Last minute Thunder News, Rumors, Reports before matchup vs Cleveland Cavaliers

The Thunder are back in action tonight in the Paycom, and they'll do it with some more changes to the injury report. One new player off, one new player on, and they also have their new addition, Daylon Terry, their two-year wing, who is joining the team as of this morning. On top of it, you're playing against the Cavaliers team that SGA helped propel you to a win in their place just two nights ago, thanks to an MVP-esque clip unloading. 43-point performance and his game-winning three in the final minute. How can the Thunder replicate that result? What do these new injury updates? Obviously, the big one going to be surrounding Alex Caruso. You saw it there in our little tease. And then, can we expect for Daylan Terry to play here tonight? We're going to answer all of those questions on the channel. Welcome into Thunder Digest. I'm Ryan Breeden. And the big news of today... For Thunder fans, it's Alex Caruso and his ankle sprain. He is returning officially tonight after three missed games. This is an absence that the Thunder felt all the way in the three games. Obviously, you lose your first two in a pretty blowout-esque fashion. You're able to get the win against Cleveland two nights ago. Well, he is available. This was reported last night, so now it is for today. Alex Caruso is available tonight versus the Cavs. You're going to get back an all-defensive player who can hit threes at a high clip. A huge help for the Thunder rotation, but then also just a major help for this team from an on-court leadership standpoint. Alex Caruso, in the three games that he was gone, you could feel every bit of it. You lose by 24 points against Dallas. You lose by over 20 points against Houston. Able to gut it out against Cleveland, thanks to the MVP. But before Alex Caruso's absence, he was having a really good offensive season to go along with what has been a very typical Alex Caruso defense. The bald mamba is always going to be in the top percentiles in steals and blocks and havoc, you know, transition defense into offense. But look at his shooting percentages so far this year, folks. I mean, he is in the top 30. In true shooting, field goal percentage, and three-point percentage, so far, and obviously this is a short sample size for him, but the knock on him last season was that he was a poor offensive player in the regular season that turned it on in the postseason. Well, so far this year, he has been incredible offensively, and in the game against Phoenix where he rolled that ankle late in the first half, he played just nine minutes and was It was three of five from three. And it was plus 14 on the night. And he was paramount in helping to hold Nikola Jokic well below what he typically would do. Although if you've looked at Jokic's numbers and especially his tape so far this year, it's been a bad, bad year for Nikola Jokic over in Denver. Did a great job on Wimby and the Spurs in the first matchup on opening night. And he has become so much more important. Even more so now with his offense and with his defense. You shot all the way down to 103 points per game without Alex Caruso. The team shot less than 29% from three in his absence. And you turn the ball over double digits every single game. And then on top of it defensively. He saw the league's most vaunted defense. You lose Cason, J-Dub, and Alex Caruso in a 48-hour span. Actually, a 24-hour span. And you see the points per game for the opponent shoot up 20-plus points in his absence. Opponents were shooting nearly 40% from three, 45% from the field. You have 5.7 steals per game and then 3.7 blocks per game. Chet Holmgren obviously also not playing, so those things can obviously hurt you as well. But Caruso is back here tonight, which is really, really big for the Thunder. I mentioned they do have a new name that is added to our injury report. Let me make this on a different size so you guys can see it. It's J-Will. Jalen Williams, he's got some back spasms, and he is questionable to play here tonight. So he is up there on the injury report now, alongside J-Dub and Cason, who are going to be out for most of, if not all of the season. Chad Holmgren with his tendonitis and that slight tear in his patellar tendon. He is going to be out for 8 to 10 weeks, and then you've got the mythical creatures of Topić and Sorber, and whether or not those dudes will ever play basketball again. But Alex Caruso back, that is a big help for the Thunder. Defensive leader, point of attack defender, huge rotation boost. You love to see it for Oklahoma City. And then the next part of this video, kind of getting us ready for tonight, Daylon Terry joining the Thunder officially before this Cavs rematch. And he obviously agreed to that deal, a two-year deal per Shams Charania yesterday morning. Shout out to Gabriel for getting on that, getting up a video. If you want to see a bit of a breakdown into Daylan Terry and what to expect, go watch our video from yesterday, our most recent video before this one. A lot of good stuff from Gabriel. But reportedly agreeing to a two-year deal with the Thunder. His fifth NBA season was a top 20 pick. Spent time with Chicago, with Philly. Training camp with Golden State was a part of their G League team because they didn't have any two-way spots available. So Dale and Terry joining the Thunder. And that's great news, and then obviously going to be a rotation boost, but calendar-wise, when you look at the time that he's gone from agreeing to the deal, the Thunder announced a signing, they're playing their game just over 36 hours after you announce his signing, and the big question is, will Dalen Terry play tonight? Well, he was spotted at shoot-arounds this morning wearing number 77. Very interesting, the first Thunder player to wear that. since 2017 and you can see him off in the distance wearing that that dark kind of black jersey behind Jared McCain who's getting at it with Kenny Hustle and he's just kind of sitting there like a kid with his first day at school i mean i'll play it again for you guys really quick but he he kind of is just off on his own little worlds in a in a room full of people that he doesn't know obviously not talking not even shooting the ball Hands in hands with each other. He's going to have to try to make his way with this team and get it figured out to being ready to go. My read for tonight would be to not expect Dalen Terry to play. And if he does, it would be very, very, very minuscule minutes, if any at all. I mean, it takes time to immerse yourself fully in this system. And again, this is just my take, but ultimately... I think that Mark usually wants to at least have a little bit of trust in his guys before he throws them out there for a decent run. You saw Micah Peavy is a great example of that. He came in, didn't play for the first handful of games. He checks in very, very late in a Mavericks loss. And then you saw him play a little bit more in the game after that. And then he played quite a bit and was pretty substantial. In that win against Cleveland the other night, and I'd expect him to continue to try to earn more and more of a role going forward. And so that's kind of what I would expect with Dalen here tonight, is just more kind of immersing yourself in the system, getting to know the people around you, building a little bit of that dialogue with Coach Mark, and then maybe we'll see him more after that. Defense first if he does play, that's his thing anyways. And from there, I mean, just don't be a cone on offense, which he's not been a great offensive player in his career by any stretch of the imagination. That's probably been his biggest weakness. These were his offensive numbers last regular season in Philly. Obviously not very good. Small sample size, three-point percentage was meh. True shooting was okay. Not really much offensive impact, but defense is absolutely what he is known for. So I look for him to, kind of in the same way that Micah Peavy has done, look to Alex Caruso as a leader of this team. And it wouldn't be the first time that Daylon Terry has done that. These two guys were teammates in Chicago a couple of years ago. And at that point in time, a young Daylon Terry, Used Alex Caruso as a resource for advice and for growth in his time in the Windy City. So you can kind of rebuild that connection a little bit. Have him help guide Daylon and Terry into this more intensive machine that is Oklahoma City. I wouldn't expect him to play tonight. If he does, I think it'll be limited minutes. If you wanna come check it out with us during the course of the game, we're gonna have a watch along here tonight. The game starts at seven o'clock. So come check out in that. If you want to hang out and quote unquote watch the Thunder game, we have a very immersive live stream. So come on in and check that out. Other thing to watch for here tonight, folks, Jared McCain in the worst shooting slump of his Thunder career. He's 0 of 16 from three over the last three games. He's done it kind of very steadily over these three. 0-6 against Dallas, 0-5 against Houston, 0-5 against Cleveland, and that current slump being one that... He's never really had before at the NBA level, and it's made his numbers this year not look very good in terms of efficiency. I mean, Jared McCain isn't a guy that you typically see in the red in true shooting, field goal percentage, and three-point percentage, but that's just the kind of season it's been so far for him, especially after all of these injuries, and if you use last season as a baseline, you'll see just how dramatically things have changed, especially in the three-point percentage department. Nearly 40% in threes last year, and he was even better than that with Oklahoma City. He's kind of having the start to this season that he had with Philly last year, but he has still been a help in several different departments. I mean, he has helped facilitate your offense. In the win against Cleveland, he had two assists. He had seven points, and he's continued to get better defensively. Nine rebounds in the game as well. So I would hope for a better response offensively, And honestly, Shooters shoot just in the streak, right? If he sees one goes down, all of a sudden that rim goes from looking like a P to looking like a hula hoop. And that's what kind of gets you back in the right direction. I'm not fully concerned at all on Jared McCain as of right now with his shooting. This dude's a shooter. He'll get it to go eventually. You just got to trust your shot. And when it's not falling, attack the rim and trust kind of what you have. So with all that, the last piece of this video as we get ready to sign off, the Thunder have got to adjust for a rematch against Cleveland here tonight. Kind of a weird circumstance to have to play a team back-to-back over the course of a couple of different days. And according to Kalshi here today, going into it, the Thunder are favorites to win this game. 59% according to the market that they've got on Kalshi. So if you were to trade $50, you'd get $81 back if the Thunder were to win this game. Today's video presented by Kalshi. Go use code DIGESTNBA. To get $55 in bonus funds on your first $25 trade, you're gonna be trading against other users, not against a traditional house. That's what makes it different. And you're doing it with the official partner of the NBA in Kalshi. So go check them out down below to go get kind of a full rundown into their game-by-game trades, their NBA futures trades. Stuff within sports, there's plenty of stuff outside of sports as well. But in that win for the Thunder on what would have been Monday night, SGA just did his thing. He shot 35 times, the most he ever has in his career, 43 points, and he was... Absolutely incredible in the fourth quarter yet again. A.J. Mitchell gave you 20. Kenny Hustle gave you 12. Adai Mara had probably his most impactful game as a Thunder regular season player. 20 minutes, nearly a double-double. Five of seven from the field. He played late game minutes in this. And then you got great stuff from Bennett. Sertić in a dozen minutes. Micah Peavy looked good in 16 minutes. Eight points. He goes two of two from three. Jared McCain gave you seven points, and again, it wasn't a pretty seven points, but it was seven points nonetheless. And then Isaiah Hartenstein with his 14 rebounds, just being the bully down low that you need him to be. You got to repeat some of those things that you did in that game. The rebounding advantage, which is highlighted by Isaiah Hartenstein, is paramount. Taking care of the basketball is huge. Having your role players knock down open looks like Cason Sturtz and Peavy did, hopefully like McCain can do tonight. Will be huge in this game, and in the big area of improvement, Cleveland was raining down threes, especially in that second half, and mostly because they were wide open looks. Thunder got a closeout beyond the arc better here tonight for a heavy outside-to-in Cavaliers team that likes to try to get you to overextend, and then they'll attack you down low with Mobley, with Allen, and that's kind of what their game plan is. You gotta continue to unleash the beast in SGA. I think it's important that he doesn't necessarily just unload the clip at an inefficient rate, but he's gonna have to get you 30 plus points most nights until you get Chet Holmgren back to feel really good offensively. And Mark Dagnall tended to agree with that. He said after the game two nights ago, there's certain nights where a player just has a look in their eyes and you tell them to just go and do their thing. And that's what he said about SGA. So let me know down below in the comments what your key to tonight's rematch with the Cavs is. Is it Alex Caruso's return? Is it Jared McCain finding his shot, ending that slump? Is it SGA trying to unload the clip again tonight? Kind of a combination of all of them. Any of those in particular, let me know down below in the comments. And then for our comment spotlight for today's video, we've got two of them here for today. This one comes from Thunder0352, and this was for Gabriel, but I wanted to spotlight it because I think that this is good stuff in terms of. Just kind of being prophetic. I hope your twin Caruso comes back tomorrow, which he is, as we know now, and Terry could be a great one-two punch on defense for the bench. Also agree with that, and then this comment comes from kind of the other side of the aisle, from Vicer, saying, Daylon Terry couldn't even get minutes on a horrible Bulls team. I thought the Iboghazi signing was bad. This is laughable. I'm going to reserve judgment on Daylon Terry because I think from an analytical standpoint, When you look at what he can do, he's the type of player the Thunder bring in and makes exponentially better, helps build their confidence, rely on the defense as the staple of their game, and they start to knock down some shots, and next thing you know, guess what? That player suddenly looks a lot better with a winning organization than they did with a horrible Chicago Bulls. There's a reason why players go to Chicago and they struggle to develop. There's a reason why players go to Sacramento. And they struggle to develop. It's because they don't have good development systems put in place. The Thunder do. I'm excited to see what Daylon Terry can do. Obviously, Sam Presti likes them. And in Sam Presti, we trust. If you want to be on for the watch along here tonight and you're not subscribed to the channel, make sure you go do it down below. We are getting very, very close to our 11K subscriber goal. And I think that once we get to 12K... I'm going to announce another giveaway for you guys here on the channel. It'll be something a little bit smaller than two jerseys, but there will be more to go around. There would be like eight to ten winners, so that would be pretty cool to have. We'll kind of announce all that here in the next couple of weeks to see where things go, but go subscribe, go hop in on the watch along here tonight, get ready for some Thunder basketball, hang out with us, and obviously be ready for more videos here on the channel.