Practice Media Availability | NBA Finals Interview Room | June 15, 2025 | OKC Thunder

Practice Media Availability | NBA Finals Interview Room | June 15, 2025 | OKC Thunder

[Music] on the left how we doing happy Father’s Day to everybody who is a father first question here on the third row on the left hi Mark Gillanoni from ESPN Brazil uh last game Pascal Siakan was uh playing very well through three quarters but uh last quarter he had only one shot there was a special adjustment or you think that the the pressure on the ball was enough to get him out of the game and none of our adjustments are are really personnel specific against this team as I’ve mentioned you kind of have to they play as a whole and as a unit uh and you have to defend them as a whole and as a unit and that’s been our mentality against their team and you just have to trust that if you do that you can you know limit as best you can the effectiveness of very good players like him you know and even if you do that you know they’re going to get the best of you on certain possessions or certain nights but um we’re doing the best we can sam here mark Tim Reynolds EAP happy Father’s Day to you too same to you um when you’re in when you’re in the throws of it like Indiana has the great finish in game one you guys have the great finish in game four games two and three kind of went decidedly kind of one way in a lot of ways it’s It’s been a really good four games a lot of back and forth when you’re in it can you appreciate that at all do you have a do you have do you take even a second to say this has been a pretty good first four games uh I mean we just appreciate the opportunity we appreciate um the opportunity to play you know this deep into the season if you’re playing this deep into the season your opponent is going to be really good they’ve won 12 games to get to this point just like we have um you just know it’s going to be unbelievable level and there’s definitely times in it where it’s like man this is high high level you know and I’ve definitely felt that not only in this series but in multiple series but um we’re also trying to make the next best decision win the next possession um so we’re zoomed in on that as well Joe the athletic happy father’s day to you as well yep same to you um you talked after game four about the lineup change and you said you wanted to get Isaiah more minutes so I guess I have two questions about this did did that change enable you to sort of tinker with the rotation so Shay had more in the tank in the fourth quarter and then also prior to that your starters had really dominated in their minutes and then they they didn’t with with the new change so so how do you uh reconcile that going into game five well every game’s different uh first of all but um what I’d say is you know the initial thought um kind of had its desired effect to your point you know in terms of the starts we were able to get off of um but your starting lineup also uh is the first rotation decision you’re making and has domino effects to the rest of your rotation um and I thought you know in that game we benefited from starting the rotation that way even though to start the game they were really you know we gave up 20 points in the first five minutes um which isn’t ideal um so it’s a little bit of both but um we just thought it gave us the best chance to win game four after looking back at the first three games um but every game’s different you know like we’ve we’ve done that after wins after losses throughout these series we we move things around pretty quickly to try to stay unpredictable and also to try to you know scrape for every advantage we can you know in what turns out to be close games dan third row on the right dan Deanyahu Sports kind of along those lines I think before last uh two games ago Alex had only gone 30 plus minutes twice the whole season both of the last two games 30 plus minutes i know you’ve talked about kind of needing to keep the governor on him a little bit maybe even to protect him from himself sometimes how do you balance that preservation versus kind of going for the kill with his minutes this time of year um yeah I have I haven’t talked about being conservative with him at all this you know this time of year i think this is this is the time you got to do everything you can to try to win the games um you know and pull out all the stops so um that’s been the mentality uh he’s been great uh the extra rest in the finals for all of the players is a consideration and you know you get get a lot of rest in between these games which has its advantages and disadvantages but um one of the advantages is you know the ability for everybody to recover and be as fresh as possible going into the game joel Joel Lorenzo to Oklahoma is that your ringtone nice it’s very pacifying mark what have you seen from I know you talked about Chad’s temperament and sort of how he draws on performances that maybe he’s not very fond of what have you seen from both him and and Jaylen this postseason after games that maybe they’re not uh very okay with in their eyes the same as always i mean they’re unbelievable competitors they grow through their experiences um they just take a great approach to um being growing players uh on a big stage you know playing in the best basketball you can imagine um and I think you know zooming out from just them I mean these playoff series at no point during the regular season do you play a great team four straight times you know with with the ability for that team to lock in on tendencies and change tactics and all the things that happen in a playoff series and so as a result of that you’re just going to get pushed to the limit you know in these series when you play a a really really good team a great team over and over and over again your opponent gets pushed to the limit by you in the same way and we’ve seen that now in multiple series um where we’ve we’ve gotten taken to the limit by our opponent and and vice versa we’ve done that to people as well and um I think understanding that’s what it is and embracing that and understanding that there’s nothing easy about that it’s very uncomfortable for individual players and for the team collectively and um like I said the awareness of that and then the mentality of embracing that challenge is critical and we have players that embrace challenges and um that serves us well in terms of being able to keep our foot on the gas when we’re doing well or bounce back you know when we’re not michael Tim and Mark mark Michael Grange from SportsNet Toronto what’s it like not only yourself as a first-time head coach i know you can’t really reflect in the middle of a series but also a team that’s so young relatively to be in a finals how are they responding to all those challenges the you know just physically mentally absorbing you know the the game plan flips all these kinds of things like you know just stepping away from wins and losses how does your group kind of managing it i think pretty well you know I think um it’s challenging uh it is our first time going through it so there’s new experiences um that we’re going through but I think our default approach serves us well when we’re in you know new situations and things like that but um it’s challenging we’re playing against a great team that’s pushing us to the limit um hopefully we’re pushing them to the limit in the same way but um there’s nothing comfortable you know about these games you know it’s it’s a challenging opponent that’s really testing us and um again we just need to approach those challenges as opportunities that’s what our guys do they do a great job of it um and we have to be better you know we did not control that game you know we won it fortunately but we did not control that game and so we have to almost approach this like a loss you know in terms of really needing to look in the mirror and and make some critical adjustments um if we want to give ourselves a better chance to control game five and not just hope to win it tim McMahon ESPN uh how have you seen Dub’s game and impact evolve in the few years that you’ve had him all around and specifically as a guy who you can say “Hey you’re running point you know you’re a primary initiator and take pressure off a Shay.” Yeah i mean when when he started with us and this has been our approach with most players you know it’s not like we just like hand them the ball we we put them in the system first and the guys that are really efficient in the system they end up like banging the door down and they kind of show you that they they need more and he was in that category um he came off the bench early on and we weren’t like pushing every button for him but he just kept you know showing the ability to take more of a load and his efficiency was not dropping off and his impact wasn’t dropping off if anything it was increasing and usually you know when those guys are doing that they’re declaring themselves and he certainly declared himself and now he’s learning you know all the lessons to be learned um in that role you know I thought in game three his first stint was one of his worst stints of the series and you know he kind of catches his breath and reflects on that and he had a much better stint later in that game and then came out and was really big time for us in game four not only his um creation but just some of the simple plays he made to put his teammates in advantages um as much as Sheay you know kind of closed the game I thought he really kept us afloat in a lot of different periods of that game and um but I mean he’s still third-year player he’s still learning he’s still growing um and like I said this is challenging playing a great team over and over again mark final question coach uh Mark Spears ESPN’s Nscape happy Father’s Day um I want to ask you about coach Max’s presence in the hallway um been there since the New Orleans Hornets were playing here and also I don’t know if he’s was like kind of pretty decorated women’s basketball coach high school coach here i don’t know if he ever talked about coaching and and knew about that background but just his presence and then also him as a coach yeah he’ll pop me with some advice from time to time and I I take note um we take pride in in and this isn’t like our idea from a basketball standpoint but we organizationally and as a city take pride in people having a first class experience when they’re here hopefully you guys feel that hopefully our fans feel that um we want the other teams to feel like that we want this to be a great basketball environment and a great basketball experience uh for anybody that’s here whether they play for us or not and he’s in the visiting team section there and I think he’s a small um contributor to that you know in in the most subtle ways i mean he’s a great guy to interact with i think he treats everybody with respect and dignity and I think everybody you know in that crew you know they they help create a great environment um to have great fans we have great fans and they they support that in their own way so it’s not only him but u he’s a great presence i love hanging with him thank you coach yep thank you take first question here in the third row okay happy Father’s Day uh Mark Tortois uh mentioned the other day that uh winning the possession of the ball was key for Oklahoma you guys lost their possession in game four you guys had only three points uh three-pointers in game four the fewest since 2010 you guys had only 11 assists in game four the fewest in the shot clock uh era and still you won the game uh is that what make this group so special uh the ability to find ways uh to win games when things are seems not going so smoothly yeah absolutely um whatever it takes to win has always been our mindset it’s all that really matters with us um now it’s harder to to win the way we played last game um over the course of time and we got to correct that if we want to come out on top um so uh yeah we’re we’re grateful thankful we uh did enough to get a win but um we’re not trying to rely on the way we played last game we we we need to be better and we’re we’re going to be better mark in the front uh happy Father’s Day thank you uh Mark Spears ESPN just wanted to talk to you about uh Coach Mack he’s been there for over 20 years greeting people greeting you the visiting team just what does his presence mean to you and uh I don’t know you’ve got to know him much but just seeing him around every game yeah um it’s special uh I think like you get so caught up in like your own world as an NBA player you get so caught up in all the things that come with being in the NBA and people like Coach Mack um we have a bunch of them around the building they um they’re like a breath of fresh air um you walk in all serious thinking about your game whatever it is and he’s happy to be there happy to hold the door for you like just the simple things in life um but yeah and and over the years I’ve been able to get closer to him um I’ve met his granddaughter uh he’s he’s a really great guy um I’m happy he’s around he uh he keeps everything light around here he’s he’s a big part of what we do tim McMahon ESPN um how has Dub’s development as a playmaker uh impacted this team and and specifically you guys in the twoman game down the down the stretch there you know what do you think of that dynamic and and that as a as a weapon yeah Dub is made tremendous strides uh he’s one of the biggest reasons why we’re here like him being able to shoulder what he does every night on both ends of the floor um takes a lot of pressure off everyone else around him including myself he uh he’s a gamer he’s a winner um but he he continues to get better in every situation and um he makes it easier for the rest of us around him whether it’s me in the twoman game whether it’s him switching on the five defensively like he just he’s a Swiss Army knife and he’s he’s only getting better with with every game he plays and I’m excited to see where he ends up in the middle Jordan Davis with Oklahoma Shay this is now your fifth time being in this best of three kind of scenario in your career what would you say that you’re taking from those previous experiences you know heading into these next two games given it obviously the NBA finals now yeah uh learn the lessons um learn the lessons from the past four games um and it’s first team to two wins um those two things most importantly um two wins and you get the job done and and that’s what uh that’s what I felt like I was focused on in the Denver series and we were able to do so and same thing for this series vince on the right side shay Vince Goodwill of Yahoo Sports when older players talk about their experiences in the finals they talk about going through it for the first time and how fatiguing and tiring it is just not knowing how to prepare your body to play to mid to late June it seemed like there were in Indiana there were some points where you looked fatigued and a little worn down where are you right now physically mentally with playing this late into the calendar for the first time in your life yeah it’s a lot of games it’s It’s tiring for sure but every game is tiring every when you’re giving your your all every possession you’re going to be tired i don’t think I’m the only one out there that’s tired um but yeah it’s something new something new for a lot of us a lot of us haven’t been this late um into this season but but I think above all it’s been very fun it’s been everything I dreamed dreamt it to be growing up um there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be and uh I’m I’m grateful to be here thankful for the experience for sure go Dan Joel and Joe dan Devine Yahoo Sports um before the last couple games I think Alex had only played 30 plus minutes once or twice all year both the last two games extended minutes for for him i’m What does having him out there more do for you guys like how you talked about dub making it easier for you how does having Alex out there more make things easier for you yeah he’s he’s a gamer you plug him in anywhere any lineup feels like any group he makes a difference makes everyone else everyone else around him better he’s always talking he always knows where we’re supposed to be where the other team’s supposed to be um yeah and he just like you know he has an inst he has instincts that that are special and I don’t think you can teach things like that like he just knows where the ball is going where a rebound’s bouncing to where how to get a deflection um timely steals like he just has amazing feel for the game um and is an insane competitor and I think you add those two things together and no matter where you drop him in the world any basketball game he’ll make a difference joel Joel Renzi with Oklahoma chay obviously the the roles that Dub and Chad have in the series are not unprecedented but being you know responsible for so much and so early in their careers is clearly a lot like I wonder what you sense they learned in that Dallas series last year in terms of how to handle being schemed so heavy against in a playoff series the sort of gametoame temperament you got to keep and and sort of how to bounce back over the course of a series yeah um uh I think like it what they’ve done a really good job of is just like just like getting better i think through the two series last year through the whole season and then the three series leading up to this one like they just used every opportunity to get better um and because of that because they focused on that and because that’s what they taken care of they’ve been ready for the opportunity and have excelled in the moment um so I think that that above all they’ve really hammered on like as long as you you’re going to go through experiences and you’re going to fail and you’re going to succeed in some but figuring out how to learn and get better through them is what’s really going to help you ultimately get to where you want to get to joe last one joe Msado the Oklahoma Shay uh Kenrich played more in game four than he did over the previous three games combined what did you think of the minutes he gave you guys and and also I know we’ve asked asked you a lot about him over the years but just as one of the original holdovers with you and Lou what has Kenrich just meant to you yeah he’s played really well he is a guy that goes in there brings energy doesn’t think too much um changes the game he’s the like part of our DNA and our toughness for sure like you said he’s been here for a long time he’s hard-nosed he brings it no matter the setting um and you know what you’re going to get out of K Rich like every coach knows what they’re going to get out of K Rich every one of us teammates knows what we’re going to get out of K Rich and that’s all you can ask somebody to be do it do their job and do at the highest level every day and he does that he’s the ultimate professional um really good player thank you all right take questions around the room joel first question over on the right joel Lindseay with the Oklahoma dump what’s up um Mark was just in here saying that you know the nature of the playoffs is you know in the regular season you wouldn’t play a great team four games in a row and be schemed against so heavily i wonder what you learned in that Dallas series last year in terms of what what that takes to be schemed against so heavily what what you need to do in terms of temperament game to game to sort of stay level in a series yeah um I think it’s exactly that like it’s a very unique opportunity and it’s hard to like look at it now cuz obviously like everybody’s playing for a championship but like regardless of the outcome when you look back on the summer like you’re going to know what you’re good at and what you’re not just based on how teams guarded you and what they tried to take away and that that’s what I learned from Dallas i think that’s why I was able to kind of make like a bigger jump this year is like regardless of how that series ended like I knew what I had to work on this year and I knew different ways to get better and I think just whatever the series is like when you’re playing somebody that much like it’s going to force you to do something you’re either going to get worse or get better and I I think I kind of took that jump and kind of have the same approach with that right now sorry Joe my fault long pauses my fault there’s been a lot of talk uh this playoffs and a lot of evidence in these various series to support this that momentum doesn’t really carry over from game to game in a playoff series so when you’re at 22 in a finals where is your mind right now about how you feel about this series and how you approach the last three games compared to maybe the first four aside from like game planning and scouting this is like a totally new series like you’re treating this as game one you know what I mean like you can’t you can’t really focus on what happened in the past or what you could have changed on game one you know you’re just looking at the fact that it’s tied up now and I feel like that’s the most like clean slate attitude you can have with it and that’s the approach that I think both teams are taking that’s definitely the one we’re taking you just kind of go in there and figure out how to win game five and that be it tim Front Right tim McMahon ESPN they basically had you run point last game uh what went into the development to get you to a spot where you can run point in in the finals um and uh you know just how comfortable do you feel with those sort of responsibilities at this point are you talking about like my development as a player here or just throughout my career all the above okay um well I grew up short so I’ve I’ve always been a point guard um whenever I kind of get like a similar question to this it’s funny cuz like I did grow up playing the one a lot of times i think that always goes like under the radar and like I played the one in college but I think college too was like the first time that I got introduced to like playing a wing like I had to play the wing my first two years and then in my third year I went back to like something that I normally played at and then same thing kind of like with the NBA like I started off really running a lot of the wing up until my second year so I’ve had a lot of experience like my my learning curve was more like how to play off the ball than it was on the ball so I’m pretty comfortable doing it and I think at the same time like if everybody on our team can kind of figure out a different way to be successful and like change during the series like I can I can do that and it’s just something that as the game went on it was it just like naturally organically happened and I was kind of ready for that anyone else with a final question we’ll do the last two on the right side vince first dub Vince Goodwill Yahoo Sports this has been a pretty emotionally like swinging series from game one to game four i can imagine how fatiguing it is when you haven’t played this long this deep into a season how do you manage the fatigue against the excitement and the opportunity of all of this yeah the emotional swings i think I’ve honestly gotten better with them as time went on cuz we’ve had so many like different series of like you go to game one of Denver I’ve never lost that way in a series that like means a lot and then even like this one like the way we lost the first game like there’s so many ups and downs and we’ve constantly had that throughout this run and then even last year like we’ve had so many of those i’m kind of numb to the ups and downs and it just kind of like comes with basketball but as far as like my body and not playing this long that all starts in ironically it all starts in June whenever the season ends but like taking care of your body throughout the season how I eat how I prepare like throughout the year allows me to be able to like play this way and like my body feels good what I’m doing after games to recover win or loss I think is a big one for me so I try and try and do that pretty consistently and find a routine and that that’s been really helpful last one back right yeah cliff Brun Associated Press i wanted to talk about a few ups and downs that you’ve had um against Denver a couple of rough games but a really big game seven uh Minnesota uh game three was rough but you came back with a really strong game four uh in the finals you know rough start but yet game three better game four dominant how do you uh flush those games where you don’t shoot well and then come back and not only shoot well but do so in really important games that can kind of turn the tide of a series or clinch just understanding that basketball is full of ups and downs and can’t get too high or too low uh it kind of goes like it’s like the same thing as like if I shoot if I go the next game and I don’t miss a shot like it really has no bearing on what I do the next game you know what I like go out and not make a shot so it’s it’s more about like understanding like all the things I can do to affect winning like we didn’t make a we were like shooting like 8% from the three last game and still figure out a way to win so there’s always different ways I can impact winning and stuff like that and I I work really hard on my game so there won’t be a game where I don’t shoot well and it affects my confidence to not shoot those shots like my team needs me to shoot them so that’s kind of like the confidence I have going into it and wherever the wherever the shots fall they fall thanks Jaylen

Hear from Head Coach Mark Daigneault, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and Jalen Williams as they speak with the media ahead of Game 5 in Oklahoma City at the 2025 NBA Finals.

0:00 Coach Daigneault
10:53 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
19:44 Jalen Williams

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