Full Post Game Media Availability | OKC Thunder vs Denver Nuggets | NBA Playoffs | May 5, 2025

Full Post Game Media Availability | OKC Thunder vs Denver Nuggets | NBA Playoffs | May 5, 2025

Shay, uh, obviously taste of adversity here tonight. What’s your, uh, expectation of how this team will respond to tonight? Yeah, it should be good. It should be fun. We’re going to find out what we’re made of, what we’re really made of, and we can expect it to be smooth sailing this whole journey. No journey in life is, and we know that. And, uh, today is a a bump in the road, unexpected. No one expects to lose, especially that way. But it’s the game of life. So, it’s about how you respond to to getting to getting knocked down. And that’s what we got to do next game. Yeah. For Shay or or Jaylen, either one of you guys, whoever feels the uh the play where you got rope free for the dunk with 10 seconds left. Go up three. They’re out of timeouts. Joic is out of the game. Mark explained you’ve been trained. you’re fouling when you’re up three and just automatic, but would have been a nice thing maybe to just play defense with Joic on the bench. How tough is it to adjust course in the heat of the moment like that when when what you maybe are supposed to do is not the best thing to do. Yeah, that’s a good point. So, it’s it’s hard now because we lost and it’s going to seem like we should have did the other thing obviously because what we did led to a loss, but like we’ve been in that situation before. We fouled and we’ve won the game and tonight it didn’t go in our favor. Now, it’s not always going to go the way you want it, but there’s analytics and there’s a way we want to end the game and I think we did it as we planned. it just didn’t go our way. Um, but yeah, we like like like I said, it’s it’s nothing’s ever going to always go your way and that’s what happened tonight. Jaylen, is that shot at the buzzers going up, what goes through your mind uh in that moment? Not only the shot? Yeah. Yeah. Your shot. That ain’t making it to the rim. I’m actually impressed to hit the glass. It was kind of like you get like the shock of the three going in and like obviously we’re out of timeouts. It’s just like just try and get it close to the rim and see what happens from there. That’s really it. More broadly, um you guys obviously a lot will be talked about the the last seconds, but you’re up 14 and then find yourself in a close game. What do you guys diagnose as as the wise of, you know, not being able to close out after building that kind of lead? Rebounding. Yeah, rebounding, execution late. We got some good looks. Probably could have got better looks, better offensive possessions. That’s all I got for now. I’m sure there’s other things we need to go and watch again. Like like you said, we’re up 14. So like there’s a lot of stuff in the game. So it’s very easy to like look back at the last, you know, 15 seconds or last minute of the game. You know, there’s so many things that happen in a game that allow that to happen. So you look at rebounding, they got a couple runouts early. You know, all that stuff adds up. Like I missed two free throws to start the game. like you can just add a lot of things that go to it, but I think rebounding was they got a lot of second chance like opportunities and points and stuff like that. Either one of you guys, what’s your what’s your message to Chad? I know he’s mad he missed the the two free throws. What you what you guys tell him? The two free throws don’t like they would have been nice, but it’s like also at the same time like that’s not why we win or lose the game cuz like if they don’t make that three, you know, we win the game. It’s like if I make, like I said before, if I make two free throws early, what’s the score of the game? There’s so many factors that factor in a game. That’s not why we lost the game. And obviously, it sucks and it’s good for character development. He’ll be better for it later down the road. And also you uh the Minnesota game where you guys lost a 16-point lead. I mean, this is obviously bigger stakes, playoffs, and everything else, but is this kind of feel a little bit like that a little bit for you? Uh, no, not really. Like the average swing in an NBA game is 13 points, you know, right? Yeah. The average swing is 13 points. So you go up 13, you go down 13. That’s just all normal for the playoffs. It’s still right around there. So that’s just kind of how basketball is. We understand that. Um it just didn’t happen to go our way tonight. Shay, why do you think the the offense dried up for you guys down the stretch? I’m not too sure. Like it’s hard to reflect this this this fast after the game, but what it felt like they were just doing a good job of like loading the elbows on drives. They were in the passing lanes. I feel like we got a we got a couple shots that were makeable for sure and were pretty good looks. Um, but there’s there’s definitely things we could we could be better at tactically down the stretch for sure. And um, I know myself I I’ll look at those things to see if we can be better for next game. I could be better for next game for them. For sure. And and then, you know, for either of you guys, obviously Joker is not your primary assignment, but he is a like a whole team. It is a group effort. Yeah, sure. Um, you know, 42 for him. obviously dominant on the glass as well. What can you guys do to try to, you know, limit a guy who’s obviously puts up huge numbers against everybody? Um, I don’t want to like specifically say stuff, but like you just try and make good players like that work for, you know what I mean, like catches and make shots hard. And I think if we can eliminate like second chance points, I think that really hurt us. you know, you get them to miss one and then you go foul him and give him an and one. Like just like plays like that like add up over time. Um that’s something that would be like on the top of my head, but you know, we’ll have X’s and O’s and all the other stuff to do it. But a lot of that just comes from like trying to make it tough and you know, I mean, he’s a good player, so it’s like sometimes vice versa on this end. Like you know, we’re going to hit shots that are tough and we kind of understand that, but you just try and make it as difficult as possible. guys, what would you say the the overall mood of the team was after that after this one? Um, it sucked the first like couple minutes, but after that, back to ourselves. Like I said, we didn’t expect our whole run to be sunshine and rainbows, and we know that. Um, it’s about how we respond, and there’s nothing we can do about what just happened. So there’s there’s no point to um have our head down or be sad about it or sulk about it. All we can do is be better for the for the next game and that’s what we’re focused on. Jaylen, you mentioned free throws earlier. What do you think that you guys could do better to improve on the glass? I mean rebounds. Oh, you mean like us fouling them? You getting the rebounds? Box out. Um go up with two hands and grab that. Uh, don’t stand and watch. Box out again. And when you go up and you jump, make sure you grab it. Anybody else? Go Andrew with the last one. You guys didn’t have a lot of clutch minutes during the regular season. Do you think that played to any of just like the lack of execution down the stretch or is this just like one specific game? No, it’s easy to kind of like point the finger at that and it’s like if we win we don’t even bring it up. So it’s like kind of like one of those things where it’s like if we win we could look at how we could have been better. If we lose we do the same thing. It’s just kind of like one of those things. So it’s like obviously if we win this game you know everybody’s going to be like oh we followed up three and this was good and our offense was great. like it’s kind of like one of those things, but we’ll get back to the drawing board and figure out what we got to do to get better and improve and do that. You know, obviously the series is not first to one game. So, just take it one step at a time. We know we weren’t going to go on this like undefeated run and this is just a bump in the road that we couldn’t recover from. Alex, when you when you look at the 48 minutes as a whole, what are some things that uh stand out to you as areas that you got to improve on in in game two that prevent you from even being in a in a late game situation like that? Um, yeah, just some execution stuff. Um, controllables for us. Uh, gave up too many second chance points, gave up too many, you know, non-earned fouls, like fouls we just kind of gave them. uh which allows them to set their defense and keeps us in a half court offense. So, um couple of things I think that we can do better is probably just finishing possessions. You know, they got some really good offensive rebounders. And then, uh showing our hands, you know, trying to trying to figure out, you know, you got to figure out and dictate, you know, how the game’s going to be called and and you know, try and formulate a plan defensively to negotiate with that. And we didn’t do a good enough job with that tonight. AC AC just what was your perspective of those last I don’t know 15 seconds or so of game clock the the fouling of three the decisions behind that and um you know the sequence that that sort of won them the game with with AG’s three um yeah so I think the first one was me on yo uh Joic which was maybe a quick whistle on it like I don’t even know if it was really a foul compared to how the playoffs have been called recently you know um in the first round at least. So, uh regardless, we wanted to foul, you know, up three. That’s that’s the strategy that we’ve talked about doing. So, um get him to the line, then we execute. Shay Shay makes two free throws. Um I probably could have let Gordon dribble a couple more times, run some more time off the clock before I fouled again, but at the same time, we’ve talked about, you know, when in doubt, just make sure you get the foul done. Um and then, you know, Chad missed a couple free throws. We were aware of time and score. They didn’t have timeouts. They were going to go regardless. So, we were ready. Um, they got an outlet and he banged in a three to win the game. You know, it’s it’s kind of how it is. I don’t think I don’t think those last two three possessions lost the game. Obviously, we probably could have executed a little better and made made free throws and it would have been a little a little easier, but you know, five, six minute mark down to the one minute mark probably could have been a lot better and it would have not been, you know, coming down to that. And I know you mentioned that those last few possessions probably are not the reason you lost that game, but but the position chat is put in is feels like a heavy position for a second year guy just to to miss a couple free throws and then have to get back and and see the game when three shot over him like what’s your sort of message to him after that? Yeah, he’s in there for a reason. Uh he was in there game three when he had 25 in the second half when we had to come back against Memphis. uh he was in there late in the game, game four against Memphis, close out that series. Um we trust him, we believe in him. There’s a reason that, you know, Mark puts him out there. And I felt confident when he caught the ball to go shoot the free throws. You know, sometimes the ball doesn’t go in and you got to try and make a play and you know, you know, what are the percentage chance of Chad missing two free throws and then Gordon making a contested above the break three for game? It probably is in our favor and yet it didn’t happen for us, right? So again, don’t think it goes to that. I think it goes to the five minutes before that. Um, but I mean, super confidence in Chad. Like that’s that’s unwavering. When you look at those five minutes before that, what do you think are the primary factors on you guys, you know, blowing a 14 point uh point lead? Yeah, just those things I mentioned earlier, not finished possessions. Um, we gave them we gave them too many free throws where they didn’t have to earn it. you know, we couple couple fouls here and there. You, you know, toss a coin up and see if they’re fouls or not. That that kind of isn’t in our control. But, uh, just being able to finish possessions cuz they would get either an offensive rebound and a tip in or free throws and then go set their defense. And now we’re working really hard to go against, you know, their cross matching and the stuff they’re doing. So, kind of, you know, being a dead horse, but like finish possessions, don’t foul. Hey, Alex. I think Shay was asked about the team’s response in game two, and I think he said it’s going to be fun. How curious are you to see what this team is made of going into game two after losing like this after not having a lot of adversity in this fashion in the regular season? Yeah, I mean, it’s the fun part about basketball, going out there and competing. Like, that’s I mean, I I I really wish we would have won tonight, but like I have fun playing basketball tonight. Like, I love competing and playing basketball. like I want to win more than anything and losing sucks and giving that game away doesn’t feel good. But like perspective, we’re getting the chance to go play in the playoffs game two in the second round on Wednesday. Like that’s what more can I ask for than that? I had plenty of years where I didn’t even get to play in the postseason. You know, I I had to go to Miami twice and lose and go home and have a long summer. So, I’m playing basketball in May. I’m excited about the opportunity. Yeah, Alex, um you guys, uh as expected, the bench dominated. Denver’s not a deep team. Didn’t work out for you in the end tonight, but how much can what you guys did as a bench, how much can that play out, do you think, the entire series? Yeah, I mean, I think just continuing to have an imprint on the game um with the guys that we we bring in in that situation. And a lot of that is um you know putting me and Kase and then Wigs out there sometimes Isaiah Joe and then depending on you know what what big is out there with us um and then throw dub in. Uh we just have good good symmetry good there or good synergy good chemistry to be able to like play off each other um speed other guys up and get out in transition. And I think that’s, you know, where we thrive. And um, like I said earlier, if we don’t foul him and we rebound the ball, we have more chances to do that. Deal. Alex, I was wondering about the strategy. You guys were so effective against Joker early. Seemed like just I mean he he I think he committed seven turnovers. You guys really had it going on him. And then late he was getting to the hoop really really easy. Did was it a lot of the changes from their end or something that you guys did differently or both? Yeah, we probably just gave him a little too much freedom on a couple plays. Um like the one I got switched on and he just, you know, he outweighs me by 100 pounds maybe. Like he just walked me to 10 feet and shot a hook shot. Like we got to be better in situations like that. Like he’s the best player on their team. He’s multiple time MVP. Like we got to understand the situation and uh and look to kind of scramble and get and get out of those. But I think he just uh he he knows that he has to be more of a scorer I think and and you know for us it’s about making that hard for him and I think just too many times we didn’t make it hard for him in the second half. Anybody else? You have two more Joel and then Barry AC Darnell asked you something similarly and I know you mentioned that you had fun playing tonight. I’m not in the locker room but it sounded from outside that things were lighthearted in there after the game. Shay’s comments came off as lighthearted. What uh what sort of if that’s even if you describe it that way, what’s sort of the head space and and what gives you guys the confidence to No, it was pretty it was pretty dim the first couple of minutes when we had to sit there and take it in that, you know, we lost game one and when we played, you know, really well for 40 45 minutes of it. Um, yeah. I don’t want to I don’t want to come off as light-hearted. I don’t want to come off as not caring. Um, there’s a deep deep rooted care factor in this team and and guys want to want to win and we want to play deep into the playoffs and win the last game. Like that’s why we’re here. We’re here to compete and to do that. Um, that being said, you know, it’s a team to first first team to four games and and they have one and we have zero. So, from there, we got to move forward, regroup, see what we can do better, and go get the one on Wednesday. Yeah, I Alex, I asked Shay and and Jaylen about this. Um, he gets the breakaway dunk on the inbounds play with 10 seconds left. Put you up three. Joic is out of the game because they don’t want him to foul. They think they can put him back. They think they’re going to foul. they can put him back in. They’re out of timeouts. They can’t put him back in. Mark’s strategy, your team strategy all year, foul in that situation. How difficult is it to switch gears if you wanted to to not foul all of a sudden since Jokic is not in the game? Yeah, that’d probably be a hard thing to audible um just because we have we had great communication in the timeout about what we want to do and everybody was on the same page and pretty clear about it. Um, I think the only thing that we could change, I could probably just run some more time off the clock. And, you know, I probably need to do a better job of that. Um, that’s probably what I’ll beat myself up about the most with with that last scenario. But, um, like I said, you don’t want to be in that position. You you do stuff well enough the minutes leading up to that and you don’t have to worry about the last 10 seconds. and and a lot of focus goes into that strategy to foul up three and how we executed it and and all that. But again, the game wasn’t one and lost in the last 15 seconds. We had plenty of opportunities before that to win the game. The way you guys wanted to finish, what you feel in terms of just Denver’s experience there late uh and you guys uh you know trying to make the plays down the stretch? Yeah, credit them. I thought um they out executed us down the stretch. Um, I liked a lot of what we did most of the night to have control of the game. Uh, obviously didn’t close it tonight, but I thought we did a lot of good things. I thought we got a lot of feedback in terms of our plan. Didn’t think our execution was as clean as it can be. Um, but what, you know, we’ll learn from it. It’s a series. Mark, obviously I know generally you you try to foul up uh three, but is there any part of you that uh you know wishes that that last sequence went differently and and especially the the possession where you know Jokic is still waiting to to check in? Uh I don’t know exactly what possession you’re talking about on that one, but um yeah, I mean that’s usually our deal is to foul up three uh and to play that game. I thought we executed the fouls pretty well. um got the ball in bounds pretty well. It didn’t go our way tonight, but um it’s worked out well for us in the past. Uh we’ll continue to look at it, maybe learn from it, but I didn’t think that’s why we lost the game. And and with with Jokic, it felt like I think he had at least eight free throws in that that fourth quarter. It felt like, you know, he’s on the fence with the fifth foul and and there are some sequences that maybe swing that game. Like, how difficult is that when you’re trying to, you know, shift center out the game, you know, chat to to Hart and and try to manage that? Um, I mean, I thought a lot of the free throws that hurt us in the fourth were like backcourt fouls that were, you know, just sloppy execution on our part that we can learn from and clean up. Um, you know, we had them in the bonus early in the first, they were in the bonus early in the fourth. That hurt us. Um, so again, there’s stuff we can learn from, but uh, it wasn’t our cleanest game. Uh, it was kind of a coin flip type of game. We we allowed them to get back in it and make it a possession game. Gordon made a shot. credit him. Uh, and we just got to be better. Couple things. One, they came back, they got some quick fouls. They didn’t have to use the clock. And then two, after uh SJ hits his free throws, you fouled immediately instead of letting them maybe use some time to get it past half court uh to use up some time. Any uh I guess why why foul as soon as they inbound the ball on the other end of the court, I guess. Yeah. So, couple things on that. I thought I did think the back court fouls hurt us. Um, and again, we can learn from that. The fouling up three, that’s on me. You know, I think given the foul and getting the foul executed, uh, is critical. Um, so if you know, there’s something to be learned from that. It’s probably giving it too early on my part. Um, but that’s not on the players. They’re executing what I’m telling them to do. Mark, you said, um, you mentioned a few things about how you guys ended up losing this, but you said that the fouling situation down the stretch wasn’t why you lost. What would you boil it down to why you lost this one? I mean, just overall execution on both ends of the floor. I thought, um, defensive execution, we, you know, had a lot of possessions that we can clean up and learn from. Uh, the rebounding, um, we can definitely learn from. They had a lot of offensive rebounds tonight. Gave them a lot of second life. Um, and then our execution down the stretch offensively. So, you know, it’s it’s lousy that we lost game one. We’d rather be one up 10 and with stuff to clean up, but that’s not how this works. So, now we got to go get to work and execute better next game. What’s the challenge of, you know, a game like this where you have a pretty comfortable lead, see it, you know, lost away, losing home court advantage. I mean, just those sorts of things on the mental side of things. What’s the challenge of coming back from that? It’s the playoffs, you know, we have to embrace it. We have to embrace the struggle of the playoffs. We have to embrace the adversity of the playoffs. Um, the playoffs are a mountain to climb, so it’s not going to be easy for anybody. Um, you know, we we kind of coasted through the first round. It was challenging in the games, but we had control of the series the whole time. Um, but no one just walks their way through a series uh at this point in the season. So, credit Denver. They were the better team tonight. Uh, we can learn from it. We need to execute better, but it’s a it’s a series first of four. Joker obviously had another monster night. What did you think of the execution of the defensive game plan against him and and what’s your feeling come out of this about your team’s ability to to try to contain a guy who’s obviously maybe the best player in the league? Yeah, I mean 42 is loud obviously. Um 10 of those were free throws. Uh he didn’t assist the ball tonight the way that uh he does on average. So um you know the free throws were problematic, especially the bonus ones like the one on the cut, the one in the back court. Those are tough plays where he was walking to the line getting points on those. But um there were plays that we executed well. There were plays that we didn’t. Uh I thought in the first half we did a really good job defensively. We held him to 50 points or around there. Um but you know, we obviously need to be better. We don’t want to give him 42 points. And you’re up 14 with a little bit over four left. I mean, the way things went obviously before you got to the final game from or to the fouls game rather from 14 to where it became a possession game, what did you think went wrong for you guys? Um, I mean, anytime you you give up a lead like that, it’s both ends of the floor, so it’s offensive execution. I can do a better job of getting us organized and getting us quality looks. Um, and then down the other end to Myron’s point, I thought some of the fouls that put them on the line, uh, without using clock obviously helped them get back into it. So, it was both ends. It was everybody, you know, we’re all in it together. Uh, we need to execute better. I need to coach better. They need to execute the plan better and we just need to be a better team in game two. Yeah. Mark, uh, I think Yach got his fifth foul on the on the flagrant with six and a half minutes left. After that, did you change your offense at all trying to go at him more, trying to get a sixth foul? And did that lead to any offensive stagnation? Um, we certainly tried to go at him at times, but you know, you can get teams into like a defensive rhythm if you’re like repeatedly at them every single possession. So, we try to mix the bag a little bit on that. But, um, it was on our mind for sure. I mean, we’re aware of the foul situation, but like I said, you know, we could have been better down the stretch. the the play we’re talking about Joic not in the game that came after Sha’s dunk. They clearly thought you they were going to foul and get him right back in. Shay gets free for the dunk. How tough is it to switch a strategy with no stoppage of play where you know you got the dunk, you know, they got to they got no timeouts. They got to just play. That’s what’s tough. You know, it’s it’s tough to switch the strategy. We’ve got the guys locked in on uh following up three as a philosophy. They executed it. Like I said, anything with the followup three stuff in terms of timing that that’s on me. I mean, I’ll take full responsibility for that, but you know, philosophically, that’s also what we do. Did Did you see anything tonight that would indicate that the long layoff may have affected anything about the outcome of the game? I don’t know. It’s hard to say, you know. Um, at the end of the day, I thought, you know, it maybe if we started the game like Rusty, I mean, we’re 0 for 10 from three to start the game and then we were seven for 14 after that. So, like I thought we found our groove there. Um, and I thought our stuff, um, you know, really was down the stretch, you know, so I think it was more of an execution thing. Um, it’s hard to siphon out, you know, what exactly to attribute that to, but the reality is they out executed us tonight. It’s a seven game series. You know, we need to be the better team in game two. First half, Jokic seemed like he was operating a lot inside. You guys were very active in the passing lanes and second half it looked like it he was more so outside and then trying to back you guys down. What what did that do for you guys’ defense to to throw you guys off? Yeah, I thought like I said in the first half I thought we did a good job on him and their team, you know, we had um you know, we got stops, we were disruptive. I thought we had them a little bit out of rhythm. We were physical. uh in the second half they scored you know over 35 in both quarters. So um you know I I thought that was a defensive uh issue in the second half. Obviously the free throws had something to do with that but again you know we did a lot of good things. Um you know both ends of the floor it’s never as bad as you think it is when you lose by two. But now we got to get to work and improve our execution. We have to get better as the series goes. Follow. Do you feel like that was more of a point of attack thing for you guys or physicality with the defense? A little bit of everything. You know, execution of schemes. The rebounding certainly hurt us in the second half. Um the free throws hurt us in the second half. It was it was a mixed bag. We just um we need to be a little bit better. We don’t have to be perfect, but we have to certainly be better. Uh this obviously wasn’t the outcome that you were looking for, but um can you talk about the positive that uh Caruso brought? Yeah, he was awesome. You know, he’s a he’s a gamer. Um, I thought he gave us a great lift in the first half, obviously. Um, and the shotmaking, you know, he he was the one that kind of got the ball rolling down the hill for us there. Um, did a great job out of halftime. You know, I thought we got control of it there. Uh, deciding to start him and then, you know, he’s just so engaged in the game. You know, he’s he knows the plan. He can guard a lot of different guys. He executes. I thought he played great on offense tonight. He played a great game. Mark, is is the stagnation on offense just really hard to turn around once it once it’s you start having trouble and and really the low percentage shots that that JDub got off and a couple that uh Shay got. Yeah, like the dead ball offense, you know, some of that’s coaching. I got to get us in advantageous positions in those situations. Um and then some of it’s just like when we’re not getting stops. I mean, the game’s all connected. So, um, when we’re not getting stops for taking the ball out of the basket or they’re shooting free throws, we’re coming up against a dead floor every time down the stretch of a game. So, a few more stops help us there. Um, we’ll evaluate every possession, try to get better. Uh, like I said, it was an execution game down the stretch and they out executed us. And Mark, obviously Chad was very involved in that last sequence. He misses the two free throws and then he tries to defend Gordon on the other end. He hits the the game-winning three. What’s sort of your conversation with him after the game and after that sequence? I mean, I’m not going to smother him right now. I think generally um we talk going into the playoffs about um the gaps between the games and the ups and downs of a series uh and the challenges that teams need to overcome to accomplish what they want to accomplish. So, uh we do that proactively for this situation. You know, we know it’s not going to be easy. We know the playoffs are challenging. They take teams to the limit. Uh we’re no exception to that. Uh so hopefully the guys apply that framework to um when they lay on the pillow tonight and then we’ll come back tomorrow and go through the same process that we would go if we won the game by two.

Hear from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Alex Caruso, and Coach Mark Daigneault following Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.

0:00 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander & Jalen Williams
8:27 Alex Caruso
18:00 Coach Mark Daigneault

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