OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City Thunder have a week off before playing again in the NBA Finals.
How the Thunder, who defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 4-1 in the Western Conference finals, handle that stretch could set the tone for the championship series against either the Indiana Pacers or New York Knicks that starts June 5 in Oklahoma City.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault expects his young players to handle the situation just like they’ve handled everything else that’s been thrown at them this season.
“They’re highly professional, consistently professional,” he said. “They’re high-character people. They come from high-character circles. They’re unbelievably competitive. They put the work in behind it consistently through the ups and downs. And most of all, they are team first.”
The Thunder have had long breaks between games during the playoffs the past two years, with mixed results.
They swept the New Orleans Pelicans in last year’s first round, then beat Dallas 117-95 at home in Game 1 of the conference semifinals after waiting eight days between games. The Thunder eventually lost that series 4-2.
After this year's series against Memphis, the Thunder were in a similar situation. Denver’s first-round series against the Los Angeles Clippers went seven games, so Daigneault gave the players some extra rest since there were nine days between games. The focus for the team was less on an opponent at first and more on fine-tuning his team’s issues.
“I mean, really just reinforcement of fundamentals,” he said heading into the Denver series. “The game defensively is going to come down to transition D (defense), it’s going to come down to individual D, help D, coverage, communication, closeouts, rebounding. So we’re looking at the series through that lens. And then offensively, (we’ll take) all the fundamentals on that end of the floor that transcend each coverage and pull it up.”
The Thunder lost to Denver 121-119 at home in Game 1 of the conference semifinals, but came back and won Game 2 131-80 and eventually won the series 4-3.
Daigneault's team learns well on the fly, so no experience is wasted for the squad that posted a league-best 68-14 record in the regular season.
“This team, as they’ve always done, they just internalize the experience," he said. "They strip the emotion, they learn the lesson and then they compete presently in the next moment. And that’s why we improved at the rate that we have.”
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Cliff Brunt, The Associated Press
