Thunder 123, Wizards 105
BRIAN KEEFE: ...his right knee. We'll obviously know more as we go forward. That's all the information I have right now.
Q. What was it about the way their defense kind of shifted and turned up to start that fourth quarter that kind of threw things off for you all?
BRIAN KEEFE: They went small, and this is what they do. This is their strength. They force people to have turnovers. They upped the pressure. I thought we handled it really well for the whole game. We had some turnover stretches.
I give our guys a lot of credit tonight. We played a good basketball game. Ball was moving, great ball movement. We were sharing it. Our defense held them to 24 in that third quarter, and they just made that little run right there and I thought we ran out of a little gas during that stretch, but our guys battled. Our guys played a terrific game. Credit to them, but obviously our hearts and thoughts are with Marvin right now.
Q. Seemed like the second half of the first quarter and the first part of the second quarter, you went into, at least kind of watching, kind of a helter-skelter defense and it seemed like it threw them off on the offensive end. What was your mindset defensively in this game to try and find some advantages and throw them off?
BRIAN KEEFE: It was just our effort. Our effort was terrific. This is a good high-powered team with some really high-powered guys, and I thought it was a multiple effort game from us defensively. Made these guys work, first on the boards a little bit, but we gave full-out commitment to the game plan and it was impressive. Credit to them; they got us at the end.
Q. I know you said at the beginning it wasn't just going to be a one singular match-up with SGA, it was going to be collective. Your thoughts on the job that Bub did for the most part with him being one of the primary defenders?
BRIAN KEEFE: The one thing we can always say this about Bub, he has no fear of anything. He's going to go out and compete no matter who he's lacing them up against. That's what we love about him. Some good stuff he did, some good learning moments. You're not going to stop these guys from always scoring, but you try to make it tough, and I thought he competed his tail off tonight, and I thought all of our guys did. Great effort from our guys tonight.
Q. With Jordan, the first half that he had, how helpful was it to have that effort from him to help keep you guys close?
BRIAN KEEFE: This is what Jordan does. He's our primary guy scorer. He draws so much attention, it wasn't just his scoring, it was also his drawing -- they had to put two on him. That allowed us to get open threes for other guys.
I thought he played a terrific game tonight, not just for himself, but he got others going, and some of those weren't even assists for him, he was just making the right play, and it was swing, swing to the backside.
He can generate a lot of good looks for us, and I thought he did a great job with that tonight.
Q. Shai dropped 41 tonight. As someone who coached him, what's it like for you to see what his development has looked like over the last four, five years?
BRIAN KEEFE: Not a shock. I've worked with him personally myself. This guy was a worker. He loves the game, totally committed to the craft. Really impressive person, so not surprising to see where he's come because I saw the stuff behind the scenes. He's turned himself into a great player.
Q. I know you didn't win the rebounding battle, but not a huge disadvantage there. What did you like about the physicality? That was something else that you had mentioned that you needed to bring the physicality to them.
BRIAN KEEFE: I thought we brought the physicality. They got loose balls a little bit that I thought hurt us, and they hurt us with the second-chance points, but I thought our physicality was there the whole game. We just got a little bit hurt on second-chance points, a little bit of the turnovers, a little bit of the possession game, but I thought our competitive spirit offensively was there, just the turnover at certain points hurt us.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports