Chet Holmgren + Jaylin Williams Shootaround Media Availability | April 2, 2024 | OKC Thunder

Chet Holmgren + Jaylin Williams Shootaround Media Availability | April 2, 2024 | OKC Thunder

CHP can we just get your perspective on what you saw from that gamewinner from Shay the other night uh an incredible shot um but you know that’s who Shay is he’s done it before and uh I don’t think that’ll be his last one it was a really

A full team effort in in that game just what do you remember about how everyone kind of stepped up in that in that game uh you know is what we’ve seen all season long from uh everybody on the team you know uh great players make big

Plays and big games and that’s uh that’s what guys wereing coming into this game is is there any carryover from from that game against the Knicks that you want to apply tonight yeah 100% you know we try to learn from uh you know mistakes that

We make in every game win or loss uh and there definely there’s definitely plenty of things that we could learn from uh in that next game and I feel like we’ll apply that tonight and CH I just I just wonder because those last few minutes of

That next game were chaotic I mean free throws the rebounds the shot making like as you looked at over the past day or so like what what stood out most s those P you this um credit to the Knicks you know they had some big time players who made some

Big time plays but uh you know we also made some mistakes down the stretch that uh we’re going to have to clean up um you know especially uh you know coming towards the end of the regular season you know we got to uh really hammer down on uh

You know a lot of that execution stuff because at the end at the end of games that’s what’s that’s what uh you know separates a win from A Loss last last summer when you were thinking about your individual goals for this year did did it all ever factor in that you wanted to

Play every game this year yeah yeah what what tell me about what what you thought about um I mean I just love to play basketball uh so every day I get to wake up and go play basketball as a win for me um you know I didn’t want to uh be

Ignorant to uh you know my health and everything and if uh there’s a situation where it’s in the best interest of my health going forward to not play basketball that day uh you know obviously I listen to the medical team and listen to my body and what’s going

On but if I have the opportunity to play I’m always pick that and uh you know that’s the mindset that I’ve always had uh and you know I wanted I didn’t want a like an injury like what happened last year to kind of change my mindset around

That so I just kind of brought that into the season and um you know with my routine and everything I put into my body and trying to be healthy uh and then a little bit of luck I guess too um no freak incidents or anything uh you

Know I’ve been able to play every game so far and hopefully that continues you haven’t been in the playoffs yet personally but you play that game the other day had a playoff like seal to it tomorrow obviously we’re playing a big game against Boston it’s only a couple

Weeks to go a regular season does it feel different now that you’re in April in terms of preparation for the playoffs and sort of what’s ahead than maybe games in December or January or February mindset standpoint uh I definitely say Yes um you know we like

To attack every game the same and um you know not Overlook games especially early in the season cuz they all do mean a lot um you know a win or loss earlier in the season could be the difference between this seed or that seed and uh you know

The the playoff picture in the west is so tight you know one game now uh you know means the difference between SE them so they’re all super important and uh you know we’re taking them all very seriously and um you know every win and loss means a lot

So uh you know we’re definitely trying to make sure we’re on The Winning Side not the losing side I guess more what I meant was does it feel do the do the days feel different now like cuz you could see how cold I don’t mean that like games are less important but like

It’s natural to look ahead to the playoffs feel like obviously that’s something you I’m sure dreamed about for years is playing anba play like do it feel different now it’s only a couple weeks away yeah I mean you definitely got to fight kind of human nature on

That uh you don’t want to look forward to the play and forget about what you’re trying to do right now that’s kind of what I was meaning by how important all the games are we’re we’re focused on you know playing Philly tonight and figuring out how to put ourselves in the best

Position to win this game so I just want to get this straight on the you know you playing the entire season cuz I know we kind of talked about you know you maybe feeling some of that ear in January had there not been points at all this season

Where you maybe thinking about you know trying to to is taking on your part uh yeah for sure I mean you know it’s a long season to begin with there’s a lot of games um you know it’s not easy uh that’s why you don’t see everybody

Playing 82 games um or you don’t see everybody who’s played in every game this year so far uh you know it definitely takes a toll and um you know you just kind of got to com compartmentalize uh you know everything going on cuz if you’re focused on my

Body’s tired this or that uh you know it’s taken away from your preparation for for the games that you’re trying to play so um trying to focus on the right things uh you know you can’t really control uh you know being tired that’s that’s kind of part of it everybody’s

Tired everybody’s uh you know somewhere on their body’s hurting for everybody so um you know you can’t look at that or try to make an excuse with that you just got to uh you know figure it out try to uh you know be the best version of

Yourself yeah and I don’t I don’t know if this is limited I don’t know if this is limited to dub but he was just saying the pregame the other day that part of the maybe the most refreshing thing about you know playing for Mark is just that he’s always open to New Concepts

New ideas is just never really you know firm on a set of principles just always forever changing just have you seen that as long as you play for him yeah uh I mean obviously we’re a young team and and Mark’s a young coach and we have a

Young coaching staff and uh you know part of that is uh you know he’s not stuck in his waves because he’s still figuring out what his waves are uh you know as are we as a team so um the only way to kind of reach for the peak of

What we can be is to uh you know look for different things that that can be better than what we’re doing right now and um you know when we find something that works uh you know kind of trying to find the best version of that and uh you

Know we’re going to continue to do that going forward and uh I think it’ll leave us in a good spot Jay will can we just get what your perspective was of Shay’s gamewinner the other night in MSG yeah um of course I knew what the play was

And I think great players make great plays and when we saw Shay with the ball in that position we I feel like we all had confidence in him and I’ve seen him work on that mid-range shot seen him work on mid-ranges for hours every day

So I think we all trusted Shay to make that shot jdub said after the game that it felt like everybody made that shot at the same time because you practiced that so many times just what does that say about this group and this team yeah um I

Think our coaches do a great job of of getting us reps in certain positions uh certain situations and things like that and um I think that we trusted Shay with the shot and I think as a team like we knew it was going to happen we knew what

What to do what the looks were and I feel like as a team we were prepared for that situation jayen what does it say about your group obviously you guys are one of the younger teams in the league but it’s not a surprise to people when you guys have success in those

Situations now Jay’s hit a bunch of those shots Jaylen has had big shots in those moments does are you impressed at all or surprised at all how quickly you guys have been able to find success in pressure pack moments against you know High Lev teams like you did the other

Day um I feel like we go into every game just with a level head uh regardless of what the game is we want to play the Thunder way and uh we stick to what we do we trust each other on the court we trust the next guy we trust that we’re

Going to make that extra pass make the rotation and I think that this is kind of how we’ve been playing throughout the whole year and we just trust each other to make those type of plays you’ve been putting a lot of different situations over the last couple of games the four

The five what what’s been your mindset when you’re out there on the floor in those you know varying roles I’m really just going out there and playing as hard as I can I know that uh when coach looks at me he knows that that I’m going go

Out there I’mma rebound I’mma play hard I’mma play defense I’m going move the ball left or right I’m going talk and communicate so I just want to make sure that when I’m mount on the court I control those things and make sure that he can trust me to do those things when

He puts me out there recently it’s been the assists that have been the things that have been really up for you recently what’s it been like kind of tapping back into that that passing and playmaking yeah it’s it’s fun passing ball I think that’s my favorite part of

The game is just making those right passes and and getting my teammates those great shots and I think when the ball’s moving around the ball has energy that’s when we’re out there having the most fun we’re yelling we’re yelling at each other running up and down the court

And it’s it’s fun making those plays having a bunch of siblings growing up was it like you’re going to get a punch if you don’t pass the ball um no it was more like I would get a punch if I didn’t rebound for them while

They were shooting so my all my Sy was way over than me so yeah he dub was just saying in pregame the other day just how refreshing it is that that Mark is just always open to New Concepts new ideas I just wonder your your perspective on

That and and how you maybe seen that materialize from from Mark yeah um I’ve been around a lot of coaches and I I think I said me and wigs we always talk about the game and what’s going on and we’ll watch when Mark draws a play and

We’ll talk about what we think’s going to happen throughout the play and we kind of see what happens and we’re like like Mark is smart like Mark knows what he’s doing out there and sometimes it’s it’s really interesting to me to see how smart he is basketball wise and just

Trying to pick his brain and read what he does and I think that he’s a great coach he’s a players coach he he helps us he puts confidence in everybody and he’s he’s just really just a great basketball mind will not play um Shay is still questionable didn’t go through shoot

Around but got treatment and we’ll see how he feels so trying to get him ready not really I mean Mark uh the defense the consistency that you guys had in New York for the full 48 minutes to kind of keep a level head uh regardless of what

Was going on how how encouraging was that to see um you know in that environment uh this group be able to keep a level head throughout the course of the game on that end I thought Our poise in the game was really good I thought our execution uh wasn’t great you know like

It wasn’t one of our better execution games I thought both teams left that game up to up to chance and we happen to make one more play than they did but if you want to kind of control a win on the road against a good team we have to

Execute a lot better than we did so there’s a lot we can learn from that we tried to treat it as if we lost the game by one and and learn the lessons so that we can continue to improve because it wasn’t our best game there but we did we

Played hard and we played with poise and that was enough we made enough plays obviously what is executing better against this Philly team look like for you guys tonight I mean it’s very Maxi heavy you know just because of the load that he carries for them he’s the head

Of the snake um you know so you got to take care of business against him which is easier said than done he’s playing at a really high level and with a lot of confidence uh and then it’s just you know winning the Closeouts out of that um they’re a disruptive defense they’ve

Turned teams over more than anybody in the last 10 games so they’re playing with a lot of aggression right now so you can’t give them lot balls you got to got to be sharp against them and burn their aggression if you can Mark I think

A a comment thre now you know some of your guys just when they when when ask about maybe the most refreshing part about play for you they kind of just say the most refreshing part yeah it’s just you know you being open to New Concepts new ideas just never really sticking to

Your ways I just I wonder because I know you had to experiment in the G league but does does that you know philosophy maybe predate that like where does that come from it’s not a philosophy I’m just we’re trying to do what’s right for the team you know and not allow uh what’s

Conventional or what’s already worked to get in the way of that because things are constantly changing um so it’s really it’s not philosophical as much as it is like are we it’s paranoia about making sure that we’re doing everything we can to maximize the team and not

Allowing you know past usually it’s past success that gets in the way it’s easy to experiment when things aren’t working but if things are working there’s a tendency to get rigid uh and we try to stay really Nimble and fluid uh and look at the best thing but it’s also not

Random experimentation it’s like it’s an educated guess it’s you know we’re not ever going to try anything that we don’t think can work um sometimes it doesn’t but um it’s not it’s not related to My Philosophy or anything it’s just trying to figure out what’s best that’s not that’s not

Necessarily something that can always I shouldn’t say can always but does always carry over to the playoffs in terms of like you you’ve been pretty fluid in trying different lineups of combinations throughout the season do you think that’s something that maybe you guys can maybe not exploit to the right word but

Do in the playoffs it’s a little different than normal or is that not necessarily something you think would carry over to the postseason in terms of your overall approach to it some of the approach I’m sorry no was I thought I thought you were no that’s all right

Some of the approach uh is because of the playoffs I mean it’s always fascinating to me that you get into a series with one team you play him up to seven times and the series the way that it unfolds forces you to adjust and sometimes it forces teams to adjust to

Things that they’ve never done before and it’s always been curious to me it’s like I don’t I don’t want to be in a situation where we’re adjusting to something that literally never done in the highest Stakes environment you know like we’d like to know what that looks

Like and so um we try to be pretty aggressive and proactive because of the playoffs we didn’t know you know going into any season if we’d make the playoffs um but we wanted to develop an Adaptive team you know both you know with the decisions we’re making and also

Having our players used to that so that if we do have to make an adjustment in the regular season or in the playoffs the players aren’t interpreting that as like desperate you know it’s like they just know that’s what we do we’re trying to find the best things and we’re

Willing to be aggressive in pursuit of that and how much of that is also attributed to your players buying into that mindset because it’s obviously not you know again I wouldn’t say it’s unconventional but it’s different than necessarily a lot of teams do because guys tend to want to have structure and

Exactly how they’re playing and when they’re playing yeah I mean it’s a huge credit to them it’s their mindset um their open-mindedness um their ability to adapt their capacity to adapt you know they’re it’s an intelligent team um and we always try to you know everybody

Always says sell I don’t like that way of phrasing it but we always try to explain why we’re doing what we’re doing so they understand the thinking behind it I think that that can get you in trouble sometimes when you just do stuff and they’re like what the hell are we

Doing right now you know but we always try to make sure that when we make a decision they know why we’re doing it um and we found some creativity you know from them that doesn’t even come from me or to from the coaching staff when they

Know the intent of what we’re trying to get done they then can carry that out to a degree so we’re all in together and we’re trying to you know find every advantage that we can Mark use the word paranoid which is interesting cuz I don’t really take you for a paranoid guy

Is there a level of paranoia required at this level for caching I’m probably exaggerating but I would say you know I I’m I I would never want for there to be something that we’re capable of that is not discovered because of my own you know stubbornness

Rigidity fear you know it’s my job to try to UNC cover all that and um and and sometimes fail in the process but um that’s that’s what I meant by that and at what point in your you know coaching tenure did you you know have that realization that you know there is a

Point where you can maybe step in the way of of your your guys I can what that you can maybe step in the way of your guys kind of like you were just saying that you can get in the way of them by you know sticking to your

Face yeah I mean anytime that um anytime you’re doing the wrong thing or that you know you um you trip on something that helps you but you didn’t really do it proactively circumstance forced you uh to do it and I think like I said if you study the playoffs well enough um that

Happens every year where teams are forced to do certain things and um their season rides on their ability to execute something that they’re doing for the first time we just don’t want to be put into that position so we just try to be as aggressive as possible to make sure

That we’re sharpening all the tools that we’ll need um you know during the regular season and in the playoffs eventually you know when we get there which obviously we’ve gotten there this year

Chet Holmgren and Jaylin Williams to media after today’s shootaround in Philadelphia.

0:00 Chet Holmgren
6:12 Jaylin Williams
9:20 Coach Daigneault

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