Up and down the floor they went, the Thunder 15, arming themselves mentally, physically and emotionally for their impending battle.
It’s rare in the Playoffs for a team to be able to get live scrimmaging into the practice plan, but on Wednesday that’s exactly what Billy Donovan was able to do for his squad. After taking care of business in a 4-1 series win over the Dallas Mavericks in Round 1, the Thunder now squares off against the San Antonio Spurs in Round 2. The catch – Game 1 isn’t until Saturday. As a result, the Thunder will have a grand total of four days here in Oklahoma City to get ready, which it utilized for a combination of rest and preparation over the last 48 hours.
“Getting a chance for the first time today to get into scouting and preparation of San Antonio is a good thing,” Donovan said. “It was a hard fought series against Dallas. Our guys invested a lot mentally, emotionally and physically to play through it. Today being the first day, it was good to establish the things we need to do in this series and do it at a very high level.”
“It’s good, we’ll get some preparation with San Antonio. We went live today, which you don’t always get to do in the Playoffs,” veteran forward Nick Collison explained. “I think that’s good for us. It was good that we were able to handle business in Game 5 and not have to go any further.”
The Thunder went through initial scouting preparation of the Spurs, but part of the team’s identity – and mission plan to begin the Playoffs – is to be a group that continues growing and developing throughout the postseason.
That’s why the work this week in practice is vital to ensuring the Thunder plays at an extremely high level in the Western Conference Semifinals against the Spurs. What it showed against Dallas, going wire-to-wire in its four wins and bouncing back from a tough Game 2 shooting night, was that the team’s trajectory is still going up.
“I thought we played well together. Being on the road was big for us,” point guard Russell Westbrook said. “We did a good job of sticking together through all the nonsense that was going on and came out with wins.”
“We were good at dealing with the emotion of the Playoffs and pulling out of bad stretches quickly,” Collison added. “We weren’t perfect but we didn’t beat ourselves in any of those games. That was good to see. We can definitely get better and be better as the Playoffs go on, and I think we’re playing our best basketball now, but I still think we have room to get better.”
Full Video: Wednesday's Practice Report
Perhaps the most encouraging sign for this Thunder squad, laden with a core four of Collison, Westbrook, Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka and other veterans, is that its youngsters came to play against Dallas as well. Andre Roberson, Steven Adams, Enes Kanter, Dion Waiters and Cameron Payne all had limited postseason experience prior to last week. Not only did they get some valuable time under their belt, but they acquitted themselves nicely as well.
“It helps for them to get into a playoff series and see that the intensity is higher and how important each possession is,” Collison noted. “They played really well and I expect them to play well again.”
Against a Spurs team that set a franchise record for wins in a season and lost just once at home all season, the Thunder will need not just the stars, but the role players to perform. More importantly, they’ll have to play cohesively as a group – defending with togetherness and tenacity while moving their bodies and the ball on offense to generate high percentage looks. So that’s the state of the union for Donovan’s club right now: trying to move the needle on its collective performance even higher, and then holding itself to that standard on every possession.
“As I said going into the Dallas series, can we continue to get better? Can we improve? Can we grow as a team? I think that series helped us. I think we’re a better team from going through those five games. Hopefully these next three days we just continue to try to get better.”
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