During the Thunder’s incredible championship run, there were a lot of sacrifices behind the scenes that no one would expect really happened in order to reach the NBA title. Jalen Williams revealed he had to take almost 30 painkilling injections in his injured right wrist to get through the playoffs. 

The young star posted a video this Tuesday on his own YouTube account, where he revealed how he dealt with a sprained right wrist for a big part of the campaign. He recalled suffering a scapholunate ligament tear and his hand felt “on fire” after battling for a loose ball with Suns’ guard Devin Booker in April.

Over the following 11 weeks, Oklahoma City conquered four-straight series to claim the NBA championship, in which the team’s medical staff was forced to use different techniques to manage his injury. Williams recalled receiving lidocaine injections in his wrist just to practice.

Jalen finally underwent surgery last week. “I got 28 or 29 shots in my hand throughout the playoffs,” the 24-year-old revealed on his YouTube video. “And I was like, ‘That can’t be for nothing. We have to win.’ So, that was my mentality.”

The OKC forward recalled Kobe Bryant suffered similar injuries and sometimes played through them during his career, which served as motivation during this tough time. He experienced the most pain during the second round series against the Nuggets, where he dropped only 23% on three-pointers.

“I didn’t want to tell the world that I was hurt, and so the world just ganged up on me about how I wasn’t ready for the moment. Which obviously is wrong now,” he said. “But that was the most annoying thing, because human nature is you want to just scream that you’re hurt. But I was able to lock in and not use that as an excuse.”

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