OKLAHOMA CITY — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 51 points and the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Houston Rockets 137-128 on Monday night for their 50th win of the season.
Gilgeous-Alexander reached 50 points for the fourth time this season, all in the past seven weeks. No other player in the NBA has more than one, according to ESPN Research. The NBA’s scoring leader finished with at least 40 for the ninth time in 2024-25. He made 18 of 30 field goals, went 5-of-9 on 3-pointers and hit all 10 of his free throws.
Gilgeous-Alexander, who reached 50 points on a putback with just under three minutes left to give Oklahoma City a 132-120 advantage, had never scored 50 in a game in his career before this stretch. It’s the shortest span for a player to record his first four career 50-point games in NBA history, according to ESPN Research.
“It becomes — you can say it’s not as exciting as the first one, but it’s more like getting lost in the process of just competing and playing the game you love,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And then wherever that takes you, it takes you.”
Gilgeous-Alexander logged his 17th career game with 20 points in the paint and 10 made free throws, the most by any guard since 1997-98 — and a mark that surpassed LeBron James for the seventh most by any player over that span.
His scoring binges have helped Oklahoma City roll to a Western Conference-leading 50-11 record. The Thunder are 3-1 when he scores at least 50 points.
“Whether it’s 50, whether it’s 27, whether it’s 17 — as long as we win, I have fun with it,” he said. “It’s a fun night.”
Gilgeous-Alexander played 397 career games before reaching the 50-point mark. His first time hitting the milestone was a career-high 54-point outburst in a win over Utah on Jan. 22. He then scored 52 on Jan. 29 in a loss to Golden State and 50 in a home win over Phoenix on Feb. 5.
“I just think he’s got an unbelievable pace to him right now,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “Where he’s finding his stuff, he’s attacking and really hitting the gas on some plays, and then there’s other plays where he’s just letting the defense tell him what to do and moving it to his teammates and it’s allowing for the rest of the team to play really well at the same time as him. So, he deserves a lot of credit.”
From the outset against the Rockets, it appeared this might be a special night when Gilgeous-Alexander scored 20 points in the first quarter. He said he took over because the team got off to a rough start. Even with his scoring spree, Houston led 31-30 at the end of the period.
“I tried to be a little bit more aggressive once we kind of got out to that [slow] start there, like kind of lift us a little bit,” he said. “I tried to be aggressive, be assertive.”
He had 28 points by halftime and 45 going into the fourth quarter. His six points in the final period were vital in helping the Thunder hang on and become the fastest in franchise history to reach the 50-win mark (61 games). The Thunder/SuperSonics franchise’s previous fastest mark was 64 games in the 1995-96 season.
“I just think you play the game to win,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “Like, you don’t play the game to score a bunch of points. You don’t play the game to get a bunch of rebounds or assists or steals. … You don’t play for anything besides to win, and that’s what it’s all about.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
