Jalen Williams Gets Real About Losing to Luka, Kyrie and The Mavs

Jalen Williams Gets Real About Losing to Luka, Kyrie and The Mavs

sorry about the way the season ended my friend it is what it is it was fun though for sure playoffs are different man they’re so fun yeah they’re so fun yeah it was high level basketball it was fun to fun to be a part of that is’t it fun the the the the Tactical and strategical part of like it’s just so different than the regular season yeah uh I didn’t even know what to expect going into like any of the series so it was just kind of a trial run is what it felt like we just kind of I mean at least for me personally I was I was just kind of going through just trying to figure out what works yeah hey real quick before we get to the draft Jaylen um did want to ask you about Dallas specifically um and we all sort of know the problem that Luca donic presents the problem that Kyrie Irving presents um as you’re sort of thinking about them versus the Celtics are there any big takeaways you had about the Mavericks from your series that that sort of stood out that can be applied to this series against the Celtics um looking back on our series I still think we did defensively I thought we did a really good job um I think the biggest thing with us was we just had like there’s a couple games where we had timely breakdowns um and I think the biggest thing is like with them they go on runs that are they go on really loud runs because like the rate they shoot threes so when they’re up 10 it’s really easy to kind of panic and kind of get out of what like what works for you and I think there was just like kind of points in our game where we did that and tried to force a couple things and then now 10 is 15 and you know you’re kind of just playing from behind the whole game so up 10 down 10 you kind of just got to stick with it and then whatever your game plan is just kind of live and die by that yeah du with a couple weeks the process we were just talking about this with a couple weeks the process at the end of this run for you and we we’ve talked with you a ton about how great a season it was what are your overall what’s your overall perspective on what you accomplished this year and then also what the team accomplished um I think for myself I don’t I don’t really give too much weight into like the regular season I think now especially now that it’s like offseason for me the playoffs were like a good think to kind of gauge where I’m actually at so it’s kind of easy to get lost in a lot of the regular season stuff but just kind of looking for that I think I didn’t play as well as I wanted to for the for the playoffs so I think that’s kind of been my my main focus so I haven’t really given a lot of thought into the season but as a team I thought we had a really a really good year of growth and you know I don’t think many people expected us to you know be where we were especially for the whole the whole season we were pretty much you know the one one or kind of in that in that one to three range so thought we did a really good job there kind of sticking together through that and being as young as we were you know obviously being able to win a playoff series take Dallas to six um and kind of keep every one of those games competitive and and close to I think we had a really successful year a lot to kind of build on I think everybody’s going into the summer knowing kind of what they want to work on with like a clear view um but yeah we had a I thought we had a really really great year and it was really fun to be that was probably the most fun I’ve had playing basketball uh especially with that group of guys so it was really really fun I thought we got really close is it is it weird the the only sort of parallel that I have from my career was uh the year we made the finals in ‘ 09 where I think Dwight and jir were in their fifth year Courtney Lee was a rookie we obviously had some vets with Turk and Rashard I was in my third year but there there’s something about like you get to that point and for you guys it was the conference semi-finals and we I remember our first conversation we talked about expectations right the very first podcast you ever came on we talked about expectations right before the season started and so it’s it’s weird to like as a competitor to feel good about what you were able to do if it doesn’t end the way you want it to but it’s also valuable I think to take something from the experience where I mean it sounds like you really valued the the taste of the playoffs that you got this year yeah I think you can’t take you can’t take being in the playoffs for Grant it um I think Mark Mark gave us this like crazy stat with just like like Al Horford be in there 15 times and not you know obviously not getting to like the end goal of winning one and it’s kind of just like having to restart from scratch every year and kind of going through that whole thing it’s like they’re not really guaranteed like I’m trying to use guys that are in the playoffs right now I think like Drew holiday like would go for a year and then there’d be like a three-year Gap where he doesn’t go to the playoffs or doesn’t make it as far as he is so I think playoffs are like really valuable and something that like you know not every year is promised you know we had a a healthy year knock on wood and you know like Health isn’t always isn’t always promised you know the team may may change and stuff like that so you know not taking that for granted and being able to learn from you know like for me like what what I didn’t do well or what I think I can improve on I think the playoffs is really you’re playing the same team that’s scouting you over and over again and you know they kind of attack whatever weaknesses they think you have so you know when when it is done you can kind of see what they attacked and that’s something that you can work on it’s probably like the most detailed look you can kind of get at your game so I’m kind of taking that and using that as the experience and then kind of moving my summer towards that that’s great stuff man that really is um love that perspective

In this clip, Jalen Williams (The Oklahoma City Thunder) talks about the Thunder’s series against Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving and the Dallas Mavericks and how OKC lost their footing against the Mavs in the playoffs.

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