The Thunder already find the Spurs with a lot of things to fix

The coincidence of the calendars, or almost, means that the Thunder will meet the Spurs for the third time in 15 days. This time, it will be at home, and there will clearly be a sense of revenge in the room because they are partners Victor Vembanyama there are two more wins in a row. Of which last by 20 points !

For Jalen Williams, it’s time for the NBA champions to get their basketball back. “Defensively, we let them settle too early. But it’s also a good thing that we can play them so often, because they’re a very good team.” the All-Star winger explains. “Still, we weren’t physical enough. And I don’t want to say we weren’t focused, because that would give the impression that we weren’t ready to play. I just think we could have communicated better defensively from the start.”

OKC let the Spurs gain confidence, and then it’s very hard to turn things around. “That gave them a lot of offensive rhythm. And then some players really stepped up. Their players did a really great job. We have to take that into account better. We also have to control the rebound better and step up our defense a little bit more. When we get stops and can chase down interceptions, we’re a much better team on the offensive end. We played the basket again on Tuesday. Thursday.”

Demonstration

Another area that needs to be corrected is the rebound. “A lot of it comes from not getting the rebound, too: They’re bringing the ball up and getting wide-open 3-pointers. That’s a lot of things we can control that we didn’t do well, and that’s ultimately why we lost.”

And for Mark Daigne, these are lessons to be learned, and it’s good that it’s happening so early in the season. Spurs are second to them and they are not looking for excuses. “They should be congratulated. They played very well, at both ends of the court, in terms of energy and execution. Honestly, they deserved to win from start to finish.” he confided on Tuesday night. “It was definitely a demonstration in the way they played. It’s clear we’re going to have to be a better team at Christmas if we want to beat them.”

What needs to change to turn this Christmas Eve against this team? “I would just say their execution level was higher than us. We did some good things, but not as well as them. I think they brought more aggression than us for most of the game. The first half was pretty good, but the second half slipped away.”