The Western Conference’s top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder (68-14) will face the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies (48-34) in the first round of the 2025 NBA playoffs. The two franchises have not met in the playoffs since 2013-14, when Grit-n-Grind lost a first-round series to Kevin Durant’s Thunder, 4-3.
What we know about the Thunder
They are awesome. The Thunder won 68 games. Of the six other teams ever to do that, four of them won the championship. The other two won one within a season. Oh, and Oklahoma City recorded the second-best net rating in NBA history (+12.8), trailing only Michael Jordan’s iconic 72-win 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.
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They are led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league’s MVP favorite. The 26-year-old averaged 32.7 points (on 52/38/90 shooting splits), 6.4 assists, five rebounds, 1.7 steals and a block in 34.2 minutes per game. He slices his way to wherever he wants, and he can score from everywhere, especially the free-throw line.
Try to stop him. You cannot. He scored at least 20 points in every game but one this season — the fourth game of the year. He scored 30-plus points in more than half of his games, netting 40 on 13 occasions and 50 four times. You get the point. He gets his, and that leads to a lot of wins. He also plays defense. Hard.
Everyone on the Thunder plays defense. As hard as they can. They are rabid, clawing at the ball wherever it goes. Put it on the floor at your own peril. The gap between their defense and the NBA’s second-rated outfit is equal to the gap between a top-10 defense and a bottom-20 one. Which is to say the gap is wide.
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Behind SGA are 24-year-old Jalen Williams and 22-year-old Chet Holmgren. Williams made his first All-Star team this season, averaging a 22-5-5, and Holmgren (15-8-2) might have made it, too, had he not lost three months to a fractured right hip. Oklahoma City kept winning in his absence, and once Holmgren returned he unlocked a double-big lineup that has somehow made the Thunder even more dangerous.
Behind them is a wave of talented contributors, including Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins and Alex Caruso. Even Ousmane Dieng on the end of the bench gives them good minutes. It is a testament to both the identification of talent and the development of it in OKC.
What we know about the Grizzlies
They fired their head coach, Taylor Jenkins, one of the best coaches in the NBA, with nine games remaining in the regular season. The Grizzlies had previously revamped Jenkins’ entire coaching staff in the offseason, adding, among others, Tuomas Iisalo, the Finnish assistant who has since replaced him.
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The internal debate was reportedly centered around Memphis’ offense, which for the season settled into sixth, generating 117.3 points per 100 possessions. Pretty good! Only they ran pick-and-roll — the NBA’s almost ubiquitous offense — less often than every other team. That may not have sat well with superstar point guard Ja Morant. And it may not have worked in the playoffs, either. So Memphis made the move, even if Iisalo was lauded for his more motion-centered offense. It is, to say the least, a weird situation.
It was also another weird season for Morant, whose availability — because of injury or suspension — has been spotty throughout his career. He did not play more than six consecutive games all season. He also ran afoul of the league office again, insisting on a finger-gun celebration, which, given his past disciplinary problems, was not the best look. So he pivoted to a grenade celebration instead. It is all very childish.
Morant, when healthy, was not the superstar-level player he has been, either. He did not make the All-Star team, though his performance ever since, when he is actually on the basketball court, is far better. He averaged 23.2 points (on 45/31/82 shooting splits), 7.3 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game on the year.
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The Grizzlies’ best player this season was Jaren Jackson Jr. (22-6-2 on 49/38/78 splits), the league’s 2023 Defensive Player of the Year. Desmond Bane (19-6-5 on 48/39/89 splits) remains a productive shooting guard. Beyond them are a bunch of developmental success stories, including rookies Zach Edey and Jaylen Wells, who both started for the Grizzlies this season — until Wells suffered a season-ending injury.
Morant, Jackson and Bane once formed the basis of a rising Big Three. The Grizzlies boasted one of the league’s deepest rosters. And they could compete with anyone at the top of the West. They were even that for a spell this season, at least until they shed talent in a cost-cutting effort at the trade deadline.
Again: It has been a weird year in Memphis.
Head-to-head
The Thunder swept their regular-season series with the Grizzlies, 4-0.
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Memphis was without Morant or Jackson in three of the four meetings. Not that it would have mattered. OKC, which was also without multiple key contributors on three occasions, whooped the Grizzlies when healthy, too. SGA scored 35, 32, 41 and 37 points in the four games. Memphis had — or has — no answer.
The Thunder outscored the Grizzlies by 30.8 points per 100 possessions when Gilgeous-Alexander was on the court, operating offensive and defensive units that would have led the NBA by wide margins. It did not matter who was on the floor with him. Hartenstein, Wiggins, Williams and Dort were +21 in eight minutes. Wiggins, Wallace, Kenrich Williams and Ajay Mitchell were +11 in four minutes. Go down the list.
Matchup to watch
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Ja Morant
Let us not overthink this. SGA and Morant are two of the most electrifying players in the entire league, and it will be fascinating to see Morant try to keep pace with Gilgeous-Alexander’s scoring in this series.
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Neither will spend much time guarding the other, unless, of course, they hunt each other in the pick-and-roll. Wells drew the bulk of the SGA assignment in the regular season, and he is no longer available. That responsibility will now likely fall to Vince Williams Jr., who had a modicum of success against SGA in the regular season. It is quite the ask of a mid-second-round pick, though Memphis asks a lot of its projects.
Conversely, the Thunder have any number of options to throw at Morant. According to the NBA’s tracking data, Dort, Caruso, Wiggins and Wallace spent a combined 18:09 on Morant, who in that span finished with 19 points on 7-of-27 shooting (25.9%) and eight assists against four turnovers. Not great.
Crunch-time lineups
Oklahoma City Thunder
It is funny: One of OKC’s most-used fourth-quarter lineups is its garbage-time outfit, since the Thunder blew the doors off so many opponents this season. The same was true in four games against Memphis.
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When games are close, honestly, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault has infinite possibilities. Expect SGA, Williams, Holmgren and Dort — a foursome that outscored opponents by 13.5 points per 100 meaningful possessions this season, according to Cleaning the Glass — on the floor in crunch time. From there the Thunder can go small, playing either Wallace or Caruso or Wiggins or Isaiah Joe (for shooting), or they can go big, playing Hartenstein alongside Holmgren. It is practically unfair the arsenal the Thunder have.
Memphis Grizzlies
When push came to shove in the clutch of a play-in game against the Golden State Warriors, Iisalo trusted Morant, Jackson, Bane, Edey and Scotty Pippen Jr. That group barely played together during the regular season. There is also some question as to whether the slow-footed Edey can stay on the floor in this series. The Thunder have the size and athleticism to make it awfully hard on him. Then again, swapping Santi Aldama’s shooting in for Edey has not been a recipe for crunch-time success, either. To be frank, Iisalo will be lucky to even have the opportunity to search for a proper clutch lineup against OKC.
Prediction: Thunder in five
Give the Grizzlies a game, just to be nice. But OKC is more concerned with the more serious teams it will face down the road in the West than it is with a Memphis team that cannot seem to get its act together.
Series betting odds
(via BetMGM)
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Oklahoma City Thunder (-2000)
Memphis Grizzlies (+1000)
Series schedule (all times Eastern)
Game 1: Sunday @ Oklahoma City (1 p.m., ABC)
Game 2: Tue., April 22 @ Oklahoma City (7:30 p.m., TNT)
Game 3: Thu., April 24 @ Memphis (9:30 p.m., TNT)
Game 4: Sat., April 26 @ Memphis (3:30 p.m., TNT)
*Game 5: Mon., April 28 @ Oklahoma City (TBD)
*Game 6: Thu., May 1 @ Memphis (TBD)
*Game 7: Sat., May 3 @ Oklahoma City (TBD)
*if necessary
More series previews
East: Cavaliers-Heat • Celtics-Magic • Knicks-Pistons • Pacers-Bucks
West: Thunder-Grizzlies • Rockets-Warriors • Lakers-Wolves • Nuggets-Clippers
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