What's wrong with the Thunder?
Losing Chet Holmgren didn't open up the rim: opponents still shoot about 60% at the basket, well under the league's 66%. What left with the injured guys is the ball pressure: OKC forced 21 turnovers a game with them and 11 without.
OKC's defense fell apart once Holmgren, Williams and Wallace went out
Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman put the slide simply: "it's harder to make defensive stands when your top four defenders are seated." He's right about the cause. The damage just isn't where you'd look first.
Opponents score at the rim without Holmgren about as well as they did with him. What disappeared is the steals and turnovers that Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace and Alex Caruso created. That's three games each way: an early sign, not proof.
Four rotation players went down in one week
Jalen Williams broke his leg and Cason Wallace tore his shoulder in the same win over the Clippers on Oct. 25. Holmgren had treatment on a small knee tendon tear on Oct. 30. Caruso sprained his ankle and hasn't played since Oct. 26. All four are out Monday on the league injury report.
Late seasonJalen Williams, broken leg
8-10 weeksChet Holmgren, knee
Late seasonCason Wallace, shoulder
OutAlex Caruso, ankle- Last season OKC went 35-4 when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander played and Williams didn't. It had the bench to cover. That bench is mostly gone.
Randall Barnes of ClutchPoints flagged it the morning after Williams got hurt: "Roster depth becomes an even bigger concern after the trade of Lu Dort and Aaron Wiggins to the Atlanta Hawks and Isaiah Joe to the Detroit Pistons."
The rim held up, but the steals left with the injured guys
OKC's defense lives on taking the ball away, and the guys who took it are out. Wallace, Caruso, Williams and Holmgren had 16 of the team's 35 steals in the first three games. Since then, the whole team has 15.
OKC still protects the rim, but stopped forcing turnovers
- Holmgren's absence hasn't shown up at the basket yet. Against Isaiah Hartenstein and Aday Mara, opponents made 40 of 66 at the rim, after 43 of 72 before.
- The boards held too: opponents grabbed 30% of their own misses, up only slightly from 27%.
- Opponents have also gotten hot from midrange, making 18 of 33 when teams usually make about 40%. That won't last, but the lost turnovers will: last season OKC forced them at the 2nd-highest rate in the league.
The offense was a problem before anyone got hurt
The 3-0 start was all defense. Even with everyone healthy, OKC scored 104 points per 100 possessions, well under the league's 110. It ranked 6th on offense last season and ranks 23rd now.
OKC has scored below the league average in five of six games
- Part of it is cold shooting: 30.9% from three, and 5 for 32 at Dallas. With normal 3-point shooting on both ends, our hot-starts check has OKC 3 points per 100 better than its opponents.
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is doing less, not more: 30 minutes and 19 shots a game since the injuries, down from 36 and 24. Two of those games were 20-point losses, but he also played 30 minutes in the win over Phoenix.
- And the minutes he sits are a disaster. With him on the floor, OKC outscores teams by 6 points per 100 possessions; without him, it gets outscored by 13.
Cleveland should be favored, but not by much
The Cavaliers are 4-2 and have outscored teams by 5 points a game, with three scorers for OKC's thinned-out wings to chase. Prediction markets have Cleveland at about 61% for Monday's game in Cleveland.
26.0Shai's points a game
22.7Donovan Mitchell's points a gameExpect a decent team, not a contender, until Holmgren is back
Take the bad shooting out and the short-handed Thunder have played about even, mostly on the road. That's a playoff team, not the 64-win version, until Holmgren is back in late December or early January. "We have some figuring out to do for sure," Gilgeous-Alexander said (ClutchPoints).
- Watch the turnovers. If OKC gets back to 15 or more a game, the defense will hold up.
- Three games can miss a team's real level by 8 or 9 points per 100 either way. Season numbers: Basketball-Reference.
Holmgren's date could slip. Sports physician Dr. Brian Sutterer said "8-10 isn't crazy" but that he prepares his own players for 10 to 12 weeks (via Yahoo Sports). Every game this week: NBA predictions.
Questions people ask
What's wrong with the Thunder this season?
Mostly injuries to Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, Chet Holmgren and Alex Caruso, but not the way you'd think. The rim defense held; the turnovers OKC forces fell from 21 a game to 11. Cold shooting made the losses look worse.
How long is Chet Holmgren out?
The Thunder say 8 to 10 weeks from his Oct. 30 treatment on a small right patellar tendon tear, so late December or early January.
Is Jalen Williams out for the season?
Probably most of it. He had surgery for a broken left fibula and a dislocated ankle and will be re-evaluated before the end of the regular season. Cason Wallace (torn labrum) has the same timeline.
How has losing Chet Holmgren affected the Thunder's defense?
Less at the rim than you'd think, at least over three games. Opponents have shot about 60% at the basket without him, about the same as with him. What fell off is turnovers forced: 21 a game, then 11.
How we did this: Snapp's NBA warehouse (box scores, team game ratings, shot locations, NBA.com lineup data, the league injury report), regular-season games through Oct. 31, 2026. Ratings are points per 100 possessions, using each game's possession count (also for the 2026-27 ranks: OKC 23rd on offense and 9th on defense, Cleveland 7th and 18th); league average 109.7 through Oct. 31. "Healthy" means the first three games (Oct. 20, 22 and 25), when Holmgren, Jalen Williams, Wallace and Caruso all played; "without them" means the last three (Oct. 26, 28 and 31). Normal 3-point shooting replaces both teams' made threes with the league rate (34.6%), each make worth 2.7 points since some misses are rebounded: the healthy games go from +10.0 to +7.9 per 100, the last three from -11.4 to -1.3, and the season from -0.5 to +3.4 (the same +3.4 our hot-starts article found with a shooter-by-shooter method; it starts from -0.7 because it counts opponents' possessions). Opponents were not tougher in the last three: excluding their games against OKC, the first three opponents averaged +2.0 per 100 and the last three -1.3, but two of the last three were on the road. On/off splits come from NBA.com five-man lineup totals (604 possessions). Share of last season's minutes: 2025-26 regular-season OKC minutes, by where each player is now. Turnovers forced: opponent turnovers per opponent possession. Sample error: the typical game-to-game spread of a team's net rating (15.2 per 100 in 2025-26) divided by the square root of three games is 8.8 (6.5 for defense alone, from 11.3); taking out 3-point luck shrinks it somewhat, so treat every three-game number as rough. Injury timelines from the Thunder via NBA.com/AP and the league injury report as of Nov. 1. Market price: Polymarket 60% and Polymarket US 62% for Cleveland (Kalshi 61%), Nov. 1, 4:07 PM PT. Rebounding: opponents' offensive rebounds over their available rebounds, 37 of 135 (27.4%) in the first three games and 42 of 141 (29.8%) in the last three (nba_team_game_enriched). Gilgeous-Alexander minutes and shots from nba_player_game: 106.8 minutes and 72 shots in the first three games, 89.3 and 57 in the last three. Rim attempts are restricted-area shots (nba_shot_detail): 72 then 66. Injury report rechecked Nov. 2, 11:00 a.m. PST (nba_injury_latest, nba_pdf): OKC out Caruso, Holmgren, Sorber, Topic, Wallace and Jalen Williams; CLE out Tyson, Tomlin, Diop, Udeh, Watson questionable.