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Andrew Lopez, ESPN
NEW ORLEANS — The youngest No. 1 seed in the history of the NBA playoffs certainly isn’t being hindered by its lack of playoff experience.
The Oklahoma City Thunder rolled to another dominant victory over the eighth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday afternoon, winning 106-85 to take a 3-0 series lead.
“We just try to clear the hurdle in front of us,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “That’s how we’ve been through time, not just this season.
“And the word I’ve used with the team is ‘uncommon’ all year. I think they just have an uncommon maturity and uncommon poise, uncommon competitiveness and togetherness. And with that competitiveness, they’re not just siloed competitors. They compete together. And I think that gives you confidence in stressful situations or on the road when you’re doing it as part of a unit, and I really think they feel like that.”
Only twice in NBA history has all of a team’s points in a playoff game come from players under 25 years old: the Thunder in Game 2 and the Thunder in Game 3 of this series.
Oklahoma City has used 13 players so far this series, and nine of them are playing in a playoff game for the first time. Three of the four players on the roster with the most experience in playoff games — Gordon Hayward, Mike Muscala and Bismack Biyombo — have combined for zero points through three games, with Hayward playing just over 27 minutes while the other two have yet to play.
Outside of Hayward, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luguentz Dort and Isaiah Joe are the only other rotational players that had playoff experience before this season.
“Every experience you live through and you learn,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “That’s what we did through that experience with all 82 games this season. We learned from every experience and we tried to get better from it to get better for this moment.”
The Thunder showed some of their poise after the game’s first possession Saturday, when forward Jalen Williams, Oklahoma City’s No. 2 scorer, took an inadvertent shot to the face from Brandon Ingram and left the court to be evaluated just 33 seconds after tip-off.
The Thunder needed an early timeout to check on Williams, who said he got hit in the eye by Ingram’s palm, something he called an unlucky play because Ingram stayed vertical. Rookie Cason Wallace took Williams’ place. But even with Williams in the locker room, the Pelicans couldn’t maintain the early advantage and had just 14 points in the game’s first 10 minutes.
Williams returned later in the first quarter and finished with 21 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
“I mean that’s a sign of a really good team,” Thunder guard Josh Giddey said. “One of your main guys goes down, and you bring in Cason and it feels the same. He plays a role. No one tries to be other guys. Guys come in and do that thing. And we’ve got a really deep squad. You look down that bench, and everyone that touches the floor has an impact.”
The Thunder’s defense has worn down the Pelicans this series, holding them to an average of 89.7 points in the first three games. New Orleans hasn’t had Zion Williamson this series, but the defensive trend is something that showed itself in the one game Williamson didn’t play against Oklahoma City this season, on Jan. 26, when the Thunder held the Pelicans to a season-low 83 points. With Williamson, New Orleans scored 112 and 110 points in their two other regular-season matchups.
Any time the Pelicans showed signs of life Saturday, the Thunder were able to fight back.
New Orleans cut the lead to one with 4:39 in the second quarter and had a chance to tie, but Jonas Valanciunas missed his second free throw. The Thunder responded with three consecutive 3-pointers in what ultimately became a 14-0 run.
After falling behind by 14 at halftime, the Pelicans scored the first two buckets of the third quarter, but the Thunder answered with two 3-pointers in 19 seconds. Later in the quarter when the lead was back to 10, Oklahoma City had a 9-0 run.
“Basketball is a game of runs, we know that,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We always say it’s a 48-minute game and to just worry about stacking possessions. And we did so, and because of it, we won the last few games.”
Game 4 against the Pelicans will be Monday night, when the Thunder will look for their first playoff sweep since taking out the Dallas Mavericks in four games in the first round in 2012. That was also the year the Thunder made their only Finals appearance since the team moved to Oklahoma City.
If the Pelicans want to prevent that, they’ll have to not only shoot better after being 38.1% from the floor and just 9-of-32 on 3s, but also protect the ball. The Pelicans had 21 turnovers in Game 3, tied for the most New Orleans had in any regular-season game this year.
“They’re a good defense for a reason, and to beat this team we have to be really sound in our execution and when we’re not and we’re getting into the paint and trying to throw interior passes they’re really good,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said. “They’re handsy. All of their guys, this is what they do, they’ve done it all season and it hurt us.”
Green said he told his players the series wasn’t over but that things needed to change heading into Game 4.
“Look, we’ve got another game here at home, and we’re not going to fix all of our issues tonight,” Green said. “Go home, have a good meal and we’ll come back tomorrow and practice and go over what we need to do and get ready for the next game.”