OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma City Thunder are building a championship-level resilience, demonstrated by their ability too win close games even while navigating early-season roster challenges, a trait Coach mark Daigneault believes is crucial for long-term success.Despite dropping the opening games of both the second round of the playoffs against the Denver Nuggets and the NBA Finals versus the Indiana Pacers en route to their first NBA championship, the Thunder ultimately prevailed in both series, winning in decisive Game 7s.
Daigneault emphasized the necessity of empowering players to make independent decisions during games. “You can’t micromanage,” he explained following Tuesday’s win over the Kings. “There’s no time, there’s not enough timeouts to just make every decision. So it’s about preparing the team to think on the fly and recognize the patterns and recognize situations. I just think the persistence of the team – we’re building diffrent muscles at different times. There’s certainly habits that we need to improve on. But the persistence, I thought was on display again tonight.”
Superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander highlighted the team’s focus on incremental advancement. “We fought through it really well as a group and as individuals, and just kept the game close enough. And then when it was winning time, we did what it took to win. You saw guys crash the offensive glass, make big shots, big rebounds,” he said. “There’s a bunch of things that help you win. [Mark Daigneault] dose a really good job of focusing on a few of them at a time, and keeping it really simple for us. Then over time it builds, and we have multiple skills to go out there and win games. Late game execution is one of them.We go over it a lot.”
The Thunder have faced significant early-season adversity, missing key players including All-NBA swingman Jalen Williams for all five games, defensive specialist Alex Caruso for three, and seeing Rising Star Chet Holmgren and Cason Wallace each miss a game. Despite rarely fielding their optimal lineups, the team has remained competitive, showcasing it’s depth and talent.
This championship experience, coupled wiht navigating these challenging situations, is preparing the Thunder for the playoff environment and their attempt to defend their title amidst a league-wide trend of parity.
