Winning a championship requires an NBA team to be able to play in the mud — itâ€s going to get ugly and championship teams have to show real grit to hoist the Larry Oâ€Brien trophy.
Oklahoma City did that last season, grinding out seven-game series wins over Denver in the West and a gritty Indiana team in the NBA Finals. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander looks back on that and thinks the Thunder can be better. Here is what he said after OKC improved to 9-1 Friday night with an NBA Cup win over Sacramento, via Sam Amick at The Athletic.
“Honestly speaking, I didnâ€t like the way we won, if that makes sense,†said Gilgeous-Alexander … “I didnâ€t think we won an NBA championship playing our best basketball. That was the first time weâ€d been that far in the playoffs, so it was a learning experience for us.
“But it takes another level of focus, discipline, assertiveness, aggression, to be who we were in the regular season, and do that throughout the postseason.â€
Watch this seasonâ€s Thunder and you see a team with a strong identity, confident in who they are and what they want to do. They have the best defense in the NBA and sixth-ranked offense — and they have done it all without their second-best player, All-NBA forward Jalen Williams, who remains out following wrist surgery.
Earlier in the week, coach Mark Daigneault discussed how the Thunder approached this season.
“Offensively, weâ€ve tried to look at the season as if we lost in the second round, if we lost Game 7 against Denver. How would we be approaching this?†Daigneault said. “Rather than allowing the fact that we won it to bias us coming in, it was kind of more if we didnâ€t win it and we fell short, how would we have been looking at this? And we tried to look at it like that. So weâ€re pushing ourselves to evolve.â€
The Thunder have evolved and the rest of the league will have to catch up.
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