Aaron Wiggins was not in Oklahoma City’s starting lineup against Phoenix for Game 1 on Sunday, returning to the bench after starting each of the Thunder’s final two regular-season games.
The shift fit what the Thunder had already set up before the playoffs began. With the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference locked up, Oklahoma City rested its starters down the stretch and gave Wiggins a spot in the starting five for those final two games.
Wiggins should still see a fair amount of playing time in the postseason, even if his role changes from night to night. The Thunder’s playoff rotation may shrink, and that could leave less room for the kind of lineup flexibility that showed up late in the regular season.
That is the tension for Oklahoma City now: the team is deeper than most playoff groups, but Game 1 against Phoenix offered the first sign that the rotation will tighten when the games start to matter most. For Wiggins, the move back to the bench does not read like a step back so much as a return to the role he is likely to live in through most of the postseason.