Last season was the Thunder’s year. They posted the league’s best record and won their first Oklahoma City championship, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander claimed MVP honors.
Building on last season’s momentum, the Thunder once again finished with the league’s best record at 64-18, making them a heavy favorite to repeat.
However, Lakers’ legend LeBron James believes that despite their dominance, repeating as champions won’t necessarily come easily for the Thunder.
LeBron James Calls Out the Thunder’s ‘Deep Nitpick’ Weakness
LeBron James and Steve Nash discussed the postseason on their podcast Mind the Game. The pair attempted to think of a weakness that opponents could take advantage of to end the Thunder’s rain, and both James and Nash had to do a deep dive to figure one out.
“Here’s my nitpick on OKC,” Nash said. “And this is a deep nitpick. I would say three-point shooting comes and goes a little bit.”
After discussing three-point shooting, Nash identified another specific area of concern.
“I would say secondary play making at times,” Nash explained. “So hence J Dub’s importance to them because the other real playmakers – Hartenstein makes plays for them in a short role. Good hub for them. Obviously Chad and some of the other guys can make plays too but to me like sometimes, do they lose play making and did they dry up from three a little bit? That’s a deep nitpick. They’re pretty good.”
James acknowledged that it was especially challenging for him to find a weakness in the Thunder.
“I’m trying to figure out how can I nitpick OKC but I can’t because they ****ing defend defend defend. They make plays.”
“That’s the thing is they defend so well they make up for it,” Nash interjected.
“Yeah, they make up for it,” James agreed. “They’re going to get in transition. They’re going to get to the free throw line.”
“Well, that’s that that actually is the thing,” Nash explained. “It’s not that they defend. They turn you over.”
James said the postseason was about to be “lit” and “crazy.”
“It’s going to be litty,” James said. “It’s going to be crazy. I’m looking forward to it. I mean me personally I don’t know how many more postseasons I got left in my career. And we talked about this a while ago, getting ready for the postseason, like that moment, like it doesn’t matter what you did in the regular season.That **** is out the window now. It doesn’t matter. It starts again.”
The Lakers, who earned the fourth seed, will host the fifth-seed Rockets in Game 1 Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. ET. Meanwhile, the Thunder will open the postseason Sunday at 3:30, awaiting the second play-in winner.
For the 7-8 game, the Trail Blazers and Suns will face off Tuesday night, with the winner earning the seventh seed and a matchup with the Spurs. The loser will then face the winner of the 9-10 game between the Warriors and Clippers, with that winner claiming the eighth seed and a showdown with the Thunder.
The biggest question is whether any team can take down the Thunder this season.
