With the Thunder handily beating the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday night, there was plenty for Billy Donovan and his club to feel good about.
Including their three exhibition contests, the Thunder have won five of the six games they’ve played in Orlando. It seems that for the entirety of the season, the Lakers and Clippers were believed to be the only teams that had a shot of winning the Western Conference.
Donovan sees the NBA’s coronavirus stoppage as a leveling factor, though.
“I think what’s happened in my opinion is obviously the Lakers and the Clippers are great — those two teams are terrific — but when you have a four-month hiatus like we all did, everybody’s starting from ground zero,” the coach said after the Thunder bested LeBron James and co. on Wednesday night.
“Some teams will get more cohesive a little bit quicker than others and I think that’s what everybody is fighting for right now.”
According to the coach, a lack of chemistry has also been a factor during the first half of the seeding games in Orlando. The Thunder, obviously, have been an outlier in that regard.
“Milwaukee was without a couple guys, the Clippers are without guys, this takes time. You can’t have four months off like this and expect teams that were really elite maybe at the end of February or March to be elite right now and I think that’s why everybody’s excited right now for the opportunity to compete,” Donovan said.
“I think in this situation, a lot of things could happen because of the uncertainty of all this and how much time everybody’s had off.”
As the Thunder looks ahead to the remainder of their seeding games schedule and the postseason, they’re feeling good about themselves. Donovan credits his veterans for that.
“For any team to really be good, you have to have belief and you have to have hope,” the coach said.
“If you’re in this situation with a mentality of a lack of belief or hope, you’re probably gonna go home pretty quickly, so I think you’ve gotta have that kind of belief and hope that when you get into situations, you can go out there and compete and play.”
Even without Schroder, the team is being capably led by veteran Chris Paul and the neophyte Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The club truly believes anything is possible.
“Every day is a little bit different, every day you find out a little bit more about your team, but I know with our team and having a guy like Chris Paul and [Danilo] Gallinari and Steven Adams and even though Dennis Schroder is not with us right now, I think that they instill confidence in our team and belief in our team and that’s all you want. You still gotta go out and perform, you still gotta go out there and play, but you want to start off from a good place of positive energy that you believe you can go out there and do something.”
The Thunder obviously does.
The club will tip-off their fourth seeding game on Friday when they square off against Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies. The contest is scheduled to begin at 4:00 p.m. ET.