Alex Caruso's playoff takeover in Game 2 win against Grizzlies was easy to predict

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The Chicago Bulls can keep their box score stats. The Oklahoma City Thunder's 118-99 Game 2 win over the Memphis Grizzlies is exactly why you trade for Alex Caruso.

Through regular season frustrations with his workload and being extra cautious with minor injuries, his inevitable postseason contributions were best prepared with patience. Anybody familiar with his game knew that. It took some Thunder fans firsthand experience for the lightbulb to go off in their head.

Some players are 82-game players, others 16. The latter perfectly fits Caruso. He finished with 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting, four rebounds and three assists. He shot 3-of-6 from 3. He also had three steals and a block.

If you only get to watch parts of this game, watch what Caruso did in the fourth quarter. He flew around the court and was a magnet to the basketball. He was a millisecond ahead of the Grizzlies on their plays and precisely sniffed them out.

"He's just such a unique player. You can put him on Morant, you can put him on Jackson. You can also put him on somebody else and he can be really be a disruptive help defender," Daigneault said about Caruso. "Which, I thought he got into the game a couple of times with the block on Morant, the jumpball and the Jackson post-up. He was unbelievable."

Each time Caruso threw his body to the court, the OKC crowd absolutely loved it. Some of the louder cheers from the active playoff fans were when he went the extra mile despite the scoreboard being lopsided. The playoffs were always going to shine what he brings to the table. He's done that already through Game 2 of Round 1.

"I think this time of year just correlates with the way I play the game. I can't always play like this through the course of an 82-game season. I figured that out now eight years in that I can't dive on the floor every single night," Caruso said. "This time of year, really competing and getting after it, I think really resonates with fans. Especially here in Oklahoma City."

These next three months will justify why the Thunder slowplayed Caruso through the regular season. He understands they saved his legs during the regular season and will turn up their dependency on him to win possessions during the playoffs.

"If you're not playing like that this time of the year, you're probably going him. There's only 16 teams left and only one team can win the last game of the season," Caruso said. "That's the kinda mindset you have to have this time of the year if you want to win. This is the ultimate competition of putting your best snd putting your best effort out there and trying to win."

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Alex Caruso's playoff takeover against Grizzlies was easy to predict

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