OKC Thunder Full Media Availability | Post Game vs Orlando Magic | January 13, 2024

OKC Thunder Full Media Availability | Post Game vs Orlando Magic | January 13, 2024

Nick Al KC Thunder uh Shay the the tempo tonight was something that Mark talked about and the way that you guys were really kind of able to rev things up speed-wise in the fourth quarter why do you think uh you guys were able to kind of consciously do that

Um I don’t know I think we um I think we’re starting to figure out like what it takes to win games um and that’s like the only thing that’s on our minds um and then we just try to be present in every moment and trying to win a possession and then hopefully it

Stacks up and leads up to a w you hit Chad on a couple pick and Pops just to to get things going um is that one of those kind of comfort things at this point now that um you can get into a rhythm with yeah um sh obviously can

Really really shoot it um and if teams if teams um want to be in a drop coverage um and let him shoot it then I’m going to play to our strengths for sure sh and and asking Mark about you know some of the those an ones you had

Tonight just that some of them obviously being for most people impossible he just mentioned your core and just some of the body work you’ve had that that contributes to that I just wonder what’s all going into being able to hit stuff like that off balance without proper

Footing just that kind of thing um yeah a lot of core strength I work on my core a lot that’s that’s the main thing I work on in the summertime um and then U I’m always working on my touch um around the basket and then uh I just I just try to focus

Um after you get hit you and you have a shot to make it a three-point play it’s worth the second of focus to try and get three points uh sometimes you just throw it up there but I I try to focus after I get hit for sure yeah and he said

Looking back at the tape from from your first year um he just sees a dramatic difference in your body and just that that sort of thing I just wonder what you can see I mean obviously you look at yourself every day so you probably can’t see the difference but if you could

Recollect what you were like back then just can you recall just the dramatic difference in your body from then to now oh yeah I’m a whole lot stronger um that’s that’s what I I plan to do I knew that I was my body wasn’t a finished product when I came into the

NBA um and it’s a main focus of mine every offseason especially and I uh I try to get uh bigger and strong well not necessarily bigger but I try to get stronger every offseason for sure Mark also mentioned sh that you um you just have a a better feel for like

When contact is going to come and get in the gather and and and you know the process to get another shot have you is that something you just learn from from playing is it something you’ve studied um yeah it’s just feel um I’ve been in that situation so many

Times I’ve got fouled a lot um yeah being able to convert those into free those and shot shot attempts is is just feel I think somebody was the the historically six the NBA is only charted these since like 1997 but that’s tied for the most anybody’s ever had six and

Ones in a game how does that strike you that’s cool um surprised someone like Giannis hasn’t had more but it’s cool Shay you talked a lot about your craft just working on your touch and different things in in your game what all goes into that like how do you

Discover some of these new windows and new angles off the glass that like most guys wouldn’t even try but you’re hitting it consistently um I think some of it has to do with like growing up I always had like the ball in my hand and I always was

Like like playing around the basket I always like if I’m like just on the court I’ll like spin the ball with the glass in a certain way like I’m always like trying trying stuff and uh playing with the ball on the court um so so and I’ve been and I’ve basically done

That my whole life so I feel like that’s kind of the ease to it like it’s just what I’ve done with the game my whole life and what I’ve been uh accustomed to then piggy backing off a couple other questions from earlier about your finishing through contact and just tough

Finishes like how do you simulate that in the offseason without like hurting yourself and like staying healthy because it seems like like I’m imagining you almost like a BMX guy like going on like the foam squares like when you’re launching yourself at the basket um

Um a a lot of times in the summer I go live um so I’m playing with contact um so that when I get in the game I’m used to it now we obviously do stuff to prevent injury but um we try to make it as uh physical as as we can in the

Offseason so that I’m used to it you guys just had a 10 game streak of shooting 50% or more from the field and tonight um and during that streak and even tonight you guys have been gen generating some really good looks it just didn’t fall as much tonight but uh

What do you feel like has been one of the biggest keys for you guys to get all those good looks a lot of them open play the right way um play for each other and we’re all being aggressive and playing to our strengths and then I feel like a lot of

That is also cre or because of the gravity that you’ve been creating uh this year seems like it’s been increased and what goes into you being able to know exactly where the guys are because it seems like you’re hitting it hitting them exactly where they need it

Um we’ve uh like s teams throw different coverages and things at me um I get used to them as well as my teammates so um as we have gone through this journey the past couple years we’ve um seen a lot of coverages and like I see them initially

But then they see them on the back end and they see the windows where to get open and how to play out of those windows so um I think it’s just us as a team getting better at attacking schemes so and as much as we talk about the N1 finishing through contact the

Other part of that equation is you know getting downhill getting to those spots and I wonder because it felt like a couple times to like move probably more than a couple as you’re turning the corner you know it’s almost like you’re bouncing off of guys the guys are like

Very cautious as to to not fou you um because you are maybe more fallible than other players I just wonder what all go into turning the corner so easy and and just getting downhill as easy as you have been um I’m I’m not too I’m not too sure I’ve

Uh I’ve been a guy that’s touched the paint my whole career um so I think at this point it’s just natural for me um finding out ways how to get my feet in the paint and then make plays from there um something that have just always done

What have you seen from Vasa from this time at the beginning of training camp all the way till now adjusting to the NBA game yeah um he’s he’s he’s gotten better uh from day one we saw like vos’s like a extremely smart skilled basketball player um and when you’re smart and that

Skilled you can be thrown anywhere and figure it out and have success and that’s what we’re seeing um you you have a ball in your hand a lot and then you dribble a lot of course and then um but you don’t turn the ball over much and you have you have

A zero turn over today uh how do you do that what is the important thing not to do that um I try to make the simple plays out there um I try to take what the defense gives me and I try to not uh Force things yeah sh lead the league in steals

87 total steals it’s like 27 more than anybody else in the League last year had 112 the year before you had 71 like what what has changed like what is so what makes you getting uh so this many still so much easier H I I’m I I feel like I’m getting smarter defensively

Um like uh like everybody goes into a game with like a offensive game plan personally as a player um and I’ve started to uh kind of figure out the defensive side of things um and figure out what teams want to do offensively and try to take it away um and then try

To pick my spots where I can gamble um be successful so that just mostly through like watching film or what’s like your process um I think it’s just yeah I watch a lot of basketball so uh not necessarily film but like at home the like the games are always on the TV

So I’m watching guys I’m watching their Tendencies um so it doesn’t film like a it doesn’t feel like a film session but I guess you can call it that do you take do you take notes on that or is that just like mental yeah it’s just like

Like just watching the game like if I’m watching Chicago and I know the Moos and pump F stuff like that and he likes to get to the post so like things like that like I’m just always watching and and watching for guys Tendencies Jaylen you guys have talked

About being able to win a lot of different types of games um what’s sort of the recipe for a night like tonight stops cuz we did not shoot well um yeah anytime you can kind of hold a team to 100 or you know kind of below that like we’ve been able to do

Last couple games um it makes having off nights a lot easier just cuz we’re getting stops on the other end too um usually where teams kind of fall apart is when the offense isn’t working it you know or not working but when you’re not hitting shots and getting

Good looks it kind of dictates how you play on defense thought we were just able to kind of get timely stops um kind of force them into some shots they didn’t want to shoot and kind of were able to get that way kind of get our

Transition into it I think we had like 16 steals or something like that for 23 points so just when you’re able to kind of add to that I think that kind of kind of helped us you know kind of build that 12-point lead and then we’ve playing

With the lead a lot this year and come back from some games so we had a good good kind of game plan going into that uh you guys really forced Pao to work tonight uh a lot of different guys saw time on him but Lou the majority of it

Uh there’s a moment where where Pao kind of rolled his eyes when he saw that Lou was checking in at the same time as as him what what do you sense you know opposing Frontline guys or headline guys feel out there with with Lou guarding him

Probably that eye roll um he’s a good player too so um you know we like to put our best defender out there Lou and he understands his role and he’s going to you know do it to the best of his capability um I think gives him

Confidence too and you know he has us behind him ready to help him out and understand what we’re trying to accomplish on the offensive end uh so yeah when you have good players like that you want to throw different looks at them and kind of just make it tough

And then obviously when it’s Lou at the Forefront of that it’s already pretty difficult and uh he did he did a good really good job tonight dub you had a big bucket in the fourth quarter and it looked like you tapped your wrist uh maybe said dub time

Can you just talk about your confidence in the fourth no comment well in a different way you’ve talked about being Jaylen versus Dub is that something like is that something you can just turn on is this like is like a Hulk thing or it just happens um

Nah it probably like looks that way just cuz you know we joke around about it a lot but um just with basketball there is no switch that you can just turn on and off um that’s a muscle that you constantly have to flex whether it’s the first quarter um basketball preparation

Starts the day before so it’s not like I’m going in the game like all right I’m going to turn it on now um there’s probably like three players in history that probably do that and even then it’s still an approach going into a lot of the game where you’re locked in and you

Just kind of letting the game come to you and understand what’s there and then I’m just able to find more of a rhythm and aggressiveness coming into that fourth quarter and obviously I probably got to be a little better just in the beginning of the game trying to do that

But we have such a talented team I think I’m going find shots and be open in that way uh cat got it going a little bit during that stretch as well so obviously Shay did his thing so I’m just trying to find whatever happens but it’s not a

Switch I’m turning I feel like that the whole game Jaylen Shay had six and ones the NBA’s only chared this since like it’s only chared this since 997 but that ties the most anybody’s had uh in a game what is it about his ability to to deal

With contact and play through it and still finish I have no idea you got to ask him that’s tough um he has good control over his body I think that that probably helps good balance you see how low he gets on a a constant basis but I’m just guessing to be totally honest

Um but he yeah he does a good job of understanding you know how to get to the line and uh something I’m trying to learn so yeah but I think it’s just body control kind of knowing where the contact’s coming from uh manipulating the defense a little bit and then on a

Night like tonight the way they play um you guys run great stuff but but how important is it that guys like you and Shay can just go get something when things are a little bogged down um yeah I don’t really think it’s it’s tough I think when you run a

Play especially now like teams know what you’re going to run for the most part I think a lot of it is trying to confuse it and create small advantages um you know we have a lot of good players on the floor so regardless of what player

Running it’s the NBA like you know you have other NBA players on the other end that are going to do a good job of guarding the action but I think for us we have a lot of dual threats on the floor so it gives us a lot more space to

Kind of create and and do that and um I think when you have that it makes it easier for me to kind of pick my spots Shay obviously um so I think it’s more of like a group controlled effort of where we’re able to pick our spots and um

We’re just kind of taking advantage of that guys are also cutting and hitting shots so makes it easy du and in talking about Shay’s and on there was a moment there in the fourth quarter where Paulo had fouled Shay and he was like adamant about the call and he he gets back

Toward the Baseline to line up beside you and he says something I I won’t ask you what he said but whatever he said you laughed and and I just I wonder you know as you you see Shay have games like this like do you get a good sense of you

Know how exhausted guys are just having to get in front of him yeah I guard him that practice and during the summer so know exactly what they’re going through but um like I said he’s good at manipulating the defense you know um does a good job of mixing up the shots

He takes as well so I feel like defense is constantly um off balance but probably should ask Lou maybe they be guarding each other so yeah but he like I said he mixes up the shots he takes so it kind of keeps a lot of people off balance and and then

Obviously with the pump fakes and the kind of like rip dos and stuff like that like he’s really smart at it so it’s kind of hard to figure out and get a Rhythm for how to guard him yeah and it feels like so many of those shots like

Especially tonight some of those were like virtually impossible just how little balance there is how how little maybe proper footing per se there is like have you can you remember seeing that level of you know so little balance so little footing and and still being able to hit those shots from anybody

Besides that probably Luca that’s probably the only other person but I think even I think Shay’s kind of in his own category I think just from the how different of a player they are um it may look like he’s off balance to like everybody else but he kind of

Understands how how he feels shooting it and like for us when we’ve seen it so many times like I don’t want to say you know but you you kind of know the spot he’s at and like you almost don’t even like you kind of get caught watching

Almost cuz you know he’s kind of bumping and figuring out what he wants to do with it and then like I said he has just a lot of mixture of different shots and then he’ll pass one so it it’s hard to I feel like really get a grip on what he

Wants to do Andrew just want to ask about the fourth quarter again so you have the most fourth quarter points total fourth quarter points in the last 12 games in the NBA is there is there something that’s like happened recently that’s like giving you more confidence

Is it lineups is it just like getting catching our Rhythm because I mean that’s obviously something special um not really um just kind of taking what the defense gives me throughout the game you know there are games where I might score a lot in the first half and then

How the game goes we have so many other good players on the team it’s like all right he might get going so now my focus diverts to trying to get him more shots or if I see isah Joe hasn’t shot any threes and he’s the best shooter in the

NBA I’m probably going to try and get him some shots so I think the fourth quarter thing is just me being a little more aggressive kind of reading the game I think a lot of the games we’ve had they’ve been close so when I start that fourth quarter unit um trying to hunt

Shots a little more but I think overall I think just the group we’re in with I think it’s easy to kind of just play off of and I end up getting shots and then I got to make them so you guys talk about like how dangerous that makes you as a team that

You can kind of take over like the first part of the fourth and then Shay kind of comes in kind of finish you guys talk about that or is it just something that’s happening um I think the biggest thing I talked about especially just because me and Cat kind of have that

That lineup um trying to play more off of each other and and utilize what we have there um anytime we can get to a little more rest and not have to play 40 minutes a game because we can kind of stretch a lead out I think takes

Pressure off him to have to come in right away and you know be really productive and you know he sees doubles all night so anytime we can be a threat with that group in um specifically in the fourth quarter with just how we stagger our minutes I think that’s

Special and you know chat and the rest of the group that that’s in cuz it does fluctuate who’s usually in but we kind of understand that so a lot of it is just trying to get stops more than than score the ball Nick Al KC Thunder uh L you know

You guys want a a high scoring on your end shoot out a couple nights ago this is a lot different of a game um would you like best about the way that you guys can mentally shift gears understanding what type of game it’s going to be and still get a win um just

The way we get ready for teams I mean um we knew that this team is uh is a better team that we that the team we played last game uh you know they they they they have it going they’ve been playing well so um you know we just knew it was

Going to be a different challenge so we just had it locked in on the game plan then um you know you just see the way that Shay operates and converts and finishes uh anything stand out to you about the way that he was able to do it

Tonight on a night when um outside shots weren’t falling for you guys uh no I mean nothing surprised me about what he does anymore I’ve seen it all now so um you know that’s just the work that he puts in you know he’s he’s so crafty and

Able to get to the Lane and finish around guys so that’s that’s just his game and you know he’s going to keep doing that for us l l I’ll follow up on that and I’ll ask you because dub told me to ask you when when you’re guarding

Shay in practice like how do you keep him off balance while keeping him from making a shot while also not fouling him all at the same time yeah I don’t know I don’t know um he’s uh sh is a tough player he’s hard to stop um even if you keep him up balance

He’s going to find a way to to to find his feed and get up and rise over anybody and shoot it so you know it’s it’s just the play he is I I don’t have an answer for you like I’m I’m trying to think about it but I I don’t know and

Some of those impossible shots he especially like the the ones tonight like do you by now have you gotten a good sense of like oh yeah like that one can fall like that one has has a chance like I said I’m not surprised anymore I

Seen a lot of crazy stuff that Chay did so now it’s just like wow good job seen seen it before but still I mean he he’s gonna he’s a great player he’s gonna knock out some big shots we following up on that first question that Joel asked just about

Guarding Shay do you ever like feel empathy for the guys guarding him as you like guard some of the best players in the world and then you see them like play really good defense on him and it just doesn’t matter matter I don’t really feel that cuz you

Know me and she on the same team and I want she to do that to anybody that guards him so um yeah but I just I just know it’s tough you know they trying their best and they can’t they can’t stop it so it is what it is I mean

Sometimes it’s good D sometimes it’s bad D but he did whoever is in front of him did his job and then we talked to Shay earlier about having chat behind him has allowed you guys to be more aggressive defensively and that creates a lot more Ste deals what exactly has just Chad

Being behind there protecting the rim impacted how you play a lot I mean just knowing me I put a lot of pressure on the ball and uh you know it happens to get beat so whenever I know whenever I get beat I know ched is down there you

Know having our our back so um you know it’s it’s it’s huge it’s huge you know just just now the chemistry that we have and and knowing that you know happens I I can get beat and then Chad is going to be down there so it’s it’s it’s

Huge most most people when the shots aren’t falling it’s hard to play defense and you guys were good on twos but weren’t so good on threes any problem with that with you tonight especially your guarding guy who’s got I know five inches on you whatever um I mean we just

Got to keep playing hard and compete I mean even though the shot wasn’t falling we just got to find a way to get to the rim or or crashing and get it second second chances or whatever that just can get us going but um you at the end of

The day we just got to keep shooting the good looks you know if if if f it now we just got to keep shooting in and playing hard and then you know that’s all we did we kept playing hard and trying finding stuff at The Rim so it

Help Lou you’ve been doing this for a while now defending the the best player on the other team doesn’t matter if it’s a point guard a wing you know pilot tonight it’s power forward has your approach or like your preparation changed over time and and what does that

Look like today uh I mean yeah they they they all different players they all good at what they do for a reason but they they don’t all do the same thing so it’s um the preparation is just really watching film it’s kind of reporting now

Been in the league for a little bit now so I kind of know who I’m going against but um you know today was Paulo you know he’s a great player great Wing you know really strong so um I just had to be prepared I just had to get prepared for

Him and can get shots on the rim which you know gives you a chance for an M1 but it also gives you shooting fouls and I think some of the best guys with the gather rule the best guys you know have a sense for how to do that and um it’s

Something that he definitely has learned I think chat’s got a good Instinct for it I think jaylen’s learning it right now so um you know it gives him a chance for some of those plays some of those were really tough yeah and then some of those plays with him he’s he’s been so

Good he’s so good at involving other guys he seems to be an even better playmaker this year but he how does a guy strike a balance between knowing hey things are bogged down a little maybe and I just need to go do it and then you

Know getting it to other guys at other times I think that in an ideal world you know it’s off at early you know early in the advantage early in possessions try to activate everybody else and then you know one of the luxuries of having a guy

That can score like he can is on the possessions where you stall out or on the possessions where the defense plays really good defense he can still manufacture a pretty efficient shot uh and that’s a major luxury when you look at uh NBA possessions when you get to

The second half of the shot clock and nothing’s really uh stirred up you know when you got a guy that can can go get one like he can can you know it it keeps a lot of possessions alive for you Mark and talk about the shades and ones it

Feels like so many of those and and just so many of the impossible Shotsy hits are you know without any balance at all like without proper footing I just wonder in your coaching career maybe just in your entire time viewing basketball throughout your life can you remember seeing a guy that that needed

So little balance so little proper footing to to make some of those shots I think it’s a testament to what he’s done with his body to be honest with you I think a lot of that stuff comes down to like your your base your core strength

Um and that’s something you know if you look back it’s funny I was looking at a I was with Grant Gibbs earlier and we were watching a play from uh my first year and uh he was on the court and it’s just amazing looking back and seeing

What he’s done physically uh and all the incremental work and when you see him every day and every year you don’t really notice it but you look back to when he was a rookie and his second year and third year um you know he’s he’s definitely invested there and has done it

Consistently he does it in the summer uh and I do think some of the stuff you’re talking about as a byproduct to the way that he’s invested and attacked the program when you look back at the tape from from his first year what did you

See I saw a play that we used to run uh for Horford that I was thinking about using but I didn’t use it tonight and you know in in building a team around um shooting and you know shooting with the best in the league I imagine that’s

Bound to become such a big part of your identity but on night like tonight where you go I think seven for for 35 or whatever from from three like I wonder what you’ve seen from this team in terms of you know building a separate identity on Knights where the ball doesn’t go in

It’s not a separate identity I think it’s just a recognition like I said to Nick uh that if shots aren’t falling first of all stay the course which I thought we did you know like keep doubling down and keep getting good shots uh and trust that they’re going to

Fall eventually uh and be willing to lose that way be willing to lose with the right shots uh but also um it’s not a different identity it’s just doubling down on Pace like I said coming out of halftime getting on the offensive glass which has not been a strength of ours

But has been an emphasis lately uh and I thought we did a good job of that you guys just had a 10 game streak of shooting 50% or more from the field in tonight um first team since 90 92 93 to do that um during that streak and even

Tonight you guys have been getting some great looks they just didn’t fall as much tonight but um what do you feel like has been the one of the biggest keys for you guys generating all those great looks a combination of things you know it’s uh first of all creating advantages you

Know it’s hard to get a good look it’s not just ball movement you know you have to create an advantage and um you know being sharp in our actions and creating an initial advantage and then moving it out of the advantage when there’s uh not a score available or a shot available uh

And then those guys being ready to play quickly on the catch and um the team’s done a great job of that it’s you know we’ve had a very unselfish Spirit uh really the whole season and uh they work together to find the best shots uh and they work together to find the best

Advantages and when you do that repeatedly possession by possession you can get great shots when you have talented players we have talented players then a lot of that kind of seems like it’s from the gravity that Shay creates is there a way that you guys can

Practice that like do you guys like when in practice do you Crow Shay anytime or cuz how do you I guess game plan for for three or four guys collapsing on Shay and then other guys being in the exact right spot for him to dish it out

To yeah I mean it’s it’s everything you know it’s first of all the guy’s it’s not just him you know his gravity certainly is helpful but um I he’s really the last couple games he’s really screened he’s gotten his layups on screens but um you know the other thing

Is like the guys that are creating the collision with him that are in the action with him doing so with Pace confusing the defense using different guys in that guys recognizing it in transition quickly um you know all has to do with it and then you know over

That time even when he’s been off the court we’ve been able to do that so I would I would you know argue that he as high gravity as he is uh we’ve been able to do it stylistically across the roster and with a lot of different guys um Shay

Has proven himself to be one of the best shot makers in the league you hear a lot of the oo and odds from the crowd but you’re pretty even Keel on the sideline is it ever hard to like contain reactions to a good or bad Play

No Andre like with the athletic um you guys drive the ball more than any team in the league like have for several years now was that something that was born out of like just having like this Personnel where it’s like hey we have these guys that drive the ball or is

That like hey this is the way we want to play and this is how we’re going to play because I mean there’s other teams that have players that like to drive the ball good at driving the ball but like where did that style of play like where was it

Like birthed from um I think more the former like it wasn’t like this Vision you know because you don’t know who’s going to be on the team when you first start out um so it’s really just like you know how do you maximize what you have um and everything

We’re doing now has evolved to this point you know so like The Cutting is something that um we had players on the team that they weren’t guarding they were just loading up on Shay and it’s like okay you know where do we space them you know and we learn different

Spacings from that we learn the cutting you know the cutting triggers and and how to activate that from that you know experience um the guard to guard stuff was born out of you know having shooting fives undersized fives non fives playing the five um and it’s just like you know

Step by step it’s just we’ve run into a hurdle and figured out a way to solve it and and the stuff that’s good we keep and we we you know um cultivate and that just becomes your system and a year from now you know our system is going to look

Different because different things will get thrown at us that will have to adapt to we’ll trip on different things that’ll be effective um and we just want to be like an Ever evolving problem solving you know group players coaches everybody um and we’ve done a good job

To that point but it it wasn’t like something like we drew up on a napkin four years ago was this a problem problem solving when because if you shoot your normal threes you probably went pretty comfortable but you find a way to win anyway yeah and they’d probably say the

Same thing I mean that was that was a was there was like covers on the hoop in the front first half um so yeah it was definitely that and that’s what um you I was saying early I thought we did a great job of kind manufacturing uh a win there out of a

Night that we didn’t shoot it particularly well you know we did it with Pace did it with rebounding but and I also I think we stayed the course with our style despite the fact that the ball wasn’t going which which is critical for us you got to be able to stay with it

And when when the shots on Fallen do you talk about it or do you just you run any pet plays like when Isaiah comes out there to kind of get get him an open look kind of break the eye so you just keep playing I talk about it you know

Cuz I think it’s it’s a recognition thing and they feel it you know it’s not like you know it’s like hey we’re two for whatever we’re getting Great Looks let’s keep getting the same ones um when you’re having a bad shooting night I try to draw shooting plays I tried to get

Chat one in the corner Tred to get Isaiah one there late um because I just it it reinforces that hey like these are the shots we want let’s let’s keep going for it so uh but the guys did a great job like I said with the rebounding the

Pace the execution to to offset obviously a rough shooting night Mark I think there’s some some plus minus stats or whatever but beyond statistically like what it’s looked better when meich is in the game lately he just looks a little more comfortable are you are you seeing anything different about him the

Past few weeks yeah he’s um Sam made this he said this statement early in the season and it stuck with me like he needs to catch up to the pitching you know and uh he’s so cerebral uh meich not Sam Sam cerebral too but I’m referring to meich he’s meich is so

Cerebral that um you just kind of trust he’s going to get there I mean you see the guy play in Europe and he’s a wizard um and so you know it took him a minute I think um to catch up to the speed of it athleticism we were also playing well

Without him in the mix so that was a reason that he didn’t get an opportunity but uh you know we saw a window there coming out of Christmas with that second group uh that we thought you know some secondary playmaking um off the ball would be helpful for them and that’s

Proven to be true and I’m really impressed with how he’s competed defensively as well you know he’s obviously not um you know Bruce Bowen but uh he’s really given effort on that end he’s executing coverages he’s playing physical he’s getting to the ball you know he’s doing the things he

Needs to do on that end as well anybody else we’ll go last one Andre the front come on Joe get off the sidelines come on Joe um you guys are tied for first in the west yep do you ever think that you you’re may be coaching the Western

Conference Allstars you think about that no okay no same answer is Mike so yep see you

Hear from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Lu Dort, and Head Coach Mark Daigneault following the Thunder’s 112 – 100 win over the Magic.

0:00 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
9:05 Jalen Williams
18:02 Lu Dort
22:48 Coach Daigneault

Follow Our Social Media!

Website: https://www.nba.com/thunder/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/okcthunder/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/okcthunder
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/okcthunder/
Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/okcthunder
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@okcthunder
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@okcthunder

#NBA #OKCThunder