Thunder Practice Report | Dec. 17, 2021
Thunder Practice Report | Dec. 17, 2021
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00:00Coach Dagnall began practice today by giving an update about Lou Dort's left ankle sprain.
00:05No injury information other than he practiced today
00:09and is tracking well,
00:11heading in the right direction for tomorrow,
00:13not totally cleared, got to see him tomorrow morning
00:16to kind of finish, you know, put a bow on that process, but like he's heading in the right direction.
00:22The Thunder are coming off a loss which could have easily gone the other way for this team
00:27until New Orleans Pelicans guard Devontae Graham hit a 61-foot buzzer beater to win the game for his team.
00:34But until that point, Oklahoma City was doing very well with time management down the stretch.
00:39Those situations are really just about how do you just make all these little investments to do everything you can
00:45to win the game despite the deficit and in that case your chances of tying the game
00:51down four with 50 seconds left is really low,
00:54especially when the opponent has the ball and yet we still tied the game.
00:57And so I thought our execution in that area of the game was outstanding and even on the Graham play,
01:01not only did they not have the timeout because the previous play, but we scored in a pretty emotional moment.
01:07It was an exciting moment before we ended the excitement and
01:10we were ready to play, like
01:12everybody was matched, everybody had their guy in front of them and they couldn't throw the ball the length of the floor, like he didn't
01:17shoot a 27-footer.
01:18You know, they had to throw the ball in the backcourt and he had to make a 60-foot shot to win the game and he
01:23did, you know, but I thought in terms of what we control the last minute of that game was about as clean as you can get.
01:29Many coaches are plagued with last-minute plays in their career and this is certainly one that won't be forgotten anytime soon,
01:35but there's only so much you can practice and Coach Dagnall believes that there's another factor that holds more gravity late in the game.
01:41Yeah, I think a misconception, like we definitely work on it,
01:46but you can't work on everything, you know, like you don't know the exact situation.
01:50So really the main skill that we're trying to work on in those situations is critical thinking.
01:56It's like, can you just get everyone present and thinking critically about what's going on in the moment?
02:03So like you don't know, you know, we were down one after we banked a three in with 28 seconds left.
02:09You don't know what the differential is going to be, you don't know what the score is going to be,
02:11you don't know who's going to have the ball,
02:14but
02:15the best chance you give yourself is if you've got five guys on the court like actively engaged mentally and looking and seeing, okay,
02:23what's happening and what does this moment require? And that's where creativity comes from is that awareness and that presence.
02:28And so we're really trying to train that more than we're trying to paint by numbers of like, okay,
02:32if this happens, we do this, if that happens, we do that.
02:35When you develop the critical thinking skill, then you're able, you're strengthening a muscle that can apply to every situation,
02:41which is ultimately what we'd like to get to.
02:43Since their loss to the New Orleans Pelicans,
02:45this Thunder team has had two days of practice that both Coach Dagnall and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl believe have been very competitive.
02:51And leading this team in both energy and competitive spirit is Kenrich Williams.
02:56Yeah, he brings a high competition level to our team.
02:58He's pushing everybody to be better every single day on both ends of the floor, offense and defensively.
03:03So just having those guys, just coming, being able to come off the bench and being so prepared for every situation,
03:08it means a lot to us.
03:09The Thunder will take on the L.A. Clippers next, and for all you take-a-thon fans out there,
03:14this is actually a game that you want the Thunder to win considering that Oklahoma City has the Clippers'
03:19unprotected first round pick in this upcoming draft. But for now, this has been your Thunder practice report. Reporting for SI Thunder,
03:25I'm Christine Butterfield.