Gilgeous-Alexander scores 33 as league-leading Thunder top Pacers 132-111 for 9th straight win

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 33 points and the Oklahoma City Thunder routed the Indiana Pacers 132-111 on Saturday night for their ninth straight win.

Gilgeous-Alexander, the league's leading scorer, made 10 of 23 field goals and 10 of 12 free throws.

Lu Dort scored 22 points and made 6 of 7 3-pointers while Jalen Williams added 18 points for the Thunder.

Tyrese Haliburton had 18 points and Andrew Nembhard added 16 for the Pacers, who had won six of their previous seven games.

Oklahoma City dominated, even though forward/center Chet Holmgren sat out to manage the left hip injury he suffered early in the season. The Thunder now have a three-game lead on the Cleveland Cavaliers in the race for the league’s best record and homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs with eight to play.

The Pacers entered Saturday fourth in the Eastern Conference standings and are trying to hold off the Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks to earn homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

The Pacers were coming off a 162-109 win against the Washington Wizards, but they couldn’t duplicate the effort against a Thunder team with the league’s best defensive rating.

Pacers: Indiana ran into the rare team that could handle playing at its breakneck pace. Even with the teams running and gunning, the Thunder shot 51.1% from the field and committed just nine turnovers.

Thunder: Oklahoma City took an in-game injury in stride. Isaiah Hartenstein left with left hip soreness and did not play in the second half. Oklahoma City outscored the Pacers 71-62 after the break.

Oklahoma City's Isaiah Joe hit a pair of 3-pointers 45 seconds apart late in the third quarter. The second pushed the Thunder lead to 98-78.

Gilgeous-Alexander made 6 of 18 shots the first three quarters, then made 4 of 5 in the fourth.

The Pacers host Sacramento and the Thunder host Chicago, both on Monday night.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, right, shots over Indiana Pacers forward Pascal Siakam, left, during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, right, drives past Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, left, during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, right, shoots over Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, left, during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Indiana Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard, left, shoots near Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, right, during the second half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) shoots over Indiana Pacers forward Jarace Walker (5) during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Saturday, March 29, 2025, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Kyle Phillips)

Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department began receiving notices of dismissal Tuesday in an overhaul ultimately expected to lay off up to 10,000 people. The notices came just days after President Donald Trump moved to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights at HHS and other agencies throughout the government.

At the National Institutes of Health, the world's leading health and medical agency, the layoffs occurred as its new director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, began his first day of work.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan last week to remake the department, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half the country.

The plan would consolidate agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centers under a new office called the Administration for a Healthy America.

The layoffs are expected to shrink HHS to 62,000 positions, lopping off nearly a quarter of its staff — 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers. Many of the jobs are based in the Washington area, but also in Atlanta, where the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based, and in smaller offices throughout the country.

Two lines with hundreds of employees wrapped around the HHS headquarters building Tuesday morning. Workers waited in the chilly spring weather to be individually scanned in for access to the building. Some said they were waiting to find out if they still had jobs. Others gathered at local coffee shops and lunch spots after being turned away, finding out they had been eliminated after decades of service.

One wondered aloud if it was a cruel April Fools' Day joke.

At the NIH, the cuts included at least four directors of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers who were put on administrative leave, and nearly entire communications staffs were terminated, according to an agency senior leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

An email viewed by The Associated Press shows some senior-level employees of the Bethesda, Maryland, campus who were placed on leave were offered a possible transfer to the Indian Health Service in locations including Alaska and given until the end of Wednesday to respond.

At the Food and Drug Administration, dozens of staffers who regulate drugs and tobacco products received notices, including the entire office responsible for drafting new regulations for electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products. The notices came as the FDA’s tobacco chief was removed from his position. Elsewhere at the agency, more than a dozen press officers and communications supervisors were notified that their jobs would be eliminated.

“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed," said former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf in an online post. Califf stepped down at the end of the Biden administration.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington predicted the cuts will have ramifications when natural disasters strike or infectious diseases, like the ongoing measles outbreak, spread.

“They may as well be renaming it the Department of Disease because their plan is putting lives in serious jeopardy,” Murray said Friday.

The CDC has not provided a breakdown of cuts, but employees in different parts of the organization described to the AP extensive layoffs in programs that track asthma, air pollution, smoking, gun violence, reproductive health, climate change and other health threats.

The intent seems to be to create “a much smaller, infectious disease agency,” but it is destroying a wide array of work and collaborations that have enabled local and national governments to be able to prevent deaths and respond to emergencies, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Among the hardest-hit centers was the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, with more than 1,000 employees. NIOSH is based in Cincinnati but also has people in Pittsburgh; Spokane, Washington; and Morgantown, West Virginia.

Cuts were less drastic at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where the Trump administration wants to avoid the appearance of debilitating the health insurance programs that cover roughly half of Americans, many of them poor, disabled and elderly.

But the impact will still be felt, with the department slashing much of the workforce at the Office of Minority Health, which no longer has a functioning webpage.

Jeffrey Grant, a former CMS deputy director, said the office is not part of a diversity, equity and inclusion program, the kind Trump's Republican administration has sought to end.

“This is not a DEI initiative. This is meeting people where they are and meeting their specific health needs,” said Grant, who resigned last month and now helps place laid-off CMS employees into new jobs.

The Office of Program Operations & Local Engagement, which does local outreach for CMS operations, was also gutted, Grant said.

Beyond layoffs at federal health agencies, cuts are beginning at state and local health departments as a result of an HHS move last week to pull back more than $11 billion in COVID-19-related money. Some health departments have identified hundreds of jobs that stand to be eliminated, “some of them overnight, some of them are already gone,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

A coalition of state attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, arguing the cuts are illegal, would reverse progress on the opioid crisis and would throw mental health systems into chaos.

Kennedy criticized the department he oversees as an inefficient “sprawling bureaucracy” in a video Thursday announcing the restructuring. He said the department’s $1.7 trillion yearly budget “has failed to improve the health of Americans.”

“I want to promise you now that we’re going to do more with less,” Kennedy said.

The department on Thursday provided a breakdown of some of the cuts.

__ 3,500 jobs at the FDA, which inspects and sets safety standards for medications, medical devices and foods.

__ 2,400 jobs at the CDC, which monitors for infectious disease outbreaks and works with public health agencies nationwide.

__ 1,200 jobs at the NIH.

__ 300 jobs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the Affordable Care Act marketplace, Medicare and Medicaid.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Hundreds of employees wait in line wrapped around the outside of the Health and Human Services headquarters building, Tuesday morning, April 1, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Amanda Seitz)

Hundreds of employees wait in line wrapped around the outside of the Health and Human Services headquarters building, Tuesday morning, April 1, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Amanda Seitz)

Hundreds of employees wait in line wrapped around the outside of the Health and Human Services headquarters building, Tuesday morning, April 1, 2025 in Washington. (AP Photo/Amanda Seitz)

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during an event announcing proposed changes to SNAP and food dye legislation, Friday, March 28, 2025, in Martinsburg, W. Va. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

FILE - The Department of Health and Human Services building is seen in Washington, April 5, 2009.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)