The Oklahoma City Thunder left for a three-game road trip and returned successfully with three straight wins — albeit one more costly than the other two.
The Thunder came away with a 103-100 win over the New York Knicks. They had a couple of defensive stops in the final possession as Jalen Brunson and OG Anunoby failed to send the game beyond regulation with a pair of missed 3-point attempts.
In OKC’s thriller, they lost a couple of key pieces to injury. Alex Caruso sustained a hip contusion and Isaiah Hartenstein sustained calf tightness. Uh oh. Never want to see those two get injured. After all, their arrival to the Thunder coincided with an NBA championship.
Caruso sustained the injury fighting for an offensive rebound. He grimaced a bit before he slowly walked to the locker room. Hartenstein’s injury forced him to play only 17 minutes and sit out the fourth quarter. The bright side is he sustained it on his left leg instead of his right — which has had two soleus strains this season.
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault talked about both injuries. As usual, he didn’t reveal much — aside from that they’ll see how severe they are when they return to OKC.
“They were just ruled out for the rest of the game. We’ll evaluate them tomorrow,” Daigneault said. “When they went out, they weren’t coming back.”
When asked how Hartenstein’s calf flared up, Daigneault couldn’t assign a specific play. All he knew was that he was ruled out. Kenrich Williams checked into the fourth quarter to help the Thunder come away with the gutsy road win over the Knicks. Juggling injuries has been something OKC has done all year.
“I don’t know. Maybe. He was on the bench and then I was told he was out,” Daigneault said. “So it was definitely how he felt when he was over there.”
We’ll see how long Caruso and Hartenstein miss. The Thunder are running out of time to get a healthy group together before the 2026 NBA playoffs. Can’t help but worry about the latter’s injury as he’s been dealt a minute restriction along with not playing on back-to-back sets to manage his soleus.
This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Mark Daigneault offers injury updates on Isaiah Hartenstein, Alex Caruso