The Western Conference-leading Thunder will be without one of their most important pieces for Wednesday’s marquee matchup with the defending champion Celtics. All-Star forward Jalen Williams will miss the nationally televised tilt after suffering a right hip strain during Oklahoma City’s 140-127 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Monday, according to Chris Haynes.
Williams sustained the injury midway through the second quarter Monday night, after a collision with Nuggets swingman Peyton Watson on a drive to the basket that resulted in a hard, awkward landing directly on that right hip:
Williams was clearly favoring the hip when he got up, but strode to the line for a pair of free throws and remained in the contest for another few possessions, stroking a 3-pointer and setting center Isaiah Hartenstein up for an and-one layup before checking out for his normal rest with 5:10 left in the first half. Soon after, though, he headed to the locker room; soon after that, he was ruled out for the remainder of the game, finishing with 12 points, six assists and two rebounds.
The Nuggets took full advantage of Williams’ absence. Without Williams to serve as a pressure-release valve and complementary playmaker on offense, Denver head coach Michael Malone felt more emboldened to sell out with all manner of coverages — double-teams, traps, zones — to force the ball out of MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s hands and make Oklahoma City’s other players prove they could make enough plays to beat them. With the exception of Luguentz Dort, who made five of his eight 3-pointers after intermission, they couldn’t: Non-SGA and Dort Thunderers shot just 12-for-32 (37.5%) from the floor in the second half.
Oklahoma City missed Williams on the defensive end, too. Watson and Russell Westbrook, whom Williams had spent most of his first-half floor time guarding, combined for 18 points on nine shots with five 3-pointers in the second half — part of a Denver deluge that saw Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray and Co. torch the NBA’s best defense for 73 points on 67.5% shooting after halftime en route to by far the Thunder’s worst defensive performance of the season.
All told, Oklahoma City outscored Denver by eight points in the 13 minutes and 33 seconds Williams played … and got annihilated by 21 in the 34:27 he wasn’t available.
Lu Dort was asked whether OKC missed JDub more on the offensive or defensive end:
“Both ends. He’s a great player.”
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) March 11, 2025
Williams is averaging 21.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.7 steals in 32.6 minutes per game — one of only five players averaging better than 20-5-5-1.5 this season, alongside SGA, Jokić, Luka Dončić and James Harden — while shooting 53% on 2-pointers, 36% on 3s and 79% at the free-throw line.
He’s an excellent secondary threat to launch a catch-and-shoot 3 or attack a closeout after Gilgeous-Alexander has compromised the defense with a drive to the paint. When SGA hits the bench, Williams becomes Oklahoma City’s primary ball-handling and shot-creation option, with the Thunder outscoring opponents by four points per 100 possessions with J-Dub at the controls while SGA rests.
Williams is also a key cog in what’s been a historically dominant Thunder defense: an on-ball disruptor (ninth in the NBA in total steals-plus-blocks, third in deflections) with the length and strength to guard the 4 — and, out of necessity earlier this season, the 5 — and enough lateral quickness to chase and mirror smaller, quicker guards on the perimeter, too.
On one hand, Oklahoma City is as well-positioned as anyone to weather the loss of an important player. The Thunder sit atop the West at 53-12, ranking top-four on both ends of the court, with the league’s best efficiency differential, the highest era-adjusted net rating of any team since the 1996 Bulls, and the largest average margin of victory in NBA history. When they didn’t have Hartenstein for the first 15 games of the season, they went 11-4; when they lost Chet Holmgren for nearly three months, they went 32-7.
A team this deep, with this much two-way talent, with an MVP front-runner and an 11-game cushion atop the conference should be able to navigate just fine for a bit. That said: Thanks to those two-way contributions, a number of advanced metrics — estimated plus-minus, value over replacement player, box plus-minus, ESPN’s net points, etc. — peg Williams as a top-15-to-25 player this season. Even for a team as loaded as Oklahoma City, losing a player that valuable hurts — especially against an opponent as dangerous as Boston.
