The Oklahoma City Thunder were blown out for the first time in the 2025 playoffs on Saturday, as the Minnesota Timberwolves beat them 143-101 in Game 3 at Target Center. It was a total beatdown, and Thunder big man Chet Holmgren had a simple explanation postgame for why they got crushed.
“It’s not complicated,” Holmgren said. “Wherever they wanted to go, they got there. They did what they wanted to do. We didn’t stop them.”
The Thunder had the best defensive rating in the league (106.6) during the regular season and had been brilliant on that end of the floor in the playoffs as well. That wasn’t the case in Game 3, though.
The Timberwolves went 55-96 (57.3%) from the field and 20-40 (50%) from beyond the arc on the night. They set a new franchise record for points in a playoff game, and you would not have expected them to do that against this good a defense.
As Holmgren pointed out, the Timberwolves got what they wanted all night. When they weren’t drilling all those threes, they were scoring at will near the rim. The Timberwolves had a 56-42 advantage in points in the paint, and the Thunder just had no answers for them.
You’d have thought the Timberwolves would play better offensively once the series shifted to Minnesota, but not to this extent. They shot 34.9% from the field in Game 1 and then 41.4% in Game 2. The Thunder had them in a chokehold in Oklahoma City, but they managed to break out of it.
No one on the Thunder really impressed during this loss. Holmgren put up just 10 points (3-7 FG), five rebounds, two assists, and one steal against the Timberwolves. The 23-year-old is now averaging just 5.3 rebounds per game in this series, and he has to be better on the glass moving forward. The Timberwolves had a 50-32 advantage on the glass, and you’re not going to win too often with that kind of a deficit.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Kept It Real After The Loss
As far as stunning defeats go in this postseason, this might be at the top of the list, considering how good the Thunder have been. This is not a team that gets embarrassed, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander admitted postgame that they got punched in the mouth.
“It just happens, you’re never going to be perfect in life, in a long season,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “You get punched, it’s about getting back up, it’s about responding, and that’s what the next challenge is. We got punched in the mouth today, and next game we’re either gonna get back up or not, and we’ll lose a game, but we have a decision to make, for sure.”
Gilgeous-Alexander only had 14 points (4-13 FG), two rebounds, six assists, and one block in Game 3. It was the fewest points he had scored in a game in 2024-25, including the regular season and playoffs. You’d expect a strong response in Game 4 at the Target Center on Monday at 8:30 PM ET.
