OKC Thunder best in the West as Chet Holmgren Dominates the Pelicans

OKC Thunder best in the West as Chet Holmgren Dominates the Pelicans

The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the New Orleans Pelicans on the road taking care of business showing you that they’re the best team in the west you are locked on Thunder your daily Oklahoma City Thunder podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day

Let’s get it going on the lockon Thunder podcast on the lockon podcast Network your teams every day I am your host media member editor and chief over at thunderus intentions. Ryland Styles follow me on Twitter Ryland Styles follow the show on Twitter L thunderpod email the show L thunderpod gmail.com on

Today’s show we’re diving into the Oklahoma City Thunder taking care of business against the New Orleans Pelicans with a defensive Clinic proving to be a top seed in the Western Conference and previewing the Pistons game plus a lot more about this game which I think was one of chat’s best

Games as a member of the Thunder here is podcast number six of the week talking about this game of course they play the Pistons in a matter of hours in the middle of the afternoon on Sunday so we’ll have that recap for you as well so the Thunder

Are going to make your life hard and they’re going to find ways to beat you down let’s look at this game and entering it it’s a good Pelicans team it’s on the road it’s a Pelicans team that has done really well defending Shay specifically with herb Jones defending

Shay and there was a lot of question marks about what this would look like right you beat up on you know you beat up on Portland you know going down to the wire of course in that case but like you know beating Portland you know you

You try to turn the corner and now you’re playing a really tough New Orleans Squad and for the first few possessions of the game it was kind of a mixed bag like there were some possessions where the Thunder were bog down offensively there’s some possessions where the Thunder generated some good shots that

Just didn’t happen to fall but here’s the thing in this game the Thunder never truly got going shooting the basketball which is why they shot just 30% from three however they were able to get it going inside the arc 47% from the floor and 93% at the charity tripe but 30% from

Three on the road against a good team in the Western Conference should not result in a 24-point win but that’s exactly what happened with the Oklahoma City Thunder because they let up just 83 points thanks to this swarming defense that had crisp rotations and multiple guys on the floor who have Elite level

Anticipation and feel for the game of what’s going to happen next and whenever you as a Defender have this ability to jump the passing Lanes to get deflections to feel like you’re a step ahead what the offense is trying to do it leads to New Orleans turning the ball over 20 times

20 turnovers at home for New Orleans who shot 39% from the floor 25% from three and 71% at the charity stripe new orleans’s offense was awful and they didn’t have Zion that is true but they had everybody else literally everybody else they had and it was still this bad for

Them offensively in the year of Our Lord 2024 whenever all people can talk about right now especially after the scoring week that we’ve seen in the NBA is is how defense is non-existent in the NBA nowadays and how nobody plays it in the modern NBA the Thunder let up

83 points for the course of an entire game and this is just something that I think that the Pelicans are going to have to get away from from and they did it some in the play We called it last year before the playing game of viewing

Yonas as some as some Val Jus is some kind of mismatch you know exploitation because that’s not how you want to run your offense the Thunder would welcome you to run your offense by trying to dumping into y Fus over and over and over again they would gladly take that

Whenever you’re getting the ball out of the hands of CJ McCollum getting the ball out of the hands of Brandon Ingram you’re getting the ball out the hands of of of better offensive players and chat’s credit Chad held his own defensively and matched Jonas’s physicality and played Jonas off the floor

Offensively and so the the the Pelicans got into that game a little bit too much at the beginning of the game where they were trying to play through Jonas too much but when you look back on this game the Thunder were a plus4 in the glass they had nine less turnovers than New

Orleans they won points in the paint 58 to 38 they even won second chance points by two but here’s the big kicker in a game where the Thunder didn’t have their best shots from Beyond The Arc 30% from three that was not their best shooting

Night they also were only a plus one in fast break and their fast break points were 9 to eight so that’s two ways where the Thunder were out of their element they weren’t shooting the ball well which typically this year they’ve been a good three-point shooting team and they

Weren’t being able to get out and run in transition and dominate in transition despite creating 20 turnovers which typically this year has been their bread and butter it’s been just out Ching you out racing you to the rim we’ve seen some Gody fast break numbers and and

It’s a category that we’ve harped on in this show is their fast break numbers was nine to eight in this game but it just shows the ways that the Thunder can beat you what style of play would you aim for to beat this Thunder team because they’re so adaptive that

They can execute you know if this is how they’re going to execute in a slower halfcourt offense and a half court game similar to the context of what you see in the playoffs without having a strong shooting night in and they’re still able to win by 24 it has to make you believe

This is not only one of the best teams in the NBA but with the best team of the western conference right now they are playing the best basketball right now in the Western Conference and it shows that they’re the top seed in the Western Conference of course it’s a margin of

Error that is race or thin and that these standings are going to change uh from time to time and day to day pretty much in the Western Conference but nonetheless when the body of work is put on the table and you strip away what people thought was going to happen in

That in the preseason and you only look at what actually has tangibly happened the Thunder are the best team in the Western Conference and one of the best teams in the NBA New Orleans never led by more than six and they never LED after the first few minutes of the second

Quarter like you went on the road against the top six seed in the Western Conference and went almost wire to wire like the start of the second quarter from that point forward the Pelicans never got back in this game never took a lead and ended up getting blown out at

Home and I get it you know the Zion thing happens but at this point like that’s just life in the NBA you’re going to be missing a player or two each game and at this point you know lying on Zion is just not has not been great for for

New Orleans in the grand scheme of things they still had some very talented basketball players with the Thunder were able to dominate without having a ton of Fast Break points without having uh a a a otherw worldly shooting game from three or even a good shooting game from

Three and it all circled back to that defense and from top to bottom everybody’s pitching in defensively everybody’s doing their job defensively and everybody is getting it going on that end and creating turnovers and applying the pressure to the opposition closing out on shots whenever they are on defensively they’re the best

Defensive team in the NBA more more often than not they’re the best defensive team in the NBA because they have guys like Cas Wallace Off the Bench who we’re going to talk about you know what L dor can do SGA is the best superstar two-way player he’s the best that that can go

Out there and lock down defensively and play up defensively while also getting you 30 every single night and you look up today against New Orleans this team that plays him very well and he once again had a pretty efficient 30 Point night but we’ll continue to talk about

This game and how it all unfolded I think Chad and case race really stole the show we’ll talk about those two guys coming up but first want to say you right now good friends over at FanDuel check it out today at fanduel.com lockon that’s fanduel.com lockon new customers right now can get

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For making us your first listen every single morning every single day we’re here for you talking Thunder basketball what a game this was against against New Orleans let’s continue on discussing this team as a whole and talking about chat hren and the and the biggest part

Of this Thunder team and and what I think that they should really lean into is this phrase that we’ve heard from Mark and from the players is uncommon that is something that they’ve preached over and over and over again typically in the context of uncommon maturity but

Uncommon can be a branding for not only this Thunder team not only this thunder era but this thunder franchise it is ridiculous to be this good this fast this young to have an MVP you know caliber player who’s an All-Star starter and I think the MVP front runner right

Now to be this good through the course of this franchise’s history since coming to Oklahoma City is uncommon the way they win games in so many different aspects and avenues and ways is uncommon the rookies and young players who contribute every single night is uncommon everything about what the

Thunder are doing is uncommon and they should really lean into that aspect of things like there are many people of all demographics ages in Oklahoma who still don’t really understand what life is really like in the NBA from day-to-day because of how spoiled this franchise is and this fan

Base is which is an excellent thing this franchise is uncommon the accolades the success everything about this is uncommon in a positive way and you look around at some of the other teams in the NBA some of the other fan bases who now have gone Generations that don’t know success and don’t know

Stability even much less success don’t know stability it has to make you appreciate even more the fact that since the Thunder have gotten here all you’ve known is St stability all you’ve known is Success all you’ve known is a well- ran franchise despite adversity despite many adverse adverse points in the

Franchise’s tenure they’ve always found a way to quickly get over to the other side of that to quickly regroup from that and push forward and that’s all very uncommon when to talk Chad hren I thought Chad hren had one of his best games of the year because of the way he

Matched Valen tunes’ physicality and how prepared he was for Valen chunes physicality he absorbed post-ups extremely well he patrolled the paint extremely well and he only let up 14 and N because Jonas was only able to play 20 minutes and was a minus seven in those

Minutes like 20 minutes to almost get a double double as a good night from from junas however not when you look at the entire body of work not when you look at The Botch possessions the deflections and the takeaways it took to try to get

Him the ball and then you look at how Chad was able to to exploit him on the other end chat hren made Jonas Valen chunis unplayable in this game because he has that ability to attack the hard close out and to make you pay for no matter how you defend him

And when you look at his aspect of offense chat homr has such you know these such long strides and takes up so much real estate that the pickup point of when to defend and how to defend chat is still largely unknown that spin move through the lane

Is so lethal the strides let him get to his spots at will if you play him too close he’ll just blow right past you if you play him too far off he’ll knock down a three and once chat home gets more comfortable getting a catch and firing off a three

Versus getting the catch and then looking for the next play First Once that flips just a little bit more in the opposite direction where he’s looking to shoot first then that comes gets even more deadly it really does but the amount of space he just takes up moving along the half court offense

Gets him easy looks and gets him easy shots then you hook up with jdub for a lob you know then you then you attack Vala’s hard close out and make him fall to the ground his mindset in this game was the most important part he had many

Highlights he had many of energy giving plays but the mindset of on defense he’s not going to get bullied and on offense he knew from the get-go that there was no way Jonas could guard him and you can watch from the beginning to end how intentful he was playing off the catch

And getting downhill to get around Jonas 20 points 13 rebounds I thought it was one of his better rebounding games uh this year just from an overall technical standpoint of playing it off the glass playing it off the rim and using his body to put to put his body on

Somebody to get a box out to get that opportunity 20 13 a steal two blocks from him so that you go from one rookie to another in Cas rollace who had four steals he’s now up to 33 steals case Wallace says as a rookie in his first season he has Elite anticipation skills

And those lead to him just shutting down plays on his own you can watch his processing SK skills which we typically talk about as an offensive skill set but the processing skills defensively of understanding what the next chess move is for this offense to be able to go

Anticipate it and take it away and get a steal get a deflection get a disruption at the very least offensively defensively is at an elite level he’s also extremely Elite at two other aspects of of Defense number one is helping off ball as a help Defender he

Has a unique ability which is so rare for a rookie it’s rare for anyone but so rare for a rookie to be able to go reach your hand in that cookie jar on drivers reach your hand in come up with a steal more often than not come up with a steel

More often than you get hit with a foul that’s Elite he’s also Elite at taking away Cuts watch him off ball when players try to cut on him and his unique ability to just put his arms out in front on the front side of of the cutter

And just simply catch the ball before the offensive player again on those back Cuts I put out a whole clip a whole video of all of his seals this year and you can pick up on all these things watching them back to back to back to

Back he just knows what to do he knows where to be on defense he understands the ins and outs of it he understands positioning we talk a lot about how Josh giddy’s kind of kind of changed his defensive positioning whereas his back’s to the to the Baseline more and he’s

Seeing everything in front of him that is something that is just came naturally to case Wallace like his defensive positioning is fantastic everything about him on the defensive end is at such a high level and that’s why I continue to say that if this is the Baseline of who K Wallace is

As a Defender which he showed in college which he showed in high school if this is who case Wallace is as a baseline you put him in this system you put him with these Thunder coaches he’s going to be one of the best defenders in the NBA

He’s going to be one of the best defenders in the NBA and then offensively you have to love how he just stays ready to get a shot up and that allows him to get the shot up quickly before defense can react and rotate but what you saw in this game and what

You’ve seen this week from Cas Wallace he’s doing more on ball which I think will continue to evolve he’s getting downhill to the rim more which is good to open up his game and really start to bend the defense uh kind of changing him from you know a a a traditional Corner

Kat and shoot guy which is what he started out as this year offensively to to more of a threat which he can be and will continue to be as he progresses and gets more com comfortable 12 points two boards an assist four steals 40 uh 40%

From three 50% from the floor for KAS Wallace whenever you look at the two rookies contributing at this level it just reverts back to that uncommon phrasing and then you have another bench player who played really well Ken Williams Ken Williams eight points four boards a steel only one miss shot but

His value came with his play finishing on offense and then his rotations on defense to really allow you to to continue to put on that pressure to the Pelican secondary uh players and really squeeze out this game on the defensive end only lighting up 83 points Aaron

Wiggins Off the Bench was a plus 11 in this game he is Elite in transition and he he had it working again the shot the shot he had where it hit the rim hit the backboard hit the rafters hit the B hit the scores table hit Chris fiser and

Then came back to the side of the rim and then went back down the net that was just a a 55 second shot that truly has to make you buy in to Aaron wigin Save basketball as he turns a Miss into a make like water into wine we’ll talk

More about this team from the New Orleans standpoint but also the Thunder had their first broadcast on the over the year television how did that go the Thunder are the first place team in the western conference right now about to go play Detroit we talk about that as well

All coming up but first want to say you right nowbody a good friends over at price piix check out price.com lockon NBA and I love price picks it’s available in Oklahoma and what you do is you pick two to six players and you just predict will they

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Lowercase lockedown NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 check it out today at prix.com we’re back on the lockdown ther podcast on the lockdown podcast Network your team every day jay dub once again took over the fourth quarter he finishes here’s his totals his totals 15 points

Four boards seven assists nine of those 15 points came in the fourth quarter he shot four for six in the fourth quarter he is just automatic going to his left and it’s just death taxes and JB going to his left for a mid-range jumper uh I tweeted that out during the game and

It’s just it’s so true he he is on a Peter he’s he is the best clutch time player in the fourth quarter since January he’s spectacular right now and he’s continuing to evolve in that role and and I think that that’s like the most exciting part about this Thunder

Team is that you’re seeing it in real time of a year ago right now a year ago Jan one through you know the end of January this whole month JB was starting to turn it around starting to not turn around but starting to really kick it in

Gear and the the conversation around JB was even from from Mark and from and from the you know his teammates and everything else was he’s a guy who you’ve got to to nudge a little bit to be more aggressive to nudge a little bit to get closer and Mark used that

Brilliant number line analogy where he said that you know there’s players like lud dor who naturally are M way more aggressive then there’s players like jdub who naturally are way more um playing within the flow of an offense and what your goal is is to push those

Guys right to the middle and get everyone as close to the middle as you can get so like last year the point is the goal was to nudge job further and further away from being kind of go at the flow and more into being aggressive and you’ve watched him evolve from that

To him taking over games in the most critical moments down the stretch versus the best teams and literally hitting gamewinners like JB taking over these games has been fun to watch and just continues to show how much more every player including jdub is going to be able to grow like this is just

Scratching the surface this is just the beginning of what’s happening for Oklahoma City the beginning of what’s happening for the Thunder uh and for these players and with all the scoring happening right now in the NBA you can count on sgaa to get you 31 points he

Might not get to the 50 60 70 80 100 points but he’s going to get you 30 a night and he’s going to uh be efficient in doing so 31 points four rebounds five assists two Steals and a block he had four turnovers which I think is of course partly due to

How well the Pelicans have defended him he he’s rarely had a high turnover game this year and four turnovers is a is a huge outlier for him this year credit to the Pelicans but here’s the thing the Pelicans who routinely play him well did play him good in this game but you look

Up and he has 31 points on 47% from the floor three for eight from three and eight for n at the free throw line like that is a consider a really great game defensively on Shay and he still has that crazy and one where he falls

Basically in the on the corner three he falls from being in the mid-range at the start uh he is just pivotal in leading the center team on a five-game winning streak 14-4 since Christmas SGA has just been Sensational this year MVP of the game I’m gonna go cat

Hren in this one case Wallace made a very very good case for it now this was the first broadcast on Griffin media over the air free TV want to go over it real quickly I did see some fans that felt like it was not communicated Enough

By the Thunder um of what this all meant I personally disagree with that but but I also can can acknowledge that you know in this space in this world I see everything because it’s my job so if this wasn’t my job I’ve got to try and

It’s this is a very much blind spot I think for all of us in the media of of to me me it was extremely well communicated but but again it’s my job to know all the little nuances and details so putting myself in the mindset of someone who this isn’t their job this

Is their hobby this is their passion this is their their entertainment value I would understand the frustration of you pay for league pass you pay for your TV provider that that doesn’t have these affiliate channels and you pay for B Sports Plus to make sure you get every

Game and then now you don’t get the game so I understand that frustration again from my standpoint it was very well communicated so I can’t really comment on that I thought it was very well communicated I can admit that this would be frustrating if I didn’t if I simply

Didn’t know about this change and then all of a sudden I can’t watch the game um and I can admit my biases of like or my my uh point of of to me it might might have been well communicated but I’m not going to exalt the Thunder of

Any fault uh because I don’t really know how it was presented to just I follow them on Twitter I follow them on social media I get all of their little you know press releases and and tweet notifications and everything else to where like I just know everything about the thunder

From that aspect of their comms to where if I didn’t have that though would I have known I can’t really I don’t really know I can’t really put myself there but as far as the broadcast goes uh I personally bought an antenna I bought it the day the team announced that they

Were gonna move I was spining the last few weeks trying to find the best spot in the house to uh to get the best picture for me TV um and figure it out it was honestly kind of fun doing that project uh but ultimately the picture

Wasn’t as clear or as perfect as it was on B Sports Plus uh but if it got access to more people I’m all for it uh it was the same you know crew Nick Paris Michael uh and uh Chris that everyone loves the same graphic packages everything was so digestable and so um

Kind of smooth from that aspect once you got you know again ignoring the whole was it communicated properly once you got to the point of turning the game on that was as smooth of a process as you can ever have they smoothly worked into the Thunder pregame show Thunder

Postgame show and the game itself that was very uh that was very awesome of them to have that kind of all stay as status quose you’re not having to adjust to a new score bug you’re not having to adjust to a new graphic package or anything else to kind of throw you off

For these oneoff games which again will be every Friday night game from here on out uh for the rest of the season so it’s only on Fridays so tonight’s Pistons game is back on poly Sports Plus back on B Sports in general uh for this afternoon’s game but I thought it was a

Cool and fun uh little little wrinkle uh and again if it got to the goal of of getting to more fans that’s awesome that’s awesome this team deserves uh to be seen deserves to be watched and enjoyed by everyone locally and the fact that there is uh even an issue getting

This game locally getting this team locally is a travesty but the Thunder are first place in the Western Conference a full game up after Saturday results uh the Thunder play the Pistons on Sunday they play the t-wolves on Monday this afternoon’s game the Thunder have to go in to Detroit Pistons in the

Afternoon which has been extremely tough for for every team to play in the afternoon and take care of business everyone is healthy except for Usman Jang he’s in the G league and Trey man is not with the team but it is an excused absence an excused absence for

Trey man uh so those two guys are not going to play but everyone else is fully healthy so they’ve got to handle their business against Detroit then you welcome in the pis the Timberwolves on Monday on the second night of a backto back so it’s going to be really fun I

Can cannot wait for that Wolves game on Monday in the paycom Center here’s the schedule of course for you we did six shows this week going to be that way next week too Pistons recap on Monday t-wolves recap on Tuesday uh special guest Wednesday Thursday nuggets recap Friday mail bag Saturday Hornet’s recap

Monday R’s recap so we’re all booked up we’re all ready to rock and roll subscribe wherever you get your podcast from including on YouTube so you never miss an episode thank you so much for checking out this bonus podcast of lockdown Thunder and until tomorrow be good and be good to one another

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the best in the Western Conference with their win over the New Orleans Pelicans. The Thunder showed their elite defense, holding the Pelicans to under 83 points in this game. Oklahoma City saw Chet Holmgren have one of his best games of the season against Jonas and the Pelicans, playing the New Orleans big man off the floor. Cason Wallace showed his ELITE defense baseline for the OKC Thunder as the Bricktown boys watched his elite skill in three aspects. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was able to put up 31 points vs Herb Jones and the Pels. Jalen Williams once again takes over the fourth quarter, showing his fantastic ability to improve. Aaron Wiggins and Kenrich Williams were big players off the bench. How was the Thunder’s first free over-the-air TV broadcast?

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