This has the League TERRIFIED...

Whoever said you needed a seven-footer on your squad to win basketball games needs to go ahead and show some clips from this Oklahoma City Thunder victory over the Pelicans to that person as they are proving that you don't need a seven-footer as well at all. As long as you have guys that are 6'6", can play, athletic, bouncy, can make shots and be great perimeter defenders you don't need a seven-footer on your team. You don't and the Thunder are proving that right now as they just dismantled the New Orleans Pelicans tonight winning in a pretty handily margin. I mean it was just an impressive outing the entire night. Dubb went off, his best game of the season. Shea Gildas-Alexander also had another great performance. Our bench guys were going off. Kayson Wallace playing great defense. Lou Dort playing great defense. Aaron Wiggins saving basketball. Isaiah Joe out there doing his thing. Everyone doing their thing. Kenny Hustle being back out there acting as our small ball center. Everyone was doing their part and it was working perfectly. Now the offense could have been a little bit better. I will say that we could have scored a little bit more. I don't want to get greedy here, but I do think offense could have done a little bit more there. But however, just great performance all around and we're gonna go ahead and break down the performance. All right, break down the box score, some key things that you know people saw at the game when I was noticing as well. I'm going to tell you guys that along with some pretty big news that may lead to someone coming back in the near future. We're gonna break that all down here on Thunder Digest. Before you get into that though, I just want to take a moment and say that if you guys like what we're doing over here at Thunder Digest, and you're wondering how can I support the channel, the best way to do that is to hit the subscribe button. It would mean the world to me as a content creator if you guys would do that. And you know, like I mentioned, it's just the best way to support the channel. With that out of the way, we'll go ahead get into this little post game, you know, I guess reaction video if you guys really want to say that. Just information for you guys. What I saw out there, what some other people saw. First off, of course, we're gonna go to the box score. Here's the New Orleans Pelicans. All right, not anything of significance. Brandon Ingram, who's supposed to be their number one scorer, limited to 18 points. Once again, I don't want to say completely put in the torture chamber. He still went 7 of 18, 4 of 8 from 3, but still locked up tonight. Okay, definitely locked up. He had six boards, six assists, definitely their best player tonight, but he did have a minus 17 on the plus-minus. However, no one's plus-minus on that team was looking too great as he had eight turnovers. Eight. Meese, he's not been doing bad for them at all, but he didn't really take a lot of shots. He went perfect, 5 of 5 with 10 boards, just wasn't doing enough for him. Wasn't doing enough. Trey Murphy to the third, 4 of 12, he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat in the middle of the ocean. Same thing with Brandon Boston Jr., 3 of 10. Javante Green goes the same way with him, 1 for 10. They couldn't hit anything, being honest. You could put them in whatever large body of water that you want, and they wouldn't hit that either. No doubt about it in my mind. Trey Murphy with three turnovers, Brandon Boston with three turnovers, minus 17 on the plus-minus. It's just insane. Then looking at their bench, they didn't do much either. The bench didn't do much. Just looking at it, Jamal Kane, he had, you know, not bad bench performance by him. 11 points, but minus 14 on the plus-minus. He couldn't play defense. That was the thing with this Belkins team. They just couldn't play defense. They can't. Bad defensive team when you don't have DeJounte Murray as Jose Alvarado or Zion Williamson. Jeremiah Robinson Earl, Thunder legend. He didn't have a great outing at all, but considering he's a former Thunder player, I'm not going to talk about that. All right, you're off the list this time. You're off the hook. Trey Jameeson to the third, who? 2 of 3. Jalen Noel, 4 of 11 and 26 minutes of play, 0 of 5 from deep. Hey, maybe after you miss the first three pretty badly, maybe don't take another three-pointer. Just word of thought there. Antonio Reeves, 3 of 5, 0 of 2 from deep. Just like I mentioned, you know, they didn't do great at all. They shot 39% from the field, 24% from three. They had 23 turnovers as a squad. 23. Granted, they had 58 rebounds and largely out-rebounded us. It doesn't matter if you're turning the ball over that much and you can't hit your shots because our defense is that good. Now going into our box score. Dubb, 31 minutes of play, 10 of 18 from the field, 4 of 7 from deep. He got 6 boards, 7 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks, and both of them came off the same possession, off of the same guy. 31 points, plus-minus of plus-13. Shea, another MVP caliber performance, 12 of 25 from the field, 3 of 7 from deep. That step-back three-ball looks nasty. 5 boards, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks, along with 29 points, plus-18 in the plus-minus. Isaiah Joe, he didn't make a single shot defensively. He was helping us out there, playing good defense, standing in front of the guys. Just not the greatest outing from him. Lou Dort, 3 of 6 from the field, 3 of 5 from deep, along with 3 boards, 1 assist, 2 steals, and 1 block. 11 points there. Honestly, playing great defense, truly being a great 3 and D player. Kayson Wallace, 28 minutes of play. He got the start tonight. Offensively, not quite there, but defensively, he's doing so much it doesn't matter. 5 steals. 5 steals. I really like him as a starter. And then go to the guys that played majority in the minutes tonight. Uzma Jang, in 16 minutes of play, had a plus-9, plus-minus there. Even though he didn't really get a ton of steals, he's playing great into-gear defense right now, and I wouldn't mind if he got some more minutes. I really wouldn't. Kenrich Williams, Kenny Hustle, perfect from the field, plus-12 in the plus-minus. Once again, he's doing his thing, finally back off the injury list. Aaron Wiggins, saving basketball off the bench, 4-11 from the field, plus-13 in the plus-minus there. 5 boards and 3 assists. AJ Mitchell, showing out, potentially being a top 15 player from this draft class. People are gonna regret not taking him in the first round. 3 assists, 2 boards, 2-4 from the field, 6 points, plus-18 in the plus-minus there, along with 2 steals. This team was just insane. And we didn't even shoot the ball all that great from the field. Only 44% from the field. Only made 39 of our 88 shots. However, we went 15-39 from 3. You win a lot of games doing that. Also, when you force 23 turnovers like that, you have 16 steals. You can win a lot of games doing that. Some key things that stood out to me that I think all the people got in tweets very well, that we're gonna highlight. First thing, Oklahoma City has improved a 10-2 following a 106-88 win over New Orleans. This is what stands out to me right here. The Thunder currently leads the league in defensive rating, steals, blocks, and turnovers force per game. This defense could be historic even while we're still injured. So this is a defense that everyone has to keep their eyes out for because yes, all right, we are injured right now, but this defense still is so good without these key players. This was also without Alex Caruso. This defense is so good without these key players that it doesn't matter who they play, they're gonna make it a game. All right, they will make it a game. Next thing that I noticed right here, Hartenstein will stabilize things a little bit when he returns, but these are the types of outings the Thunder will need from SGA and J-Dub for the foreseeable future, combining for 50-plus points on a regular basis. There are two games without Chet, they've lived up to it. So it just goes to show that Shea and Dub can live up to the hype, you know, and help out when needed. However, when Hartenstein gets back, it's definitely gonna help out a ton because now we can run pick and rolls, we can run off-ball screens, or we can actually get people open since we have a big body. Not to mention we can still do the same thing with J-Will as a backup center once he's back. Be interesting to see how it plays out once everyone's back and healthy there. Another thing that I saw right here from Nick Gallo, the Thunder has forced its opponents into 20 turnovers for the sixth time in 12 games this year. Half of the games we've played, teams have committed more than 20 turnovers. This is why we're 10-2 right now. This is exactly why we're 10-2, but however, that is not the most important news out there. I'll go ahead and give you guys like five seconds before I say it, all right? What do you guys think it is? All right, is it something to do with Shea? Is it something to do with Lou? Dub? Who could it be having to deal with? All right, what's this big news for? Well, it's not a lot, but we no longer see a hand brace on Isaiah Hartenstein, which is a really good sign as this could be, you know, showing, you know, since he's about to be re-evaluated, he might be coming back soon. He's been doing a lot of work. I've been seeing a lot of videos from Clemente, especially, showing the work that Hartenstein's been putting in postgame, or not postgame, pregame, at practices as well with his brace on. He still looks really good. I'm assuming this weekend, especially, is going to be heavy to see how his left hand is doing when dribbling a ball, shooting, since he is left-handed. That was a hand that got broken, so it's like one of those things where this is a really good sign to see. We could see Hartenstein coming back in a week or two. This is what that's telling me right here, that Hartenstein is about to come back. This is great news for the Thunder, all right? I don't think we have anything to worry about now. Get through this next week, at least, against a bunch of other injured teams and rebuilding teams. We'll be fine. Once Hartenstein's back, we're gonna be back and competing, and there should be no team that stops us. No team whatsoever. This is a really good sign for the Thunder. Yes, we won pretty handily tonight by double digits, right? That's always great to see. However, that little piece of information at the end right there, it means the world for the Thunder. It does. This shows that, man, this team is somehow about to get even better, and they're still winning all these games. That's all I got for this video. Let me know what you guys personally thought. Stood out to you if you guys were watching this game at all tonight between the Pelican Thunder, what stood out to you the most, and do you think Hartenstein's about to come back? Is this some good news? Let me know in the comments section below. I'll see you guys in the next video.