OKC Leads 2-0 Against Timberwolves: Postseason Analysis

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00:00OKC finds themselves up right now 2-0 in the series against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

00:07The Thunder have had this kind of up and down postseason in that the first four games against

00:13Memphis, Memphis felt completely fake. And then all of a sudden they're in this series against

00:19Denver where they're up against it. I mean, they trailed in that series. That's not a thing that

00:27you would expect to be true of a group booked the way OKC is, viewed the way OKC is. And I don't

00:33just mean 1-0. They were down 2-1 as well in the series against the Denver Nuggets. They had to win

00:40a game seven on their home floor against the former best player in the world. We'll get into that at

00:46some point. I just view OKC's postseason as one where they probably broke through due to those

00:56close wins that they had in games 4-5 against Denver. And now it's really, really hard to

01:04find the weak points, J.Y., of this basketball team. You know, sometimes when you're a young

01:08team, Kevin, it's not about the wins. It's the losses and how you respond to them. If you think

01:15about losing game one, blowing that game, they come out and they just absolutely bull-raise them.

01:21Game number three, they lose a tight game. It was a really close game. And that's when you get

01:25concerned about them. And you're right. You're like, how are you going to respond when your

01:30backs are against the wall? What do they do? They win game four, game five close. Then they

01:35lose game six. And then I think they have this belief. And I keep going to this. I've always

01:41believed that your defense has to be your absolute. Right? It can never waver. It can never waver.

01:49Because when you're rolling offensively, you can beat a team like 149 to 106. But when you're not

01:57scoring, your defense can hold you down until your offense can take over. And that's what's so

02:06dangerous, Tom, about this team in Oklahoma City is this is a young team that's figured out we're

02:13going to lean on our defense. And then we're going to figure out who is the guy or guys. And it's

02:20more than just SGA folks that is going to go off. And then we're going to lean on that to get us

02:25going. But our defense has got to stay firm until that happens. Yeah. After what they did last year.

02:30And I think the point that you're trying to make is essentially like they're battle tested now.

02:33Yeah. Right. Like they went through, they took their licks last year against Dallas. They came

02:38through the Memphis series, like you said, which was just a steamroll by them. But they learned in

02:43that Denver series. And we were here many Sundays talking about the Denver series like, hey, they get

02:46either blown out teams or they're losing close games. Well, then they started to win close games.

02:50Yeah. And that is the turning point for them. And again, whether it's, you know, Chet doing just

02:54enough, Hart and Stein, obviously we're going to get enough from from both Jalen Williams, both of them

03:00playing their roles. But they have the pieces. And that's what I like that they also they can win in

03:04different ways. They can score that now they can win close games. And when

03:08it's all said and done, they're going to roll over Minnesota in in four, maybe five games

03:13at most. The other again, big benefit is OKC is the best player in the world, at least

03:20I mean, through every single bit of evidence that seems to be stacking up.