The Oklahoma City Thunder had plenty of time off ahead of their first two playoff series.
Now, in the Western Conference finals against the Minnesota Timberwolves, it will be the Thunder who come into the series on short rest while their opponent has much more time to recover.
The series begins Tuesday in Oklahoma City.
The Thunder are coming off a 125-93 win over the visiting Denver Nuggets on Sunday in Game 7 of their second-round series.
The Timberwolves haven’t played in six days after closing out the Golden State Warriors in five games.
Oklahoma City had one week between games before its first-round series against Memphis and then nine days between games before the series against the Nuggets.
In the first round, the Thunder opened with a 51-point win over the Grizzlies, but dropped Game 1 to Denver after fading late.
Minnesota had a six-day layoff before each of its first two series, winning Game 1 vs. the Los Angeles Lakers and dropping Game 1 to Golden State. The Timberwolves won each series in five games.
The Timberwolves are in the conference finals for the second consecutive season and the third time in their history. Minnesota has never advanced to the NBA Finals.
Oklahoma City is in the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2016 and looking for its first finals appearance since 2012.
The series features two of the NBA’s top defenses, both during the regular season and in the playoffs.
The Thunder boast a 101.6 defensive rating — points allowed per 100 possessions — in 11 playoff games, best this postseason. Minnesota’s 106.8 defensive rating is second.
It also features two of the league’s top young stars in Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards.
Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 29.0 points, 6.4 assists and 5.9 rebounds this postseason while Edwards is averaging 26.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 5.9 assists.
Gilgeous-Alexander, the front-runner for Most Valuable Player honors, is looking forward to the matchup against cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker of Minnesota.
The two players were born less than two months apart in Toronto and both attended Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn.
“It’ll be very fun,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “It’s hard to even explain. If you know how close we are, he’s literally like my second brother. He’s been through every stage of life with me — picking up a basketball to going to prep school to making the NBA, we’ve gone through every situation together. For both of us to be where we are is special, to compete against each other even more special.
“But I am trying to take his head off for sure.”
In a 2023 play-in game, Alexander-Walker helped hold his cousin to a 5-of-19 shooting night.
Alexander-Walker said Gilgeous-Alexander’s consistency has lifted him to a different echelon.
“That comes from diligence, hard work, seeing it first hand and discipline that truthfully I haven’t seen in anybody else,” Alexander-Walker said. “I have not seen discipline like his. So I think that’s the main reason why people think he’s made a jump when really he’s just been able to be consistently that, because he’s been so disciplined in his approach.”
The teams split their four-game season series and split their two games in Oklahoma City.
Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert played in just one of those games — a New Year’s Eve loss — while Chet Holmgren appeared in two of the games for the Thunder.
“Apples to apples, I don’t know if those games are the perfect framework through which to look at the series,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It’ll be different.”
–Field Level Media
