On a night when the Thunder were already short-handed, Houston made sure the margin showed up on the scoreboard.
Without Alex Caruso, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, Nikola Topić and Thomas Sorber, OKC ran into a Rockets team that was firing from deep and came away with a 119-98 loss Saturday in Houston. The defeat dropped the Thunder to 4-2.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander did what he could to keep things afloat, finishing with 26 points, four rebounds and three assists in 30 minutes. But after the game, he made it clear the Thunder are still trying to sort through the fallout from the injuries.
"I don't know," Gilgeous-Alexander said when asked what OKC can control as it moves forward. "We have some figuring out to do, for sure.
A lot of it. I don't have the answer for you right now."
The absences were impossible to miss. Caruso sat with a sprained right ankle.
Holmgren was out with right knee patellar tendinitis. Williams is dealing with left ankle surgery, Wallace with a left shoulder labral tear, Topić with low back surgery and Sorber with right knee surgery.
That left Oklahoma City leaning harder on the rest of the roster, and Jared McCain gave the Thunder at least one useful answer. Known more as a catch-and-shoot guard than a paint attacker, McCain put Houston on its heels early with a snatch-back against Bogdan Bogdanovic, then a burst to the rim and a finger-roll finish over Alperen Sengun.
He kept pressure on the Rockets all night, even if the shot from outside wasn’t falling. McCain finished with 10 points and four rebounds on 5-for-14 shooting, including 0 for 5 from 3-point range, in 27 minutes.
“I think the best thing about him offensively is he’s always live when he touches the ball. He’s an immediate threat when he’s got it," Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said.
"He’s a threat to drive it if you close hot to him. He’s obviously a threat to shoot it if you’re not near him.
And he’s constantly in character on that. He’s just never passive on offense when the ball touches his hands.
That puts the defense on high alert and creates a ton of gravity.
"And on a night like tonight when he didn’t shoot particularly well from the three, he’s still able to impact the team because of that.”
Still, OKC needed more from the supporting cast, and Ajay Mitchell couldn’t quite match the scoring surge he had been on. After averaging 29.5 points over his previous two games, he scored six points with five assists on 3-for-9 shooting, including 0 for 3 from deep, in 26 minutes.
Gilgeous-Alexander, meanwhile, handled the extra attention better than he did in Thursday’s loss to Dallas, when he scored 21 points on 7-for-19 shooting. In Houston, he found ways through traffic and around it, including one late-second-quarter possession when three Rockets cut off the lane and he slid to the baseline for a high-arcing finish over Clint Capela.
With Williams out, defenses can load up even more on Gilgeous-Alexander. Saturday showed he can still score anyway. He shot 10-for-20 from the field and 3-for-6 from beyond the arc.
The bigger issue was on the other end, where the Thunder couldn’t force their usual chaos. Oklahoma City generated just 14 turnovers and turned them into 16 points, with much of that damage coming late. That’s a far cry from last season, when the Thunder ranked second in the NBA in turnovers forced per game at 16.7 and first in points off turnovers at 22.
The missing pieces matter there, too. Wallace, Williams and Caruso are all former All-Defensive players and all three are known for creating turnovers that turn into fast-break chances.
Even so, the Thunder did limit Houston inside, holding the Rockets to 30 points in the paint despite being without Holmgren. But the Rockets adjusted by catching fire from outside, hitting 18 of 41 3-pointers for 43.9 percent. Marcus Smart went 7 for 10 from deep, and Jabari Smith Jr. was 6 for 12.
"Guys did hit some shots, but I don't think that's all of the reason why we lost," Kenrich Williams said. "There are other parts of the game as well.
That's part of the game. This is a league of really good players.
Some guys are going to hit shots some nights, and we've just got to find different ways to win."
The hope for Oklahoma City is that Caruso returns soon after missing the past two games with his sprained right ankle. Williams and Wallace both had surgery this week and will be re-evaluated before the end of the regular season, while Holmgren is out 8-to-10 weeks.
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