TBU Podcast | What a Week! | OKC Thunder

TBU Podcast | What a Week! | OKC Thunder

Welcome into the Thunder basketball Universe we are recording this on Monday March 11th that means the Thunder is halfway through a 4game homestand inside of this building so far during this month of March the Thunder has won four out of their five games including a nice three game winning streak recently and

They’ve won their last nine games here inside of this building so this past week that means we have had a lot of highlight worthy plays we’ve had a lot of great stats we’ve had a lot of Great Moments inside of this building and on the road but that means we’ve also had

Some great quotes So we figured we’d open up this podcast with a nice little game of you can Shay that again gotta love a good game you can say that again yeah especially from this past week I feel like we’ve had a lot of good moments that have caught our eyee in

Terms of what our guys have been saying recently so Nick I will let you go first what is your Shay that again well this is a nice little carryover from what you were just talking about in terms of the Thunders nine game win streak at home

And you know most teams are going to play better at at home the Thunder certainly has all of those same advantages but some of what’s happening is just uh the approach that this team has had and this quote um really speaks to that and uh it’s from um a player

That you’re going to have to try to guess okay uh and he said we don’t play the scoreboard we play the minutes on the clock and I thought that was uh pretty poetic I feel like a lot of our guys would say this yes but it’s kind of succinct

And there are a few guys that come to mind when I think of just succinct powerful succinct phrases and the one that pops into my head is there’s two but the first one is K you got it did I get it nailed it my gosh shout out KAS

Because he he does he’s not a man of many words no but when he does speak you listen he packs a punch yeah he does yeah for sure and uh I just thought this was amazing perspective from a rookie this guy’s played all 64 games as a

Rookie has not missed one yet uh he just scored a career-high 22 uh against uh Memphis last night so um really had that and he talked about this team wanting to be uh the first team ready basically have the first team ready mentality against a very short-handed Memphis team

Those games can often be very difficult to get up for and to be focused on uh the Thunder kind of saw that out in Portland to finish that road trip that was a very difficult game for the Thunder they ended up winning but it was

One that was kind of a SLO against an underman team a team that was dealing with some injuries and um you know not having the season that they wanted to have OKC really wred the ship here uh coming off that tough road trip hardfought physical game against Miami

And then they come out and take care of business and um K played a big part in that yeah he knocked down four three-pointers in that game against Memphis I I love the thing that stands out the most about kase he’s a rookie right but this this doesn’t sound like a

Rookie comment this sounds like someone who has seen a lot of things in the NBA has a lot of experience has been burned by you know not playing the minutes and playing the scoreboard but this goes to show what coach dagnal talks about with kase all the time is his mentality his

Poise his composure he doesn’t get rattled and yes KAS has faced adversity this season as every player has but his approach to that adversity is really really impressive for a rookie because he just kind of absorbs it and keeps moving forward and that’s why we’ see we

See him take steps forward each and every game he’s out there and it’s why a guy like Lou Dort gives him the best compliment that you can give to a rookie which he said we know what we’re going to get out of CAS in every night wow and

You can’t say that about most rookies in the NBA that that you know consistently what you’re going to get from them um and so for kase a guy that is still kind of walking that great line between being a functional role player who’s playing you know the exact same way every night

18 to 20 minutes a night and continuing to get some developmental reps you know that’s why you’re going to see him towards the end of these games if the Thunder is up big or down big at the end of some of these games you might think

Okay K sometimes he’s a six man Off the Bench he’s going to still be out there for extended periods because they’ve got to maximize the Reps that he can get as a playmaker as a you know secondary uh ball handler facilitator and to to really put him on Prime Time guys

Exactly it’s the it’s the defensive element that allows him to be so reliable each and of heirs that withs like tonight ORS like the where he knocks down four pointers and it’s just like that extra element kind of icing on the cake to his game but he doesn’t back

Down when he’s you know lined up toe-to-toe with like a Damen Lillard or a you know another big guard in the NBA like these guys are or KAS is just so steady and he just accepts the challenge in front of him headon and that that’s something that you don’t see very often

For rookie when you started off playing point guard in college you know kind of making that next step up from where you were in high school what do you remember about that transition and how do you feel like um you you’ve seen Cas deal with that in ways that you were maybe

Pressured uh similar to Cas I came in as a defensive-minded player and so all my coaches knew that they were going to put me on you know opposing team’s best players well that meant in practice I was going up against our starting point guard at the time and she was not

Holding back she would just like oh you’re a good Defender huh okay we’ll see about that tries to break my ankles tries to just run her run her shoulder into my chest um but K does such a great job like I I it took me a while to like

Not be rattled by you know the fact that I’m getting thrown into the fire so much information is coming at me head on like you could kind of see my head spinning a little bit you don’t see that with k no at all and it just it blows my mind

Every single time because you would think that he’s been in the NBA for about two or three years now but a lot of this is brand new experience for K and he just handles handles it with so much Poise better than better than I did when I was starting out in the college

Yeah Mark says that he just has incredible competitive maturity yeah and when you see Jimmy Butler try to throw him around I mean it’s like Mo most guys that Jimmy Butler tries to throw around are getting thrown around and K just seems to to keep an even kill and it’s

It helps that he’s you know built like a tank exactly Great Frame to match the great skill set that he has out there on the floor all right yeah what’s yours Paris it’s time to to Shay that again um I’m not even going to pretend I’m not

Even GNA sit here and act like you don’t know who said this I think everybody’s G to know who said this I think every single human being that is watching this podcast has seen the clip from that game what game was it it was the Miami game right yeah Miami game Shay guilis

Alexander finishes his 47th game this season with 30 or more points which not only leads the NBA but also ties a Thunder record ties Kevin Durant at 47 points and so our very own Nick Gallow just Round of Applause for Nick because before Shay dropped this bar Nick dropped this

Bar he said how are you so consistent like the tide night in and night out first of all I think Shay was responding to you I think you set the tone of that just trying to be a little poetic you know let lead him to that maybe I well

Done well done cuz it was a beautiful setup he just lobbed it up to him and Shay said every no I’m sorry I’m gonna mess it up I don’t even want to mess it up my whole life is consistent drop the mic everyone walk away jayen Williams and Jaylen Williams

Lose their mind we all lost our mind we were like that’s a bar and the first thing that popped into my head I was like we just got a SGA Instagram caption in real life real real life real time IG caption and I was like well nothing else

Needs to be said because it’s true it’s so true and that’s not the first time sheay has told us this yeah he was like look everything you see on the court is because of how I build it off the court I go to you know I go to The Practice

Facility the same time every single day I’m very consistent with what I eat I’m consistent with my off time and my recovery and my workouts and when you’re that consistent off the floor you have no choice but to just show up as yourself on the floor which is Mr

Consistent yeah and even Chad has talked about having someone like Shay you know at that level to watch as he comes into his first professional setting has been eye opening for him about the way that Chad talked about the way that Shay structures his life structures his time

At the facility structures his time away from the facility all of that stuff Chad says is extremely valuable to learn from and you know I I will say having jdub and Jay will and you know it’s always like a rot of characters as hyen I think

Has brought some of the stuff out of these guys I mean this this is like I could that the guys are doing all of this and Shay absolutely knew that Jay duub and jayw were standing there so I think that bar was for them and he got the best reaction

Possible I mean their mouths just dropped open they were like oh my gosh started counting all the things in chay’s life that were consistent exactly exactly and it’s a great tone Setter too cuz when the your leading scorer is as consistent off the floor as he is on the

Court it’s a great example to young guys like K like Chad like rookies out there that if you want to produce this way on the floor it doesn’t show up when you just show up when the lights are on that work starts far far far behind the

Scenes before you even step foot into a practice facility or onto a game court and that is that’s a good life lesson in general but especially for an NBA team and a young NBA team a great example to set it’s got to be so hard when you’re a

Guy like Shay you change teams after your rookie year and while you’re certainly getting guidance from the teams that you’ve been on about how to work what to do a lot of it is has got to be driven by yourself and your your player who has never won or been an all

NBA performer before but you’re trying to figure out what are the things that are going to drive winning and what are going to drive you know uh highle success in this league sheay has been able to tap into those things that in terms of how he structured his life how

He structured his work what things he focuses on uh in terms of his work um and then he’s just you know he’s had that Vision he’s had the understanding but then he’s just focused on the day-to-day yeah and he hasn’t devoted his time and energy to thinking about

All-nba or MVP or X Y and Z outcomes that he can’t control he’s focused on the day-to-day of what he can control and so that’s it’s a really like left brain and right brain thing to be able to to think about the big picture but then focus on the small one the perfect

Example of this is something that I we actually brought up on the ballet Sports Broadcast last night against Memphis and you know Shay every single night I don’t know if you’ve watched a Thunder basketball game but every single night Shay will do something that just makes you go like

What like how did he do that there was a play last night against the Grizzlies Shay hits probably like the nastiest Up and Under I’ve ever seen in an NBA game like just he covered so much ground I don’t know how he did it he sent sansy Alama

Flying into the first row finishes the layup and all of us are like okay that’s Shay being Shay that’s crazy that’s a wild move such a tough shot right well one thing I brought up on the broadcast and that Shay has talked about is that those aren’t tough shots to him

Because in practice and when he’s working out he’s repping those situations he’s repping those practice or those shots over and over and over again so by the time he gets to the game and he’s shooting what we deem as this wild tough shot it’s a shot that it’s

Another shot for SGA because he practices like he plays and this is to your point where he’s focused on the day-to-day in the moment but also has an eye toward what he might need in the future like hm I might need an Up and Under I might be you know around the rim

Against a big man and I might need a nice little Up and Under let’s rep that let’s work on that and I I will point out that a lot of the guys that Shay’s going up against a couple of the guys that Shay’s going up against in practice

Some of the Thunder um Player Development coaches they’re bigger than Shay they’re taller than him and so he’s getting really good reps against guys that are bigger than he is and so by the time he gets into the game these are just normal shots for Shay but for us

They live rent free in our brains over and over and over again I I love that hit from you last night because you did such a great job of incorporating what Shay told you yeah but then also what you’ve seen with your own eyes and what you’ve seen at The Practice Facility

What you’re describing you know those one on Three workouts where Shay I mean and and all of this is choreographed you know Shay’s got the initial Defender that is you know right up there then there’s another assistant coach that’s hanging out at the elbow ready to pinch

Over then there’s the the big Defender that’s waiting around the rim Y and Shay is practicing sort of triangulating how to get to the spot that he wants to get through between all three of those converging bodies that are doing something different against him every single time and it’s yeah so

Anyway great hit by you to to combine the words with the visuals and then of course Michael cage had to follow up with you and just had to press you but here’s I just appreciated that it wasn’t a pop quiz like I don’t think you guys understand how much I’m actually

Sweating over there by myself cuz Nick sits right next to Chris and Mike during games we have a great laugh about this so it’s and it’s fun it’s fine it’s great I’m on the other side I can’t see what you guys are doing I can’t see if

Michael has that look in his eyes like hm that’s something we could quiz Paris awon about so I’m just kind of over on the opposite side sweating for the moment no clue whether it’s coming or not that Michael cage might just throw a pop quiz at me but I I accepted his

Extra little question at the end there just to see what else Shay does in practice because it is different every single day but the one consistent thing is that he’s typically the last guy off the floor after every single practice and that’s exactly what you want from

The the leader of your team and now the Thunder has a lot of different guys who lead in their different ways but uh Shay set such a tone given the sheer volume of minutes you know the sheer volume of respon responsibility that he has throughout the course of a game and one

Of the ways that he really you know just leads off of that responsibility is that he allows everyone else to take part in it I saw somebody say something uh that I thought was just so just profound is exactly what Shay is like he is able to be incredibly productive and efficient

On the floor racks up everything that you could possibly want to rack up in a game but he doesn’t take the air out of the Thunder on offense or defense he does not disrupt what the Thunder is trying to do to allow all these guys to thrive and that’s why you’re seeing not

Just Shay but Shay Shay’s leadership and the style in which he’s doing it is allowing for so many of these guys to be shooting 40% from three and be comfortable and be in Rhythm and this is this is a great example of this Shay’s statline against the Memphis Grizzlies

23 points six assists the man is not out here just pressing and looking for his own shot he did knock down five threes in this game that’s helpful that’ll do it that’s a really really good thing but it was also in the flow of the offense

Because for the Thunder as a whole in this game they knocked down 21 threes they had 10 different guys who made a three there were 36 assists dished out in that game and for Shay yes he was top of the list in terms of his scoring but

He was right there in the mix in terms of the style of play that the Thunder was playing in this game again the Memphis Grizzlies and just whatever was required in that moment Shay was just a part of that and he just never looked like he was forcing anything pressing

Everything anything it’s just about what’s the best option out there on the floor and his assisting has really gone under the radar I mean we just talked about the consistency of his scoring and how you know he said my whole life is consistent well if you take a look at

His assists yeah 41 out of less 49 games he’s had at least five assists and that is a level of consistency with his playmaking and his passing that we have not seen to this point in his career his numbers are significantly up uh from you know last season and the seasons before

In that category and I think that that really should not go unnoticed in terms of the overall evolution of his game y definitely just an allaround well-rounded player and we talked about this on the the Thunder live pregame show before we went on air um against

Memphis and Roy was saying look he’s not a one-dimensional guy he’s not a a hired scorer half of this game is played on the defensive end and shaa obviously leads the league in steals he’s top 10 in stocks which are Steals and blocks combined so he’s really just trying to

Be as good as he possibly can be every minute of the game whatever that minute requires and he’s worked really hard to make himself one of the best in all of those minutes so great stuff from SGA throughout this season but especially as of late here and keep an eye out because

We still have a lot of season left to play and Sh is um tying the Thunder record with 47 games with 30 or more points so I have a feeling he’s probably gonna probably gonna get that yeah just just might might guess that way okay the

Other guy I want to talk about is Josh giddy who has had himself a really nice stretch of basketball here especially over the last four games averaging 15 points seven and a half rebounds five assists and shooting 60% from the field and especially against Memphis he got

Out to such a strong start in that game the physicality the force the pace he had 11 points in like the first six minutes of this game it was like oh my gosh Josh giddy’s out scoring the Grizzlies right now it’s so cool to see a nice little breakthrough from Josh on

This because you know the one of the benefits of us having been with this team for the significant amount of time that we’ve been with it is you see this story over and over again I mean we saw it uh with Lou Dort in the way that he

Had to adjust some some pieces of his game we saw it with the way Shay had to adjust pieces of his game you think back to the 202 and 21 Seasons uh 22 Seasons he was getting guarded differently than he’d ever been defended in his life and

Especially at the NBA level having to figure out how to rework some of his magic yeah to get it out onto the floor and it feels like during this recent stretch Josh has really tapped into a different level of activity energy movement uh there’s a confidence of knowing okay wait a second

I’ve seen these pictures now for a few months you know of teams might be defending us a little bit differently you got Chad spacing the floor now you know the Thunder has been a team that other teams are trying to crack and solve all season long and uh and so Josh

Is is kind of worked through some of those things and has now found this level of activity where he’s completely unpredictable in terms of what types of actions he’s going to be in sometimes he’s going to be spaced sometimes he’s going to come up and be a screener

Sometimes he’s going to be the ball handler out top sometimes he’s going to be cutting from the back door I mean they they can’t get a beat on him now and that is a great sign of development and growth because we I mean we’ve seen similar stuff like this L Dort same

Situation there was a good long while where he was kind of parked in a corner and hadn’t seen the pictures to the point where he recognized oh here are all the different ways that I can impact things and so uh great Confidence from Josh right now awesome confidence and

Really good just toughness to just kind of like stick with it make sure that you’re doing all the right things out there and he said something the other day that really stood out in my mind he’s like look we’re getting a lot of different coverages this season and

That’s a compliment to our offense you don’t get that unless you’re the number one team in the Western Conference and you are one of the best offenses in the league teams have to try different stuff against you in order to try to get an advantage and so take it as a compliment

As it is but then you have Josh saying and also my job here is to fill the gaps here and I think you posed this question to Josh in one of his walk-off interviews of just like you could do so much out here you have the ability to

Impact the game in a multitude of ways how are you just trying to find and like find your gaps here and he’s like that’s that’s my job is just to go out there and find what the team needs and be able to deliver and at 6’9 with his Elite

Passing skills and his ability to rebound the basketball he’s really leaned into that and I love what we saw at the beginning of that Grizzlies game where he he had his scoring moments but he also you could see you could see that he was using his size to his Advantage a

Lot like he would just back down Jake L laravia anytime he was on him and just kind of score over him like with ease and use his rebounding got a defensive rebound and just went Coast to Coast himself just using his own advantages to make the team better and to fill those

Gaps like you mentioned Josh giddy is 21 years old he’s played 193 games in the NBA over 100 of those games I think 101 now he’s had at least five rebounds and five assists in the same game in 50 of those games he’s had a double double wow

So you think about that he’s still only 21 years old he hasn’t even gotten to 200 games played yet just below that and over half of his games he’s had at least five rebounds and five assists and in a quarter of his games he’s had a double double I mean those are

Significant productive performances consistently throughout the throughout the course of his career and you know I think it’s just it would be silly to think that teams aren’t going to try to take some of that stuff away and try to take away you know what the Thunder has

Going if a team walked into a building against a you know a thunder Squad that’s got a 700 winning percentage and said I guess we’ll just play him straight up tonight uh people would be like um what are you doing are you sure what are you doing

So uh yeah so expect to cons and and I think this is why Mark dnel calls the Thunder you know a living organism yes you know just news flash like this isn’t going to be the last time that we see a team try to do something creative to try

To deal with what the Thunder is doing out there uh playoffs are coming potentially down the line and so the Thunder should continue to view itself as that this living organism to be adaptable to be flexible and to be able to learn in real time about how to

Adjust to what the opposing team is getting uh throwing at them and also enjoy the amazing passes when you see them can we talk about the one to case out in transition the other night so Josh he’s running along this the left side of the floor he’s in transition I

Forget who threw him the ball was it Gordon was it Shay was it was yeah I forgot that part of the play because I could only focus on the fact that without turning around Josh kind of just Palms the ball and whips it across his

Body his back is to the basket by the way just whips it across his body per perfect pass to Cas in stride finishes the basket and in my head I’m like he saw that play developing probably for like 10 seconds before he even caught the ball in my in my imagination the

There was a bounce pass that Josh threw that was so hard it was also to Case and I just oh I remember that one I was looking over to see whether our our equipment guy Caleb was going to go run and try to like buff the floor back up

And there was a big dent I thought there like I was like surely there’s a massive dent in the floor from how hard this bounce pass was that Josh threw and it was perfectly on time and on target for K to go out and finish it and transition

Mark before the Memphis game I asked Mark about Josh and he was he brought up his uh sideline out of bounds plays which naturally yeah amazing uh but he calls those strikes because they basically are like that is Josh giddy’s fast ball is getting that ball on the

Sideline or the Baseline and being able to execute a sideline out of bounds play and like eight times out of 10 it’s G to give you a bucket and like yeah that’s a pretty good strike right there like if you can call that play and the Mark said

The goal for us is to make sure that we’re leveraging that skill set yeah in as many plays as we possibly can uh you know on the floor out there the cool thing about Josh and this came up in a recent interview that I did with him is

Like sometimes that truly is a fast ball and he’s flinging at a million miles an hour I mean he finds some of these passes that are just I mean wild and they got to fit inside this big of a window uh but there’s a there’s a bit of

Acting that Josh has to do on those side line out of bounds plays and he said like yeah sometimes you know sometimes I gotta kind of really act like I I’m hunting a certain pass yeah and there was one in Phoenix where it was the most casual inbounds pass I’ve ever seen him

Make but it was all theatrics to make it seem like he was going for this gentle little you know simple inbounds pass and right before he he threw it he just flicked his wrist up and it ended up being a lob up over the top I think to

Down the middle and it’s like so he’s now he’s now getting into a little bit of the Showmanship of it yeah that is required as teams are starting to scout this more people don’t realize there’s a lot that goes into those out- of bounds plays I remember specifically just as a

Point guard there was also before you even get the ball you’ll notice sometimes Josh will stand in front of the Baseline so the ref can’t give him the ball yet that’s to give him team time to get organized get set up get lined up in whatever you know formation

They need to be in and then as soon as he steps out of bounds the ref can give him the ball at any point because once he touches that ball the clock starts ticking for five seconds you better get the ball in bounds and so Josh is and

The the whole team knows this give your team as much time as possible before you get the ball that’s great Poise though and I mean think again he Josh started doing this stuff when he was like 19 years old yes and you know know you think about most 19-year-olds that are

Coming into the NBA they’re fly you know they’re living in a new country they’ve got NBA refs that they’ve never met or talked to before and he’s had the Poise and the confidence to just know the gamesmanship of that a little bit to not like feel pressured to go run and grab

The ball as soon as possible before his team is even ready like there’s a level of like I’ve gotten in trouble for that there’s a level of like guts and like confidence that you have to have to not just be like oh shoot the ref is calling

Me over to like hurry me like no I’m gonna make sure that my team is squared away and then we’ll get it going or get excited like oh this is my time to shine this is what I’m good at let’s let’s go let’s do this because that could get you

In a lot of trouble I’ve been there trust me but no Josh gidy showing a lot of Po and also showing some just great floor game over these last few games here for the Thunder the other guy I want to talk about last guy Gordon Hayward who is we’ve seen him knock down

Some threes now but it’s his assisting that I know you want to talk about because he’s got 10 assists over the last two games and these some of these dimes have been really really cool to see I just love the approach from Gordon and it seems like he’s hunting some of

These playmaking opportunities a lot of it probably is just taking what the defense gives he’s been driving hard and the defense has collapsed opposing defenses are trying to take the pain away from the Thunder anyway because the Thunder is one of the top driving teams in the league but think you know just

Trying to put myself in Gordon’s shoes like the big picture approach of hey if I come in here and I try to jack up shots and try to get into a rhythm that way that has a higher percentage chance of backfiring and hurting the team than

What if I go out there and just try to facilitate and I really try to playmake for others and I try to get myself back into Rhythm after missing seven weeks with an injury maybe that’s how I get myself into a rhythm is just really be a really nice connecting piece for this

Team and as Mark dgold just said like really the last you know minutes of that game out in Los Angeles even though the Thunder lost and um it wasn’t a close game at the end he said that that really helped rev up some of Gordon’s engines and just getting into that flow getting

A feel for the ball touching it having it ping around as Isaiah Joe always likes to say the ball has energy and Gordon I think we’re seeing some of his his scoring uh jump in as well some of the defense get involved too and I think

Some of that is a product of the energy that he’s putting out there with his playmaking that’s a great point and if you kind of if you put Gordon’s games kind of on a on a map here and you see just kind of like the the energy he’s

Playing with and the force and just like how he’s moving the trajectory is up like every game is more and more comfortable looking more you know aggressive out there and you’re talking about the offense it’s the defensive side that is shown kind of this for me

Um he had a couple of steals against Portland he had one really just sneaky kind of heady steal against Miami where he kind of came behind I think it was bam out of Bio it might have just snuck behind him and poked the ball away started a transition layup and Coach

Dagno pointed out obviously Gordon has a lot of experience as a veteran but he’s played for great defensive coaches he’s played for great defensive teams and so you can tell that IQ is there for Gordon and so he could see him if you just notice him on the defensive end it he’s

Always in the right spot he’s just always is kind of like where he needs to be and it’s resulted in a couple of really heady plays for him um and so the the energy that he’s playing with the the IQ he’s playing with it’s just it’s getting you’re seeing it get more and

More traction here as he gets more and more time out there on the floor he had he was a monster in that Miami game go and just the physicality he has really been in the right position a lot lately and you know he’s he showed that in one

Of his very first games kind of blew up uh some pick and roll action just by being over in helps side position early and I don’t want to make a big deal out of this but I wasn’t too surprised that he he was such a monster in that Miami

Game you know he spent a lot of time in the Eastern Conference and the Thunder’s got this big East Coast Road Trip coming up later in the season he’s seen a lot of pictures of of these guys that they’re going to be facing on this East Coast trip um moving moving forward and

So it’s just you know the Thunder being in such an infancy stage of of these guys careers they’re trying to get as many uh you know reps against some of these Big Time Players as they can possibly get the cool thing for Gordon is like he’s seen all of these guys so

So much and so there’s probably some predictive elements in terms of just his instincts taking over his positioning taking over that I think will continue to see more and more of yeah I mean when you go up against a team that you used to play four times a year like a team

Like the Miami Heat who’s probably in your same division right Southeast Conference yeah Southeast Conference to the Charlotte Hornets like that that’s going to come with a level of experience that you can just apply into the game Thunder’s got two games against Milwaukee still left on the schedule

Indiana tomorrow the Thunder still got to play twice so uh certainly might be able to lean on a little bit of that corporate knowledge that uh that Gordon’s got such a good point such a good point all right before we head out we got to give you what’s coming up for

The Thunder and uh we got two more games here inside of this building at paycom Center the next game is going to be against the Pacers on Wednesday I’m very interested in this game because the last two games of the Thundurus played if you just kind of put them group them

Together Thunders played Miami and they’ve played Memphis the two things Miami and or the one thing that Miami and Memphis have in common defensive-minded coaches defensive-minded team and those were kind of wrestling matches between those two teams the Pacers it might be a sprinting match oh my gosh it has it has

A very high chance of being a high scoring game inside of this building and it goes to show something that coach dagnell talked about which is being able to find different ways to win games like if you want to be a good team in this league you got to be able to throw

Different pitches and be able to to answer to different pitches as well and you can’t be predictable yeah in football they call it being an all-weather team you know we’re throwing all different kind of sports metaphors we’re going we’re going for it all today

But yeah I mean you got to be able to win when it’s you know 90 degrees outside the first week of September you got to be able to win in December when it’s snowing on you too and and the same thing goes in the NBA you’ve got to be

Able to win the shootouts that you’re probably going to see against Indiana and Dallas coming in this week on Thursday I know we’ll get to that uh and then you got to be able to win the Grinders you know 10700 against Miami um that’s a a Big Time Performance to

Demonstrate um hey we got all the tools in the tool bag that that we’re going to you know need down the line yeah that’ll be a that’ll be a really interesting game fun to watch and then the last game of this home stand is against the Dallas

Mavericks on Friday that is going to be on TNT and the Dallas Mavericks as we know come with a lot of offense at their disposal in the form of LCA donic and Kyrie Irving of course yeah and this is these games against them have been wild

Battles all season long um none of the game none of the three have looked the same um all year and so uh this this is going to be a fascinating one for for OKC as they uh host Dallas and Luca and Kyrie and um you’re going to not want to

Miss that you’re going to have to stay up late for it but you’re not going to want to miss it will it is a 9:00 p.m. central Time tip off but I think it’ll be worth it if you stay up and watch that game but until then that wraps us

Up here on our Thunder basketball Universe podcast thank you so much for for watching and listening be sure to like rate and subscribe wherever you get your podcast thank you so much to our producer Matt bishop and until next time Thunder up and catch you later

The Thunder has won four out of five games in March, including its last three, and nine straight at home. The TBU crew breaks down the reasons for success, plus the consistency of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cason Wallace making strides in his first season, Josh Giddey finding his groove and Gordon Hayward becoming more acclimated to the team.

0:30 You can Shai that again
1:56 Cason Wallace continues to grow
6:38 Consistency is 🔑
18:13 Josh Giddey all around
23:15 All about the assists and inbounds passes
27:52 Gordon Hayward plugging in
32:11 Looking ahead…

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