Mark Daigneault sets OKC injury schedule record

Oklahoma. and home – Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault he set the record straight on whether his team’s success and depth are delaying certain timetables for his players to recover from injuries. As the defending champion The Thunder entered Sunday’s match with a list of injuriesincluding All-Star Jaylen Williams, Aaron Wiggins and Kenrich Williams.

Williams has yet to make his season debut and Wiggins has missed the last eight games.

“I’ll be back soon,” Wiggins said before Sunday’s game. “Let’s hope so.”

At the same time, the Thunder are 16-1 for the best record in the NBA. And while some believe Oklahoma City has a talented enough roster to withstand such injuries due to Daigneault’s player rotation, the Thunder head coach says that hasn’t been the team’s approach to dealing with injuries.

“No. It’s all health decisions,” Daigneault said. “We’re always conservative. We’re always cautious about the health of our players. If we have to wait another day or another week, or another game, to get a more complete version of a player that’s more viable from a health standpoint, we’re always going to do that. Those decisions aren’t made about team performance or depth or anything like that.

“If we get guys out, we’re going to go all the way down our roster and play two-way guys. Those minutes have nothing to do with how we make health decisions with players,” Daigneault concluded.

Cason Wallace starts instead of Williams in the starting line-up.

The Thunder bench scores 71 points in a historic performance

Coach Mark Daigneault watched The Thunder bench scored 71 points against the Jazzthe second most points ever scored by another unit in franchise history. Daigneault pointed to Jailin Williams, Isaiah Joe and Ajay Mitchell as key contributors to the Thunder’s second-unit success.

“I thought J-Will, I-Joe, Caruso, Ajayi — those guys came into the game and stepped it up and got the game back to a stable place, which allowed us to just keep going the rest of the game,” Dayno said. “I thought those were two very key things tonight.”

The Thunder will look to improve to 17-1 heading into Sunday’s matchup against the Trail Blazers.