numbers are nearly identical in rebounds (5.3), assists (5.4) and steals (1.6). But, as expected when coming off a wrist injury, his shooting and scoring (16.9 vs. a career-high 21.6 last season) are not quite back to where they were a year ago.

Williams is shooting 45.3% overall and 30.2% from 3-point range – both career lows and well below his career marks of 50.8% from the field and 37.8% from 3-point range. 

But the more time he has back on the court to get game-time reps and reintegrate himself with his teammates, the more those numbers should regress toward the mean – and that could mean trouble for Thunder opponents.

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Brian Martin has covered the NBA and WNBA for more than 15 years. You can e-mail him here and follow him on X.

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