Oklahoma City-Shai GileGous-Aexander scored 51 points and Oklahoma City Thunder defeated Houston Rockets 137–128 on Monday night to win their 50th win of the season.
Gilgeous-Aexander reached 50 points for the fourth time in this season, in the last seven weeks. According to ESPN Research, another player in NBA does not have more than one. The scoring leader of NBA ended with at least 40 for the ninth time in 2024-25. He scored 18 out of 30 fields, went 5 -9-9 on 3-pointers and hit all 10 of his free throw.
Gilges-Alexander, who reached 50 points on a putback within just three minutes to give the benefit of 132–120 to Oklahoma City, did not score 50 in a game in his career before this stretch. According to ESPN Research, this is the smallest interval for a player to record its first four career 50-point games in the history of NBA.
“It becomes-you can say that it is not as exciting as the first one, but it is just like getting lost in the process of competing and playing the game,” said Gilgius-Alaczender. “And then wherever he takes you, it takes you.”
Gilgus-Alexander logged into his 17th career game with 20 points in the paint and 10 made free throw, since 1997–98, the most by any guard-and a mark that crossed the seventh-half-year-old Lebron James by any player in that period.
His scoring Bing has helped the Oklahoma City Roll to make 50–11 records at the Western Conference. Thunder is 3–1 when he scores at least 50 points.
“Is it 50, whether it is 27, whether it is 17 years old – as long as we win, I have fun with it,” he said. “This is a fun night.”
Gilgus-Alexander played 397 career games before reaching a 50-digit mark. His first opportunity to hit milestone was a 54-point outburst in a win on Utah on 22 January. He scored 52 runs in Golden State on 29 January on 29 January and 52 runs in a domestic victory on Phoenix on 5 February.
Thunder coach Mark Dignault said, “I think he has got an incredible speed for him right now.” “Where he is looking for his belongings, he is attacking and actually hitting some plays, and then there are other plays where he is just telling Raksha what he has to do and take it to his companions and it is allowing the rest of the team to actually play well at the same time. Therefore, he deserves a lot of credit.”
From the beginning against the rockets, it appeared that it could become a special night and at the same time when Gilgius-Alexander scored 20 points in the first quarter. He said that he took over as the team landed for a thick start. Even with his scoring competition, Houston led 31–30 at the end of the period.
He said, “I tried to be more aggressive once, once we get out of that way (slow) starts there, like pick us a little,” he said. “I tried to be aggressive, be outspoken.”
He had 28 points in Halftime and 45 was going to the fourth quarter. His six-digit six-digit in the last period was important in helping hanging the Thunder and reaching the 50-win marks (61 games) to become the fastest in the history of franchise. The previous fastest mark of the Thunder/Supersonics franchise was 64 games in the 1995-96 season.
“I think you play the game to win,” he said. “Like, you don’t play games to score a bunch of digits. You don’t play games to get rebels or a bunch of help or theft. … You do not play anything other than winning, and that’s all.”
Information of Associated Press was used in this report.
