OKC Thunder Full Media Availability | Post Game vs Dallas Mavericks | March 14, 2024

OKC Thunder Full Media Availability | Post Game vs Dallas Mavericks | March 14, 2024

Movement tonight seemed really on point you got a lot of the the blender going as Mark would say uh what do you think was key to that in in terms of being able to maintain it all night long um it was just our emphasis tonight

We uh didn’t like the way we moved the ball last game against Indiana and we uh we wanted to make sure we got that back on uh back on track tonight second half in particular seemed like the defensive activity really picked up there were so many of those uh plays

Where you guys just got lower or got hands uh in the passing Lane and that kind of thing did you you guys make an emphasis on that coming at of halftime yeah we um just wanted to be disruptive defensively we felt like uh Kyrie especially was too comfortable in the

First half um and the talent like that you can’t like get comfortable uh cuz it can get out of hand sh I just wonder what you saw from dub and his first game back from injury just a shot making especially late yeah um he was himself um he was big defensively offensively

Uh he he did tonight what he’s done all year for us I know it’s it there complex layers to it but just that fourth quarter between Do’s baskets early um your your baskets late I I know in between there there’s some some strips some steals

They get you going the other way but how often do you see a game just come down to to shot making maybe from guys like you dub just Stars generally around the league um yeah most fourth quarters come down to that the game slows down um you

Try to waste time and use possession defenses are set um and a lot of times it comes down to getting good looks and and making shots Shay you guys have kept your offensive production up pretty good since the All-Star break but League wide points are down Mark said before the

Game that he thought it was pretty clear that the officiating was had changed since the All-Star break have you noticed that and and how has it affected the offenses around the league um my person haven’t noticed it to be honest um I don’t know if it’s just I’m not

Paying attention but I haven’t noticed it at all Tre wanted to ask you about jdub as well just it looks like this year he’s getting more physical and initiating contact more to free up himself and get to his spots how have you seen him improve as a score overall this year yeah um

He’s getting more comfortable every night um he’s seeing different type of defenses um and kid works hard and as he gets reps he’ll just continue to keep getting better um is what I expect Kyrie’s Big Time offensive player but how comforting is it that you guys can

Throw different guys at him I mean Dort JB yourself KAS and not just him just but big offensive weapons on the other team and you guys take pride in in terms of guarding those guys yeah um it’s what it comes down to um like especially when the games are

Close and games are going to be closer down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs um the the games come down to team’s Talent making shots and making plays um when you have guys that can turn the water off and make things difficult it’s a plus um and we know

That we value those guys and those guys do a great job of doing their job Shay how do you sort of balance just being poised but at the same time having urgency in a game like this where it’s not necessarily going your way early but

At the same time you can’t panic but you have to have some level of urgency to like get back in it Um just focus on the next next play um though you can’t focus on the past pass possessions they’re done with you can’t control them um and just try to make the the right basketball play on both ends of the floor going forward kind of double down on that one you guys had

Five guys with three or more assists three of you guys had five plus assists can you just talk about the ball movement it was very evident on a couple of plays where all five of you guys touched it before a shot went up yeah um

We just wanted to try to play the right way like I said we didn’t like how we um played offensively last game and we wanted to correct that coming into tonight sh Mark said a little bit ago you can’t fake the effort that you’ve put into your work over the last few

Years and the consistency of that work I was just wondering can you think of a time where you know maybe you had an opportunity to like cut a corner and and maybe that internal voice told you not to do it and and um helped you kind of maintain this consistency

Um I don’t I don’t know a specific time but there’s always moments where you don’t want to get up um you don’t want to eat healthy you don’t want to lift you’re tired um like the human nature things um are to revert back to what’s comfortable um but I know that on the

Other side of being uncomfortable is is greatness is getting better um and that’s what I’m after so I like to push through those things anybody Andrew’s got one in the back and like with the athletic you guys tend to go really small you’ve been doing that for for a

While what kind of goes through your head when you see like other teams kind of doubling down on being big as you guys are being small there’s a there’s a point in the game tonight where they had Derrik Lively and Maxi kba on the other side but you guys like stayed small with

Kenri at Center and then a lineup of mostly guards like what what’s it what’s it like being on the court during moments like that um we just uh we have to put an emphasis on being physical um we’re obviously at a disadvantage in that in that way um and we just have to

Try to beat a scrappier tougher team and uh play play fast and not let their size kind of have an impact on the game Shay following up just on the consistency and the work you put in a lot of guys like you bursted through every ceiling people

Have had for me from like pre-draft and a lot of guys would just be content with where they are scoring 30 being an All-Star what continues to like fuel you to keep going higher and higher um I just I want to maximize my potential as a basketball player um like I’m already

Here the people around me and myself have already sacrificed so much for me to get here um I’ll be doing it a disservice if I didn’t try to maximize my potential anybody else of course that last dunk by you there with about a minute left you guys

Were able to seal the deal just what did it take to kind of put this one away and and get the get the win there um first half we didn’t do a good job playing defense uh just weren’t physical enough gave a lot of easy looks they were comfortable the whole

Game um especially Kyrie so coming in that second half we were just trying to be really really physical uh you know that’s a tough switch to kind of flip in the middle game and I thought we did a good job of it and yeah just competed

The whole game for the most part I thought we got content scoring like I said the first half and you know kind of stopped playing defense but I think second half our our intensity picked up a lot and you know we were able to kind of fuel the fact that we’re having a

Good offensive game with our defense and obviously first game back after missing last game just how did you feel out there just physically tired that’s about it but other than that my ankle feels fine I rolled both of them the last game so um had a good couple days of

Treatment uh so shout out to the medical staff with that and um yeah I was able to kind of come back a little quicker than I thought felt good though just tired that dunk at the end to kind of shut the door on them just that sequence

Just what did that feel like especially after you know having Miss time just just being your first game back uh it’s a really cool moment good bucket I think queso actually got the offensive board so I think just plays like like little plays like that add up to be able to get

Plays where I can get a dunk off a cut so uh but yeah those are those are always really fun plays think kind of sealed the game as well so yeah and Sh was just in here talking about you know in the games because of the league the way it

Filters down in the fourth quarter it usually comes down to shot making from stars um tonight that sh that was you um I just wonder how quick you learned that in this league and just what it’s felt like to to be called upon in those moments um I wouldn’t say it’s something

You learned in the NBA from the you know the aspect of I think when you grow up watching basketball you kind of that’s what you kind of see you watch like you know the biggest stars you know make those plays and I think that’s a position that every

Player wants to be in so I think for me it’s just more excitement to be able to be in those positions so I think that kind of trickles down from the coaching staff allow me to be in those positions and then you know the team wanted me to

Shoot those shots and kind of be able to play off shet and other good players on the team so um you know I look forward to those those plays make or Miss uh just kind of being able to learn from those and you know those are kind of

Moments we all live for which got you charged up more the chase down block or the big dunk or either one of the blocks of the big dunk um I think the way Chad Dove uh to get the ball I think that was my favorite play cuz it wasn’t close

So uh but I I probably say the dunk I think dunk sealed the game for the most part I haven’t gotten like a really clear clear dunk like that with the lane in a while so uh that was fun also and maybe you I’m just watching it seemed

Like the game was you’re went trying to get that top two they’re trying to stay out the play in the game felt really competitive was it was it like that on the court looked like it was yeah for sure definitely um felt like a playoff atmosphere our crowd’s been really good

This year um so that was that was dope but yeah it was definitely a competitive game you can kind of feel the tension especially these last I think like 15 16 games I think everybody’s you know trying to settle into a spot so uh a lot of these games

Are going to feel like that and uh that that’s always good you know to have these reps before getting into the playoffs and it definitely felt like one of the more competitive games of the year James it feels like this year you’ve done a lot better job of just

Initiating contact and getting to your spots that way through physicality how do you kind of work on that and improve that about your game uh I lift a lot of Weights in the summer uh to be able to kind of take those hits um like I don’t want to keep

Harping on the play playoff thing but you know obviously as you start trickling down it gets a lot more physical so understanding in the summer what I where I wanted to be at on the court and just kind of figuring out ways uh to kind of get there and like I

Said you know being able to lift weights and get my body right uh to be able to kind of take the contact like that and still be able to get to where I want uh something that I just kind of harped on in the summer Andre like with the athletic uh

Can you tell me about the play where Kyrie Irving strips you and then you go end in and block him uh it it looked like Kyrie said something to you afterwards did he say something to you and then can you just describe the play from your perspective uh well yeah I

Don’t think you ever want to turn the ball over so I just tried to make a play on the ball um he had some some ridiculous finishes um the whole game so I just tried to make a play on the ball he shot it pretty high blocked it just

Told me good block uh you know he’s he’s a cool dude so we were we were talking the whole game but um yeah just a good like back and forth play on both parties and uh I think like just kind of add to the one of the previous questions it

Just felt like such an intense game uh where everybody’s competing uh I think it’s just kind of like a mutual respect thing cuz we’re both playing hard this is a relatively young team but Shay and Lou has been here quite a bit uh you came in and it seems like you’re a

Little free and easier with your emotions letting the crowd kind of get into it and you helped them out too like have you taken that upon yourself now to kind of be that guy to kind of let it out instead of staying in the pocket

Like Lou and Chay uh yeah I guess uh I think some of it is just playing off the emotion of the fans uh you know we have really good fans here and I like being here so uh it’s always fun to just be able to interact uh Sam pricey made a good point

To us just talking about how you don’t know what people are going through to be able to get to the games and and stuff like that so I think anytime you can kind of engage with the fans during the game I think you know that kind of leaves everybody with a a cool

Impression of the game you know you don’t know whose first game it is or you know what the circumstances might be for people coming here so anytime I can kind of interact with fans I think it’s really fun uh but there are also moments where I’m kind of in the pocket locked

In and not really you know screaming and yelling Jaylen since the All Star break points are down around the league foul shots are down are the refs calling things different in the last few weeks since the All-Star break uh I think it’s a little more physical I don’t know if

That has to do with calls I think guys are just competing more like I said um you can definitely feel a lot more physic ality through teams you know everybody’s kind of on that cusp of especially in the west where you know one game can move you down a seat or two

So I think it’s just a more competitive thing and you know it feels like we’re playing a lot more physical so it’s fun for me I enjoy it um but I don’t I don’t really focus on on that but to kind of move back towards your question it’s

Just a lot more physical you’ve taken aite this season as playmaker and as a score how do you sort of find that balance those units where it’s just you with Shay off the floor and then how do you sort of deal with nights like night tonight where it feels like the mads are

Sort of weaponizing the fact that you’re unselfish and like trying to play you more to pass um we have a really good team uh it’s never about me in those minutes trying to score I’m always just kind of taking what the defense gives me uh I trust my teammates who are out

There working on their game every day to go out there and make plays um I think when you have that confidence in your team throughout the whole season when we get into playoffs you know these aren’t new moments for everybody so um I’m perfectly fine letting somebody else make that play um

Big on the winning so anytime everybody else can make a play for us I think we have one possession where everybody touched the ball and L got a corner three I think plays like that are big for everybody’s confidence and you know guys are ready to kind of Step Up When

Big moments hit so anybody else we got last one go ahead D go ahead last one in the front there’s always a lot of talk about rookie walls and sophomore slumps and things like that it seems like you’ve had a a really upwards trajectory do you

What’s gone into that or do you feel like you’ve hit any sort of walls in any particular areas um nah I don’t I don’t really accept the whole wall and things like that I think a lot of that is just mental uh you know it’s basketball you’re going to have

Stretches where you don’t play well or things like that um I kind of just tried to stay confident through that whole thing uh I think I’m really open to learning every game and you know taking what every game has to give and just trying to learn from that I think that’s

Kind of helped me during that but I don’t I don’t really think about the slumps and stuff like that it’s just basketball at the end of the day and I’m trying to get better every game so kind of just throw the rookie wall on the sophomore slump thing out the window and just

Play thanks do cool appreciate it brother a few of these sequences but one that really stood out was the five passes basically they got all the way around the court uh from the right corner over to the left and uh how do those plays maybe if fect U your ability

To win tonight just the the extra passes that you guys made yeah thought we really moved it it was a good response to the Indiana game where I thought we for whatever reason we couldn’t establish a great rhythm in the game uh and that’s the sort of thing we want to

Get back on track very quickly we can’t control whether or not the ball goes in but we can control how we play and I thought offensively how we play tonight was had great integrity to it then defensively seemed like you guys got enough stops down the stretch to to just

Shut the door how how much of a challenge was it tonight that they just continue to put pressure on you and and what did it take in the end to to pull away yeah I thought credit how they played I thought they played with a chip on their shoulder tonight and they

Played very hard uh Dallas did um honestly I thought you know we were a little um loose to start the game defensively uh and I thought it was a good opportunity for us to learn a lesson because a guy like Irving his first couple you know he got were kind

Of just like standard you know plays uh where we weren’t as tight as as we could have been in our coverages and in our you know help defense uh and then he got going you know and I thought it was a good lesson for us uh to take away from

That game that you know he’s probably going to get going to some degree anyways but you can’t give a player like him uh the easy stuff or the early Rhythm uh and I thought we could have done that better tonight so um certainly something we can continue to learn from

Mark I I know there are layers to these games um but down a stretch like in a fourth quarter like that how often do you see it maybe be a was you know Stars being stars like shot making from from maybe Shay or or dub when when it feels

Like both teams are going back and forth maybe canceling each other out um I mean everybody says it’s a shot making thing but um to some degree it is you know and then to another degree offensively it’s about trying to put uh your team in advantages and and put your

Guys in space that makes it difficult to help or difficult to get the matchup you want defensively and then defensively it’s the inverse of that you know you’re trying to restrict space you’re trying to take the ball out of the hands of uh the best guys uh and I thought both

Teams tonight you know did a good job of generating pretty good shots down the stretch uh for their team and so uh it’s not easy but to me that’s the that’s the battle Yeah and off the top of my head I don’t know that either of the the

Previous games with with Dallas have been as close in terms of free throw attempts and and makes I imagine to tonight’s uh kind of similarity there is um part you know Luca not playing but I I just wonder what you saw from Shay in terms of the way he kind of controlled

The game there and and maybe got to the line yeah I mean he got foued you know so that’s why he got to the line um and I thought again he was good in his attacks uh we were good in our spacing good in our actions tonight I thought

Offensively we played very well you know we had good balance uh ball moved you know good Pace to us you know really really good offensive game for us and like I said a really good response to um you know the way we play the other night and with the athletic you get Jaylen

Williams back tonight he obviously is bringing a lot offensively and defensively but can you just talk about like the energy that he brings he obviously brings a great energy um amongst like the crowd even but like can you just talk about maybe the energy he

Brings to the team yeah um it it comes from how hard he plays it’s really that simple and uh as you know it’s interesting to see guys you know that get a lot of minutes um that can bite into your effort and energy over the

Course of a long season and when you get the ball more that can bite into your effort and your energy uh and that’s kind of human nature you know when you get more of those things you Pace more um in the energy parts of the game and

To his credit you know his energy started very high his effort started very high and as he’s you know he didn’t start when he first got here you know but as he’s accumulated a bigger role and earned a bigger role uh and as he’s gotten the ball more as he’s earned

Having the ball more you know his energy as defense his effort his intensity none of that stuff has dropped off and that’s you know to me that’s a very striking you know signal you notice that you guys go ahead I’m notice that your guys are like getting better as the seasons are

Progressing you haven’t made a playoff run with this group just yet this PO into the playoffs just do you notice just guys starting to Peak right at the same time all the way 6 Seven 8 nine down uh I just I think we you know are

Trying to continue to improve um and the Improvement of the team is not linear like that you know you take steps forward you take steps backwards so offensively the airnet against Indiana I thought we took a step backward uh had to address that it was a little bit of

Slippage I thought tonight to start the game game plan awareness we had a little slippage so it’s it’s not like a linear Ascent through the season you know you’re constantly it’s really hard to be really good at everything you know so you’re constantly doing things well that you have to maintain and you’re

Constantly you know having slippage that you have to address and we’re just trying to do that as best we can and you know over time hopefully that gets our team and our individual players improving anybody else Andrew sh had 31 again tonight he he talks about his whole life is

Consistent where have you seen that um he’s in character on that you know I I can stamp that I think um you know a lot of it we don’t see you know we’re only with them 3 hours a day usually so um but you know you can’t fake the

Improvement that he’s had and how consistently he’s improved and as you improve you know the league adjusts to you and they try to make it harder on you and he’s continued to just plow through those those obstacles you know and there’s only one way to do that and

It’s with you know great work great you know consistency of that work great vision for yourself he’s got all that stuff you know he’s a very impressive uh professional I imagine you were satisfied with just the way to two challenges wi but there was a there was

A call there late in the fourth the the push call with with dub on Kyrie um it felt like you were looking intently on that play in a world where you might have had another challenge like do you ever think about you know what the what the rule change might

Be if there ever might be a rule change there what you would do with it if you would be in agreement with that no getting another challenge yeah what talking about push Kyrie um what was said to push L uh yeah that’s one you you maybe get

Cuz you got possession uh afterwards and it’s close you know at that point in the game you know if you have a challenge you know the percentage that you need to actually go get a play is not very high you know just because the the reward of

Getting the ball back especially with a lead that’s why I did the out of balance play before that you know we’re up nine they have the ball if you can take one more possession away from them it’s pretty high reward and so um but you only get two

Yeah guess what I’m asking is if the league ever explored you know more I would have challenged that play you I would have I would have gone and gotten that one probably sure yeah last question JB had a couple of like next play moments tonight where you know

Kyrie picked his pocket but then he got back in transition blocked the shot and then and the dagger dunk he missed the first three to begin with just was does that say about his mentality and just his approach to the game overall yeah similar uh dub yeah similar to what I

Said to Andrew you know it’s the guy just plays you know it’s it’s an impressive motor you know and it doesn’t matter how much you give him the ball how many minutes you play him you know how much he gets like that he he still rolls his sleeves up and competes every

Single night it’s incredibly impressive um and has a huge impact on our team you know and as he’s improved those other things you know none of that has waned you know and like I said that’s you know unbelievable discipline and and you know motor and competitiveness all those you

Know adjectives he’s he’s got that stuff thanks coach yep thanks

Hear from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Head Coach Mark Daigneault following the Thunder’s 126 – 119 win over the Mavericks.

0:00 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
6:28 Jalen Williams
15:18 Coach Daigneault

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