Just like that, the Oklahoma City Thunder now await another week. Playing a hobbled Memphis Grizzlies without Ja Morant, the first seed took care of business with a 117-115 Game 4 win on Saturday to sweep their Round 1 opponent.
After a week off between the regular-season finale and Game 1 against the Grizzlies, the Thunder will wait roughly a week to tie up their sneakers again. Depending on how their schedule shakes out, their next playoff game will be between May 3-6, guaranteeing a week off.
Like last year, they’ll have to wait out their Round 2 opponent as the Denver Nuggets and LA Clippers fight it out in a tight first-round series. To show the razor-thin margin between those two teams, Aaron Gordon’s putback dunk a couple of hours later barely cut into regulation to tie the series at two wins apiece.
How will the Thunder treat this week-long layoff? They have plenty of experience with it as it’ll be the fourth time in the last two years. They swept the New Orleans Pelicans on Apr. 29 and didn’t play the Dallas Mavericks until May 7.
“We’ve had these long layoffs between the one seed last year and the play-in week. We swept last year as well, so we had that long layoff between Round 1 and 2. We had another long layoff this year during the play-in week,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said. “I think we made some progress from last year to this year in terms of our process. We’ve done a nice job of getting ourselves ready for the series. We played well in the Game 1s. I think we maintained relative rhythm and sharpness without games.”
This is the latest rich person problem the Thunder will face. Considering the Nuggets and Clippers will go at least six games, the young first-seed will enter with a significant rest advantage over either veteran squad fresh off a physical battle.