The Oklahoma City Thunder eventually handled the Denver Nuggets in round two of the NBA playoffs, but not without enduring seven exhausting games against the Joker and his supporting cast. Their prize? Advancing to another best-of-seven in the Western conference finals ... for which Game 1 was scheduled roughly 48 hours later.
The point being, you could forgive anyone on the Thunder for feeling pretty exhausted ahead of their WCF run vs. the Minnesota Timberwolves, beginning Tuesday night. But to hear extremely locked-in OKC guard Alex Caruso tell it, the Thunder aren't even in a position to care about that at the moment.
"To be honest, we don't have time to worry about if you're tired or not," Caruso told reporters on Tuesday, responding to a question about the difficulty of the round-two series combined with some long breaks before that. "We're eight games away from winning the championship. Four games away from getting to the Finals. All that's kind of out the window. You just show up and do your job."
An ice-cold (complimentary) response from Caruso. Watch that below:
Alex Caruso: “To be honest, we don’t have time to worry about if we’re tired or not. We’re 8 games away from winning a championship. 4 games away from getting to the Finals.” pic.twitter.com/2HFeNZyq1T
— Clemente Almanza (@CAlmanza1007) May 20, 2025
The reporter does have a point, though. The regular NBA season is already 82 games. Add in a full postseason run, and you're looking at possibly 100+; that's tough on the body.
But Caruso has a point, too. The Thunder are here now, and thinking about how tired they are won't change the fact that they have a series to play. So until the NBA puts more time in between playoff contests, as Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon floated on Sunday, locking in and getting it done is the only way.
Game 1 of the Western Conference finals tips off at 8:30 p.m. ET.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Thunder's Alex Caruso Shuts Down Talk of Exhaustion Ahead of Conference Finals vs. Wolves.
