Oklahoma City received the boost they had been waiting on. Jalen Williams, the Thunder forward who has not played since a left hamstring strain on the eve of the second round, was officially cleared for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs.
On Monday's edition of the Locked On Thunder podcast, host Ren Styles and beat writer Justin Martinez framed the news as a turning point for a team that has glided through the bracket without him.
"Tonight is the night. The Thunder take on the Spurs in game one of the Western Conference Finals," Styles said. "JDub is officially back. The injury report has just came out. He will be active in game number one. How important is that for Oklahoma City?"
Martinez left no room for ambiguity.
"Yeah, it's massive," he said. "He had hinted towards this, I believe, on Friday in his blog saying that fortunately with the injury, it was an injury that typically carries a timeline of like one to three weeks, grade one left hamstring strain, and he's been out 25 days luckily because OKC has been breezing through the competition. Didn't need to rush him back. And he said that he's gonna go into this series healthy were his words."
Williams missed the closing stretch of OKC's sweep of the Phoenix Suns and the entirety of the second-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers. The Thunder did not require him to advance, but Martinez argued the calculus changes entirely against San Antonio.
"Folks, you need JDub against these Spurs. You didn't need him against the Lakers. You didn't need him against the Suns," Martinez said. He pointed to OKC's struggles last postseason as evidence of why a third ball-handler matters. "It was all tied to this team really needs that third ball handler and they found that third ball handler in AJ Mitchell, but they didn't have JDub. And so now to have all three guys in the fold, it gives you a different look offensively than you've ever had in the postseason as a team that's defending a championship."
Defensively, the implications are even bigger. Williams was the player Mark Daigneault leaned on against LeBron James, and Martinez suggested the rotation will tighten with him back.
"You need all hands on deck in a series against San Antonio," Martinez said. "And then JDub helps you avoid those scenarios. On top of the energy he provides, on top of the fact that he just massages this rotation in a different way where you're not forced to play any certain way. You can tighten your rotation and only play seven or eight or nine guys."
Pressed on his X-factor for the series, Martinez kept circling back to the same name.
"The X-factor is Jaylen Williams. What version of him are we going to get? Is it going to be the version that we saw out of him before he got hurt against Phoenix where he was just electric, was the heart and soul of the team? Or is it going to be a version that's hindered? Anytime you're coming back from a hamstring injury, a big part of it, and he talks about this, is just the mental side of it. Are you willing to fully close out or fully elevate for a block?"
Styles put a finer point on the stakes of a series that pits the defending champions against a 60-win Spurs roster.
"You also need JDub because going from playing the Lakers and the Suns is like going from playing checkers to 3D underwater chess against San Antonio," Styles said. "This team needs all hands on deck. And now they are fully healthy and equipped to handle their one legitimate tough series that they'll play this postseason to get to the NBA finals."
Tip-off in Oklahoma City is scheduled for tonight.
