Practice Notes & Quotes
James Harden fell to the floor at the top of the key, laying there in pain as play continued.
Before rising to his feet, the second-year shooting guard chewed out Serge Ibaka for setting a hard screen that Harden thought was dirty. Ibaka tried to apologize while offering a helping hand. Harden coldly rejected the offer and the hand.
This is what the final few days of Thunder training camp has turned players into, a fierce and fiery team sick of two-a-days, defensive drills and bone-crushing screens.
“We’re ready to see a new team,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks. “Our guys are ready. When it starts to get a little chippy like it has been the last couple of days, that’s a sign that you need some competition other than your own team.”
Training camp officially came to a close Tuesday afternoon at the team’s practice facility. A recap of the near clashes we counted included Harden and Elijah Millsap, Ibaka and Russell Westbrook and Harden and Ibaka. And that count includes only the final 20 minutes of practice the media is mandated to see every day.
It’s clear that Wednesday’s preseason opener against Charlotte in Fayetteville, N.C. can’t get here fast enough. And that’s where the focus now shifts as the team heads to the airport for its first road trip of the 2010-11 season.
Although Jeff Green refused to concede that camp has taken a mental toll, the players’ body language tells a different story. Green addressed the media today with much less vibrancy than he showed early in camp. And that effort was better than others who declined altogether. Thabo Sefolosha and Kevin Durant, two of the most willing players to meet with the media, both politely turned down requests through team officials.
But Brooks labeled the past week a success.
“This has been as good of a training camp as I can imagine,” Brooks said. “Last year, I thought, couldn’t be topped. But we are right there with last year’s effort and intensity.”
When asked the goal for this preseason, winning, exploring different combinations or furthering player development, Brooks said he wants to see it all.
“You definitely want to win,” Brooks said. “Anytime you step on the court, no matter if it’s an exhibition game or not, you still have to go out there and compete and do whatever it takes to win the game. With our guys, I don’t expect them not to think that way. That’s how they’re wired. They want to win everything they do. That’s what makes the team improve along the way.”
The starters for Wednesday’s opener will be Westbrook, Sefolosha, Durant, Green and Ibaka, Brooks announced today. But Brooks said that unit will change each game throughout the preseason. Brooks also said the customary starters will play between 18-24 minutes per game throughout the seven-game exhibition slate.
Ultimately, the focus this preseason will be on improvement.
“We need to just use this preseason as a stepping stone to getting better,” Green said. “I just want us to compete, that’s all. If we go out there and compete and give it our all and play together, I feel like we can play with a lot of teams.”
- Ibaka’s screens have become a talking point and a part of the reason he’s starting at center in Wednesday’s opener in place of the injured Nenad Krstic. “He’s been setting some great picks,” Brooks said. “We’ve been emphasizing it and our guards are feeling it, which is good. It’s important that we do. One of the things going into camp that we were focused on was setting better screens, and Serge has been doing a great job.”
- Something to watch from Ibaka is how he adapts to playing with the first five. As much as he impressed and made an impact with his natural athleticism last season, Ibaka still suffered through many moments of foul trouble, missed defensive assignments and overall inconsistency. Wednesday’s opener will bring the first look at how much he’s improved in all those areas. “I just want him to keep improving,” Brooks said. “Serge is one of our players that is not a finished product. He’s going to get better every game, every month, every year. And this is an opportunity for him to get out there and play with the starting unit. He has a tendency to play a little fast and we’re trying to slow him down a little bit. He’s excited. He wants to do well, but he has to just take it down a level but also keep that intensity on the defensive end.”
- Eric Maynor, a native of Raeford, N.C., has memories of playing at the Crown Coliseum in nearby Fayettville, where the Thunder will play the Bobcats on Wednesday night. They are memories he’d like to soon forget. “It was a Christmas tournament my senior year in high school. I don’t remember (how many points I scored). I know we lost. My high school coach, I just talked to him (Sunday) and he said, ‘I got a bad taste from being in that building.’ Maynor, however, said it will be good to return home. He claimed, only half jokingly, that he will know everybody in attendance. When a reporter asked if he expects roughly 100 family and friends to attend, Maynor laughed. “It’s going to be more than that. I’m from there.”
- Daequan Cook sat out of practice again today. He will travel with the team but is not expected to play.
- I’ve been fascinated with the black knee pads Green has worn lately. But he squashed my excitement today when he said he will not wear them in games. Bummer. They kind of make him look like a more traditional power forward.
- I spoke with Brooks today about the team’s offense, specifically what we can expect to see different this year that we didn’t see last year. I’ll have a story up on NewsOK.com later today and in Wednesday’s paper. But the offensive end is something I’ve grown more and more curious about because, for all the team’s struggles last year on that end, the offense has again taken a backseat to defense in training camp this year. It’ll be interesting to see how that translates into the regular season. There is a collective belief that the offense will take care of itself as long as the defense remains a staple. And Brooks essentially said not much will be different. He has his areas of focus, which I’ll outline in my story, but limiting turnovers is Brooks’ biggest point of emphasis.
-DM-
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Comments
As you know, the only other NBA team I’ve covered was the Hornets. I remember J.R. Smith and Jackson Vroman getting into a full fledged fight. And it was over a hard foul, which seems to be the common denominator. But I’ve heard stories of other teams getting into scraps. Some teams seem to get into them more but for worse reasons. But, if you ask me, it’s a good thing to see that fire as long as the teammates respect each other at the end of the day. -DM-
[...] officials said it was going to be an intense camp and boy, it sounds like it was. Darnell Mayberry: “Although Jeff Green refused to concede that camp has taken a mental toll, the players’ [...]
How “normal” of a camp is this? I don’t hear much about other teams beating the crud out of each other, and these guys seem ready to throw down.