Alex Caruso is the only Oklahoma City Thunder player with NBA Finals experience.
That said, even he has no idea what this year’s series will feel like.
Caruso was on the Los Angeles Lakers team that beat the Miami Heat in the 2020 finals in the bubble in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The games were played all in one place, with almost no fans and with an atmosphere that in no way will compare to what awaits when this year’s finals start Thursday night in Oklahoma City.
“The finals in the bubble still had the tangible feel of a finals,” Caruso said. “You knew what was up for grabs. That adrenaline before the game, obviously, I don’t think it would probably be the same adrenaline level that you feel with fans, just being on the other side of it now. But understanding what’s at stake was still very apparent.”
The Thunder will take on the Eastern Conference champion Indiana Pacers. Game 1 is in Oklahoma City, where the Thunder are 43-7 this season, including the playoffs. They’re 80-19 overall — including both the postseason and a loss in the NBA Cup title game — and that’s why Caruso doesn’t feel the need to do a whole lot of how-to-handle-the-finals coaching.
“You don’t have to do anything special. You just have to be who we are,” he said. “That’s worked for us throughout this whole year. So I’m just continuing to emphasize with the guys, just do what we’ve done all year. Compete at a high level, play together, play as a team. When we do that, we’re pretty good.”
At 31, Caruso is the oldest player on the Thunder roster — even though more than 80 active NBA players are older than him.
The NBA said the Thunder are the second-youngest team to make the finals in the last 70 seasons, with an average age of 25.56. That’s about a half-year older than the Portland Trail Blazers were in 1977.
“We’ve got one of the youngest teams in the league still,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “And these guys are growing at a really rapid rate. And we’ve had a lot of individual players really grow quickly and grow in impactful ways in a short period of time.”
But they rely on Caruso in many ways as well. A team loaded with young talent — led by MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren — is willing to listen and learn, which is where Caruso comes in.
“There’s never a second where he’s not fully engaged in the competition,” said Daigneault, who coached Caruso with the G League’s Oklahoma City Blue in 2016-17 and now coaches him with the Thunder. “And I think that right there, the contagiousness of that and the consistency of that, is really the impact.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a drill in shootaround or whether it’s a side out-of-bounds play on a short shot clock. That guy, Alex Caruso, is completely engaged in that moment.”
And Caruso will be completely engaged in the finals, with hopes of getting a second ring — and a first parade.
The 2020 finals ended in October because of the COVID-interrupted season, and training camps resumed just a few weeks later. There was no traditional offseason after the Lakers won the title, and Caruso laments missing out on some of the fun.
“There’s parts of winning a championship that I didn’t get to experience through that first championship,” he said. “I never got to go on a parade. The turnaround for the next season was like a month. I went to Cabo for a couple of days and then started working out again because the next season was about to start.
“There’s a little bit of enjoying the success that I didn’t get to necessarily participate in. But I’ve got another chance to get it done and try again with fans and with a parade and all that.”
