OKC Thunder Full Media Availability | Post Game at Milwaukee Bucks | March 24, 2024

OKC Thunder Full Media Availability | Post Game at Milwaukee Bucks | March 24, 2024

Shan not necessarily to compare but it just it seemed like their defensive rotations and Closeouts and help the helper stuff Milwaukee was some of the best uh anybody’s played against you guys all season what did you make of just the the effort level and sort of those second third efforts that they

Were making tonight yeah um they were firing on all cylinders um that’s off to them they have uh a lot of guys over there have won big in this league um I know what it takes um and we had a chance tonight to to see where we stack

Up against that um obviously didn’t go our way and how we wanted to perform um but a lot of lessons learned and and that’s what you want from from opportunities like that yeah that’s kind of what Mark was saying after the game that like long I mean the season this

This doesn’t Define a season at all like there’s a lot to learn from this game as you move forward on this one like how valuable do you view this experience in conjunction with the eight out of 10 that you just won um um you always can learn more from a game like this

Um two things because of the type of the type of opponent um and then unfortunately how we performed uh there’s reasons as to why we we lost like that you don’t just walk into a game and lose like that um but it would be good for us to learn from and and move

Forward Shay what did you see from from Josh tonight and just kind of the the pace that he was playing with throughout the game yeah he was really good good aggressive um Josh has sacrificed a ton this year um like he’s a natural one and

He ball has kind of been taken out of his hands for the greater good of the team and uh hats off to him he uh he’s figuring out kind of how to play another style and it’s I couldn’t imagine doing it so hats off him for sure he’s playing

Well and he’s he’s figuring it out so all consider you guys were well in that game at at half I mean NE team was shooting too well but that game was in the grass just what Happ happen to to start that that first half or third um they obviously have a size Advantage

Um but uh they were more physical and then when you have a disadvantage and you allow allow the team to be more physical um it gets ugly quick and I think that’s what happened um we didn’t pose our style or our will on the game in enough time to kind of slow down

Their runs and I mean we we talk about the way they rotated the help the helper stuff teams have that there have been teams that have you know maybe done that to that caliber against you guys this season that that hasn’t really kept you from doing what you do you know being in

The pain driving constantly like that none of that stuff has really kept you from being you I guess what did you see them do that maybe limited some of the stuff you wanted to do some of the LI you you might have wanted on a regular night specifically um yeah they were

They were really good really focused on game plan um set multiple bodies I’ve seen multiple bodies all year like you said um I think a I think I also just had a bad night um just one of those nights but they credited them they uh did their homework they came ready and they

Executed a game plan seemed like their closeout rotation helped the help her contest Milwaukee was really good tonight what did you notice on that end the floor about uh just how how tight they were uh yeah they did a good job of rotating for each other and making us

Work on offense I think we still got lot of good shots uh you know we had a stretch where they were scoring and we were getting good looks and just didn’t hit shots this basketball um I don’t think we’ve been playing particularly well over this little stretch too so I think this loss

Was kind of good for us just to see you know when you play a really good team kind of see exactly where we’re at um you know things aren’t as bad or as good as they seem at the moment but I think this was just good for us to kind of see

Where we’re at and kind of go from there yeah before the game Mark was kind of making the distinction that he’s made with you guys a bunch about the difference between size and physicality and it seems like seemed like in that third quarter maybe they got to the

Physicality stuff more than you guys did is that how it felt out there uh yeah a little bit I think that run was just big for them uh I think they started kind of attacking the size thing and just being more physical so I think for us it was

Just kind of just took a little while too long for us to navigate how to kind of match up with them obviously we haven’t played them all year so um I think that was kind of it you just you mentioned you know this being a game

That you can look back on learn from long term but we mentioned physicality a lot of that obviously is Giannis setting the tone that’s a guy who’s probably one of one in his league in terms of that just how much weight can you actually put into you know the results from just

Knowing that that’s a guy you know post you probably wouldn’t play till way down the line and you know you only play him twice a year so um yeah I think you know like you said he’s kind of like a oneon-one kind of player um I think Brook Brooke Hur us today too

Right that’s the twin yeah I always mix them up yeah yeah I think think he hurt us down the stretch just physicality kind of getting out ahead of us and you know cing I think Bobby you know another one but I think just them three in

Tandem you know put a lot of pressure on the rim uh and then yeah I think when once you add kind of Giannis into that equation too uh he’s kind of their engine that Mak some runs so you know they had a they have a good setup at

Trying to get to the rim with a lot of teams and you know they were successful tonight yeah and defensively obviously because they’re they’re they have so much sides you guys obviously try to Cross Match and just do different things just in the in the slip UPS whether that

Was maybe you know Giannis getting something back door or just whatever a guy getting open three after you guys are trying to scramble like where did you see the slip UPS materialized um I don’t think we had a lot of like defensive lapses I think a lot of it was

Was rebounding um I thought we did a good job getting him to shoot some out of character shots or just tough ones in general and then you know I think they just came up with more loose balls and that’s the stuff that puts us in rotation and that’s where they get open

Threes and um you know stuff like that that’s where Giannis gets a lot of his a lot of his points tonight you know just around the room kind of cleaning up the glass so I think once you kind of factor in that and then now they’re comfortable

Offense and moving through that I think that’s when it a lot more problems for us to rotate and you know like I said we’ve played them this our first time playing them and this is probably like game 70 almost so I think just going from there we understand this kind of

The first team that we’ve seen where they play a really big lineup like that so um probably as side from the Lakers so uh we’ll just be able to adjust from there and just try to throw different things out there can you use this as a motivating moment to get ready for

Another playoff team in New Orleans uh yeah for sure um I don’t think we’re going to harp too much on the loss I think just kind of take some of the fundamental stuff from them and just be able to turn the page uh I’ll probably the same answer if we won this

Game um but yeah I think every game going forward we’re treating like a playoff game in general just kind of being able to flip the page and do that so um just looking forward to playing New Orleans now Mark seem like you guys really try

To get the the Bol going um but it seems like their defensive rotations contests helping the helper stuff was really good tonight what did you notice about uh the activity of Milwaukee’s defense I thought they did a great job you know I thought uh they were sharp defensively

Uh as you said the rotations were really tight they contested shots they forced us to be a jump shooting team protected the paint against us we obviously didn’t have a great shooting night but um you know credit them they were clearly the better team today you made the distinction between strength and

Physicality before the game did you feel like that that more to them having physicality advantage in the second half particularly that third quarter yeah I thought they were definitely the more physical team uh in the third especially uh and that would have you know offensively would get off to a great

Start I thought we um you know made some nice plays tried to get some good looks uh but when you’re not shooting it well you got to use your defense and physicality and rebounding to try to stabilize it and obviously we didn’t do a good enough job of that particularly

Early in that third quar I think two okay excuse the mic two points the first six minutes of the third quarter what did they do specifically during that section of the third quarter coming out the second half that really bothered well we we didn’t get anything easy you know and then it

We had to rely on jump shots we got a couple good ones uh we had a couple good possessions that we didn’t make but uh when you don’t get an easy source of offense like that and then you don’t shoot it well that can happen uh and

Then we just weren’t able to temper them down the other end of the floor just any update on on L and situation I think he’s fine I think he’s going to be fine okay and U I mean G mentioned just before the game that you made a distinction between strength and

Physicality and I know C like CAD didn’t start on on Yannis like that D started on Yannis I think you know CAD had the F Giannis you know on drives maybe in that third quarter he guarding some post UPS like generally like that Gap like how do

You in a match like this I know everybody isn’t Giannis but like is it you still have to close that Gap some like is there to have some some strength for for a go chip maybe not just in a match up like this but but long

Term um yeah I think you know we had dub on him for much of the night uh and he’s handled matchups like that well before um we did switch them so we ended up in situations where different guys are on them but then our plan was to double

Them um and we just got to you know if we have any sort of you know physical mismatch we’re going to send bodies uh to the ball and put guys in a crowd as we’ve done so um I didn’t think we did that well enough tonight uh but we do

Have solutions for not just chat but really anybody um that’s you know in the post or around the basket uh with a strength mismatch or a size mismatch I mean we’ve we’ve done that that’s why we’ve generated so many turnovers I just didn’t think uh that our activity

Tonight or physicality was good enough I thought that was evidenced by the the turnovers they had we we were low on that uh which you know isn’t the goal but is usually a barometer of our activity intensity uh that sort of thing I thought you know obviously we didn’t

Have our fast ball there yeah shade finishes with 12 five 12 I believe I mean even in games where you know team might rotate or double him or you know just not up generally like he he never finishes with you know less than 20 just

What’ you see from from where you were s that that maybe help limit Shay tonight um I mean they had him in a crowd uh I thought he made he got off it a little bit um but they had him in a crowd much of the night made it very difficult for

Him to get his cracks I thought as a team just our overall pace and sharpness on offense wasn’t where it needed to be uh and usually when you can do that you know generate that you can get the ball ahead of the defense and now you start

To get some cracks not only for him but for everybody uh and I just thought you know our force uh on offense didn’t overcome their physicality uh and then our physicality didn’t overcome their force and that’s how you know 25o loss happens yeah and then last one for me

Just the it felt like in the first half you know the quality of the thre good they they maybe just didn’t fall as the game goes on I imagine you know you’re trying to take whatever Advantage you can get especially when they’re rotating like that just what do you think of the

Quality of of the threes as the game went on well I thought they did a good job of shutting off the paint uh you know credit them with their plan I thought you know we didn’t quite have the the pace or the juice to get the

Cracks that we would normally get uh and therefore we ended up having to shoot a lot of jump shots a lot of them were good looks I’ll be interested to see uh how that grades out but obviously we’d like to get to the paint the line

Uh more than we did tonight but uh we we weren’t quite stubborn enough in terms of the force we played with the pace we played with do you have to say anything to your team to help them get keep their heads up after a performance like that

Especially in the second half uh they’re no I mean they’re they’re usually pretty good about uh getting back to zero after a game uh win or lose uh but you know it’s one game I I don’t overreact to it very much um wanted to ask you about Josh’s

Night and it seemed like when it came to just pace and force he was playing with that kind of from the outset yeah he got off to a really good start made some shots um and played well especially in that first stretch um so that was a

Bright spot tonight but uh obviously we needed you know the team to play like that um you know much better than we did do it collectively much better than we did uh to generate the type of cracks that that we want to have and obviously before the game you were talking about

How much you looking forward to this challenge just in particular first time playing Milwaukee and it’s March 24th just how valuable is this experience for you guys yeah this was a great game for us you know obviously not the outcome that we wanted uh and we wanted it to be

A more competitive game than it was but you know you have to learn the lessons through an 82 Game season and you have to learn the lessons in wins and positive moments and you have to learn the lessons in losses and setbacks and so this has always been a team that’s

Been great about responding uh but we got to stare this one in the face take the lessons from it uh and Turn the Page we have another challenge coming up on Tuesday

Hear from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Head Coach Mark Daigneault following the Thunder’s 93 – 118 loss to the Bucks.

0:00 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
3:13 Jalen Williams
7:22 Coach Daigneault

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