OKLAHOMA CITY — Head coach Mark Daigneault and the Oklahoma City Thunder captured their fourth straight win in a 114-75 victory over the Washington Wizards, with Jared McCain leading the bench in scoring. After Ajay Mitchell scored a career-high 35 points against the Memphis Grizzlies as part of the first leg of a road/home back-to-back, McCain finished with 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting, including a perfect 6-of-6 from inside the 3-point arc.
McCain also finished with five rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block on Saturday, which didn’t go unnoticed as Daigneault highlighted the third-year guard’s performance during his postgame press conference.
“A lot of it is what’s your identity if you took shooting off the table. What are you left with as a player? And I think we got a lot of guys on the team that model that well. I think Caruso, obviously, is in the Hall of Fame for that. Hartenstein, in the last two nights, he’s scored four points in two games — two points last night/two points tonight. Last night, we won his minutes by 31 points. Tonight, he had 14 rebounds. We won his minutes by 25.
“That’s a great example of an impactful winning player that can do it in all the other ways outside of the counting stats with points. And Jared, younger player, relatively new, you got guys like them, Kenrich; these guys that do all the invisible stuff. It’s very contagious. And it brings value to those things. A guy like Jared has done a great job, despite the fact that he is great scorer and a great shooter, of focusing on those things. It’s a shoutout to him, but it’s a shoutout to the environment we have in our locker room,” Daigneault concluded.
“A lot of it is what’s your identity if you took shooting off the table. What are you left with as a player? And I think we have a lot of guys on the team that model that well.
I think Caruso, obviously, is in the Hall of Fame for that. Hartenstein, in the last two nights, he’s… pic.twitter.com/8vGsf8vB5D
— Josue Pavón (@Joe_Sway) November 8, 2026
In his first full season with the Thunder, Jared McCain, who was traded by the Philadelphia 76ers mid-season in 2025-26, is finding his stride in Oklahoma City. Embracing the Thunder’s culture, McCain spent parts of his offseason training with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in Canada, Chet Holmgren in Los Angeles, and Kenrich Williams in Fort Worth, Texas.
Amid a 0-for-18 shooting slump, which ended in the Thunder’s 124-116 win against the Cleveland Cavs on Wednesday, Jared McCain has found other ways to make his presence felt on both ends of the floor. For McCain, Isaiah Joe, who the Thunder traded to the Detroit Pistons over the summer, set an example early in his tenure with Oklahoma City.
“Isaiah, he helped me a lot. Any questions I had, defensively/offensively, we talked a lot about being a shooter, and how that works in this league,” McCain said after Saturday’s win. “There’s going to be times when you missed shots. It happened. It might happen again. It’s something that you have to just work through. I think staying confident is huge, but being able to affect the game defensively, rebounding, something; you gotta find something to affect the game.
“That usually gets yourself going on the other end, anyways. So, for me, I just try to rebounds, and play super hard on defense. Now I can continue that, and use both. I think I’m getting better on the defensive end as well. So, being able to contribute on both side is huge, especially if you’re not making shots because you gotta find a way to stay on the floor.”
Head coach Mark Daigneault is seeing his Thunder team fight through the adversity of a team that’s competing without three members of its starting lineup continue to find a way to win. They improved to 8-2 on the regular season, and 5-2 since losing Jalen Williams, Cason Wallace, and Holmgren to their respective long-term injuries.
The Thunder will embark on a four-game road trip that starts with a back-to-back against the Portland Blazers on Tuesday.
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