Thunder Practice Report | Nov. 09, 2021
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00:00 Oklahoma City is gearing up to face New Orleans and they will be taking Isaiah Roby, Trey Mann and Vy Kraychee with them.
00:07 Oklahoma City has had one of the toughest schedules so far, facing against the likes of Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Steph Curry.
00:16 So it may be a little difficult to motivate this team to play against the 1-6 Pelicans.
00:22 But Coach Dagnalt said that they will need all the energy they can muster to face New Orleans.
00:27 I think you can always assume that the opponent is going to be motivated because it's a competitive league and these are really good players and really prideful teams.
00:36 So you can expect a motivated opponent every night.
00:40 I think in this particular case, we're not reputationally one of the powerhouses in the league from a reputation standpoint.
00:48 And so a team that's struggling can look at that game and say, "Okay, this is one we can get. We're at home."
00:56 "This is a team we can beat." That's what they're thinking.
00:59 And so understanding that that's where they are to start the game, now how do you use that to frame it as a challenge?
01:06 And that's our challenge. We've got to understand where they are coming in and then how does that turn into a challenge for us?
01:14 And then can we conquer that challenge? There's 82 opportunities to do that.
01:18 Even though the Thunder have come back to win from major deficits, one of the reasons they fall behind is because they begin the game flat.
01:25 Karen Rich-Williams said they're looking to perform a more consistent basketball game.
01:29 Of course it's hard. We put ourselves in that position to kind of dig ourselves out of the hole.
01:36 But the coach talks about it every day. All the coaches talk about it. It's a 48-minute game.
01:42 So just continue to play even when things aren't going our way, when shots aren't falling. Just continue to play knowing it's a 48-minute game.
01:53 Three wins underneath the Thunder's belt and two of those coming from defeating the Los Angeles Lakers.
01:58 Williams said that winning against tough opponents is what gives them confidence moving forward.
02:03 It shows you that we can beat anybody in the league. I feel like being down in those two games, it gives you the confidence to where if we find ourselves in this position again,
02:20 we've come back and won games where we've been down. So it just kind of gives you that confidence as a team.
02:29 This concludes this Thunder practice report. For SI Thunder, I'm Christine Butterfield.
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