Thunder Beat Knicks in Overtime Thriller

The odds were stacked against the Oklahoma City Thunder when they rolled into Madison Square Garden on Monday night. For one thing, the schedule: They were playing for the third time in four nights, all on the road.

They were also missing their top two scorers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been nursing a bum ankle for weeks, and Luguentz Dort sat Monday with a sore shoulder. Already owners of the worst offense in the league, statistically, OKC would need some big performances to keep up with the Knicks.

They got them. Tre Mann put up 30 points, Darius Bazley had 23, and Josh Giddey put on a show with 28 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists.

It was his third triple-double of the season and his second in three nights. Oklahoma City stunned the Knicks 127-123 in overtime, bringing its season record to 18-39.

Giddey was feeling it all night. In the second quarter, he uncharacteristically dribbled up and jacked a successful 3-pointer from the top of the key early in the shot clock. On the next possession, he did the same thing.

Oklahoma City stayed emotionally tapped in throughout. When Bazley tied up the ball with New York's Mitchell Robinson in the third quarter, he held on and refused to let go even after officials called the jump ball. Bazley wrestled the ball away and held it aloft like a trophy.

The game was a slugfest. The teams were tied 12 different times, and no lead was bigger than New York's 11 in the third quarter before OKC stormed back to erase it.

New York had multiple opportunities to ice the game in the final minutes. The OKC offense went ice-cold and scoreless for nearly four and a half minutes late in the fourth quarter, leading to an extended period where New York led by four points at 110- 106.

But the Knicks couldn't extend the advantage, and Giddey finally broke the scoreless streak with free throws at the 1:07 mark.

Giddey made a crucial mistake moments later when an errant pass led to a New York fast-break to put the Knicks up two with just 15 seconds to play. Indeed, the only blemish on his game was the seven turnovers that accounted for most of the team's 11 total.

But after the timeout, OKC calmly executed a game-tying play with a layup from a fired-up Bazley that sent the game to overtime knotted at 112.

OKC never trailed in the extra frame, as Giddey and Mann added to their points totals with Derrick Favors the team's only other scorer in OT.

The overtime thriller capped a hard-fought but challenging road trip for Oklahoma City, which saw it fall Friday to the 76ers before a narrow 106-101 loss to Chicago on Saturday.

The NBA trade deadline also passed last week. There were certainly some fireworks around the league, most notably a swap that sent Ben Simmons and other players from Philly to Brooklyn in exchange for ex-Thunder player James Harden.

But the only move Sam Presti made was a marginal trade with Miami that, ultimately, amounted to little more than a slightly better first-round draft pick three or four years down the line. OKC's roster shuffling was all internal; it waived Mamadi Diakite, signed Aaron Wiggins to a full contract and signed Lindy Waters III, an Oklahoma native, to a two-way contract from its G League affiliate the Blue. So the post-deadline roster is largely unchanged.

Oklahoma City will be rewarded for its Monday effort with a home game at the Paycom Center on Wednesday and, finally, eight days off before its next contest.

But not everyone will be taking it easy all weekend; Giddey will participate in NBA All-Star weekend from Cleveland, appearing Friday in the Clorox Rising Stars and Saturday in the Taco Bell Skills Challenge.

Both events can be seen on TNT before the All-Star Game caps the weekend on Sunday night.

Enjoy the All-Star Game, Oklahoma, and Thunder Up!