Thunder wing Jalen Williams won’t be available for tonight’s Game 7 against San Antonio, but coach Mark Daigneault said in a pre-game session with reporters that he didn’t do any further damage to his strained left hamstring by playing on Thursday, relays Joel Lorenzi of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Williams has missed most of the series after aggravating the strain in Game 2, but he returned for Game 6 in hopes of helping Oklahoma City close out the Spurs. However, he was clearly still bothered by the injury, as he was limited to one point, one assist and two turnovers and was a minus-18 in 10 minutes.
Daigneault acknowledged that Williams didn’t have the benefit of going through normal return-to-play protocol where he could gradually test the injury under progressively harder circumstances. He said “all of the stakeholders” got together before Game 6 and again afterward to assess Williams’ condition.
“No setback. He came out of the game about where he went into it,” Daigneault said, per Justin Martinez of The Oklahoman (Twitter link). “He didn’t do a full return to play, obviously. We knew he wouldn’t be a full 100 percent. He, or we, didn’t know what that would look like and what he’d be able to do when he got out in the game. The only way to find out was to get him out there.
“I can’t even talk about this without acknowledging the level of competitiveness and team orientation that it takes for a guy to be willing to do that. That’s somebody who’s used to playing up here (raises hand), knowing he’s not going to be up here, but is just willing to do whatever he can to help the team. These are player decisions. He’s got a career. He’s got a circle. There’s obviously a responsibility we have to the player as well. And all of the stakeholders huddled in the conversation to try to give it a go (in Game 6). We huddled coming out of the game with the decision not to go in Game 7. But he’s feeling about the same as he did. He actually came out of the game pretty good from where he is in the normal rehab. Depending on what happens today, if we’re fortunate enough to win and advance, he’ll continue to rehab and we’ll take the same process as we go forward. But that’s obviously getting ahead of ourselves. As it relates to him, he’s been an unbelievable team guy and partner in this situation. We have the utmost respect for him.”
Williams was a major contributor in the Thunder’s title run last spring, but he has been limited since suffering the hamstring strain in Game 2 of the first-round series with Phoenix. He sat out the entire second-round sweep against the Lakers and then returned to score 26 points in 37 minutes in the first game of the conference finals. However, he played just seven minutes in Game 2 before the hamstring became an issue again.
OKC will also be without guard Ajay Mitchell, who will miss his fourth straight game with a right soleus (calf) strain.