Oklahoma City head coach Mark Daigneault left the Game 2 podium with a 2-0 series lead, a thinly veiled dig at the officials, and a press conference's worth of reasons to explain how the Thunder buried the Lakers without their MVP-calibre guard for long stretches of the night. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander picked up four early fouls and missed huge chunks of both halves, and Los Angeles came out of the gate as the more physical team. The Thunder still won going away.
Daigneault's framing of the game was about identity rather than personnel.
"LA's physicality in the first half — I thought they were the aggressor, especially their offence against our defence," the head coach said postgame. "We had to kind of endure their punch in the first half. They obviously took a lead in the third. Shai had four. It's just kind of an unpredictable game, and like I said after Game 1, no two games are alike. We did a great job just staying present, winning the next battle in front of us, sticking together. We got contributions from everybody. It was great."
That distributed contribution was the headline. Ajay Mitchell carried much of the load with SGA off the floor in the third quarter, and Daigneault doubled down on him.
"He was outstanding in the first half," Daigneault said of Mitchell. "Got his scoring going. Didn't make his threes, but made everything else pretty much in the first half and great floor game. He gave us great tempo when Shay was getting denied and when Shay was off the floor — just continued poise and confidence out of him in these big games."
The Thunder's run came inside a stretch where most coaches would have rushed their MVP back on. Daigneault said he held off because the bench unit had earned the minutes.
"It was just great confidence by the team and togetherness," he said. "We strung together stops, played with great pace off those stops. Guys stepped in and made confident plays up and down. Started with the group when Caso went in for him — the starting group plus Caso. Every sub we rolled in there did the same thing and really built a nice lead. I probably would have gone back to him in the third. I was planning on doing that in my head, but we played so well — I just kept riding it. It got him fresh, allowed him to play the whole fourth. It was a great team win."
The coach saved his most direct praise for Chet Holmgren and rookie Jerry McCain. McCain in particular drew a hat-tip for being unshakeable in big moments.
"He's ironclad," Daigneault said. "He goes in there, stays in character, stays aggressive. He's going to shoot the next shot. He makes the right plays, he plays inside the team, he competes defensively, has had good defensive possessions for us. He was huge tonight, and you need that in a playoff series."
On Holmgren's two-way Game 2: "He was unbelievable tonight. He's just the ultimate winner. Shay goes out in the third — he was a huge part. He played almost the whole third quarter and was a huge part of that run. His rebounding, offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding, his nose was in the fight down there. There's nothing he can't do. When the lights are on, he's at his best."
The one moment Daigneault would not engage with publicly was the officiating, after the second half developed into a broader teams-versus-crew conversation. Asked directly what role the officiating played, the coach grinned and shut the door.
"My interactions with the officials are between me and them," he said. "I had plenty to say to them, but I'm going to keep it there. I thought our team did a really good job of staying present and just focusing on the next controllable. We just played it possession by possession."
On the bigger question — how Los Angeles is defending Gilgeous-Alexander — Daigneault credited his star with not letting the doubles take the rest of the floor down with him. "He understands the nature of these series," the coach said. "He's the centrepiece of game plans. They're doubling him about as aggressively as we've seen, and he just continues to find a blend of his aggression, getting off it early, and empowering his teammates. He deserves some credit for that, with the way that he's empowered the group despite his gravity as an MVP-calibre player."
The Thunder's bench depth, Holmgren's two-way swing, and the absence of panic with their best player on the bench has now produced two double-digit wins in this series.
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*Originally published on [NBA News Global](https://nbanews.global/article/daigneault-thunder-game-2-staying-present-foul-trouble-may-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
