Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Downplays Thunder Fatigue Concerns, 'You Got to Suck It Up'

A number of Oklahoma City Thunder players looked gassed by the end of Wednesday's Game 3 loss against the Indiana Pacers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said on Thursday that the team can't use that as an excuse.

"You got to suck it up," he told reporters. "There's a maximum four games left in the season. It's what you worked the whole season for. It's what you worked all summer for. To me, the way I see it, you got to suck it up, get it done and try to get a win."

The Thunder were outscored 32-18 in the final frame of Game 3, with SGA managing just three points on three shots in the fourth.

But the Pacers tried to make him uncomfortable throughout the entire contest.

According to ESPN's Tim MacMahon and GeniusIQ tracking, "a defender picked up Gilgeous-Alexander an average of 65.5 feet away from the basket when he was bringing the ball up in Game 3. That's the furthest of any game in his career, regular season or playoff. Gilgeous-Alexander brought the ball up the floor only 23 times, his second fewest in a game this postseason."

They also blitzed him 12 times in the halfcourt and continuously attacked him as a defender.

It was the second time in this series that the Pacers dramatically outplayed the Thunder in the fourth quarter, leading to a pair of wins, but SGA wasn't ready to blame fatigue for those results.

"I'm not too sure. I don't think so," he told reporters. "It's a physical game. We've had plenty of physical games. We've had games like that where I've been great late, games where I've stunk late. I don't think it was anything out the blue, anything I hadn't seen before."

It is Indiana's M.O. to run teams up and down the floor through four quarters, throwing pace and depth at them. They exhausted the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, and it appears that they may have done the same to a Thunder team seemingly more accustomed to playing fast themselves.

Regardless, the Thunder have to find a way to make adjustments in the fourth quarter. And if tired legs are playing a part, well, SGA believes the team needs to battle through it.