Andrew Schlecht | The Athletic

It is the JR Sport Brief Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinit Sports Network. We got a big Sunday coming up.

Well, down in South Florida they have a celebration. for the Stanley Cup finals. An' out in O K C? They hope a few days after that they have a celebration. For their first championship.

They did not get the job done last night, getting blasted by the Indiana Pacers. And what went wrong? What do they need to do? Were they too relaxed? Are they winning at home?

This is a team with a lot of potential. It'll be a massive disappointment. If they lose, to talk about the thunder and what we've seen and what we can expect moving forward, is someone who covers the Oklahoma City Thunder, someone who podcasts for the Athletic. Joining us right now is Andrew Schlecht. Andrew, how are you, man?

I'm doing great. How are you? I'm excellent. Thank you for the time and joining us. Not the result that a lot of Thunder fans expected or wanted last night.

Did they take things for granted that they were just going to wake up and close things out? You know, I mean, you talk to the guys after the game and They certainly Talk about how they didn't they didn't bring it like they needed to. They didn't bring the intensity. They didn't bring the attention to detail. And, you know, you can't do that against the Pacers.

I think that. It's hard to say that, like, oh, they came in with big heads or anything like that. You know, we're not.

so inside that we feel that way we would just or that we can like actually see that, but You know, I do think that This it's hard to win an NBA championship. And I think that they're learning how hard that is. And you can't You don't learn that until you're actually in the process of trying to do it. You can never take your foot off the gas. It doesn't matter who the opponent is.

You have to be out for blood. And I just don't think the Thunder were last night. I think the Pacers were. I think they had the crowd behind them. I think that was a piece of the puzzle.

But They were paying attention to the detail. They made adjustments the Thunder weren't ready for. Thunder did not make the the proper in-game adjustment to them. And they just didn't didn't ever match their attention to detail or energy. And so If the Thunder want to win a title, they're going to have to bring those things to the table on Sunday.

Well, Andrew, typically when we get to these game sevens, a lot of coaches tend to overthink the situation or maybe get too cute. Could you see any adjustments to tinkering with the lineups that Mark Dagnaught may move forward with? Yeah, I mean, there are other things that they could go to. One would be just start Alex Caruso from the start. in place of Hartenstein.

It seems like that is the lineup that they want to go to as kind of their silver bullet. And he, you know, Caruso allows you to do a lot more switching. He allows you to play an aggressive form of defense. And so I do think that that's possible. They did start Caruso.

They did start Caruso at the start of the second half. Um I kind of still expect them to play Hartenstein because if they do. If they don't start him, I think it's harder to get him into the game. Yeah. But I.

I think there's more stuff to go to. Um However I don't know that Mark is going to do that in a game seven, but we'll see. Mark is not afraid to make any adjustment, he's not afraid to play. Different lineups. We talk about like getting too cute.

Mark just does that all the time. Like, that's just how he is with the lineups. with the thunder throughout the season. You know, there'll be Portions of the season where, like, Dylan Jones will play, you know, big minutes. And you're like, what's going on here?

Um And so I do think that he's not afraid to play different combinations of these guys for sure. Andrew Schlecht is joining us from the athletic. Isaiah Hartenstein has brought a different dimension to this team. We know the Pacers like to go up and down the court, they spread the ball around. Why hasn't he had the same type of impact?

You would think that their size and defense would be a benefit, but apparently it hasn't been. Why not? Yeah, I I think he's been effective in spots. I think that that that two-man lineup with he and Chad are like a plus twelve over the series, so it's been effective. But one thing that the Pacers have done really well is they've taken away kind of that mid-paint area.

And that is essentially where his offense lies. You know, it's either a putback or a dunk or a layup. of course as a big man but You've watched Isaiah Hardenstein for any length of time, you know that his floater is like hit his biggest weapon. And he made his first floater of the series last night. And it was on a broken play.

Like they've taken that away. Like they're just like, hey, Vose Hartstein's out there. that mid-paint. But You are there. You are not giving him any space.

So I think some of that is he doesn't have space to get that floater off. is part of it. Um And then they ju they just play such smart, fast basketball. That it's it's hard to to function out there with two bigs. And so I do think they've had some success.

Uh but when it comes down to it The way that the Pacers play, you want to play more guards and wings. And the Thunder have a plethora of those guys. And so I think they're going to continue to kind of favor Caruso and Kason Wallace and Lou Dort and guys like that over Hartenstein just because you know styles make fights in in the playoffs and This is kind of where they're at. And the Thunder like to play fast too. It's not that just the Pacers like to play fast.

The Thunder like to play fast too. And so I do think that it's, you know, there's series that really favored Hartenstein, and this just isn't one of them. When you think about what we're going to see on Sunday, I'm happy. I want more basketball. Seven games is fine by me.

I thought it would be done in six games. I gave the Pacers one or two games, and here we are. They're tied at three games apiece. What do you anticipate to happen on Sunday? I mean, we had a caller early in the show.

He's like, hey, all the momentum is now towards the Pacers. And I'm just like, I don't know about that. What are your thoughts on what we can expect on Sunday? Yeah, to the momentum point. I mean, if you just look at this series Momentum doesn't exist in the series.

You know, what's happening with this series is that you have two. really intelligent coaches and two really intelligent rosters. that are adjusting to one another and it's this like nip and tuck. Throughout the entire series. And so I The Thunder haven't lost consecutive games in the playoffs yet.

And especially when they get their butts kicked. They bounced back in a big way. We've seen that happen against Denver. We've seen that happen against Minnesota. And I I expect the Thunder to bounce back in a big way.

Now, does that mean they're going to blow them out? I I kind of doubt that. But I do think like they're gonna play better overall. You know, if you look at the history of game sevens, like you mentioned, like those games are in played in the mud. You know, it's played it's played with a lot of nerves.

And so my expectation is that this will be a close one that will come down to the shop making of your stars and You know, I think that, you know, Shea has all the accolades behind him except for one. And I th I think that Shea will deliver on Sunday. Andrew Schlecht here with us from The Athletic. Regardless of how this series goes, of course, if it goes bad for OKC, it's going to be a massive. Massive disappointment.

But this is a young team, and we know that it's prohibitive to move forward future years with paying everybody two hundred thirty million dollars. What can we expect with this roster going forward? It will, for the most part, We can expect them to to be together for a while, no? Yeah, for sure. I think that they.

Yeah, especially the big three. I think the hope is that you get to play they get to play together through their overlapping primes. and they get to have a lot of success together.

Now things that will come into question are like can you keep Kayson Wallace down the road whenever he comes up for an extension? And can you keep Lugan Stort when he comes up for an extension? Isaiah Hartenstein has a team option on his deal next season. Are they going to pick that up? Are they going to try to give him a smaller extension?

You know, what does that look like? I think those are the peripheral pieces that. they'll have to make some hard decisions with. But that's also what the draft picks are for. You know, they have two first-round picks, you know.

The draft is Thursday. They have two first-round picks in that draft. You know, the following year, they could have up to. Four different draft picks in the first round. And so I think that the hope is guys like Nicola Topic, who hasn't played in this whole rookie season for him, that he can be a guy that can play.

And that they can select somebody at 15. In the draft, they can play. And so, whenever you do have to let go of a Kayson Wallace, Isaiah Hartenstein, you know, maybe you have to trade Isaiah Joe or Aaron Wiggins. Um but you can supplement it with cheaper players that are ready to play now. You know, maybe you can draft like the future Kayson Wallace.

You know, Kaysen's been a valuable member of the team, and he is on a pretty small deal because he's on a rookie scale deal.

So I think that. You know, Prest, you set this up really well for them to keep their big three and then kind of supplement around them with. draft picks and affordable players. Andrew, last question for you. if they win this championship on Sunday.

How long is it going to take before they put a a statue of Sam Presty up outside Paycom? Oh man.

So they're building a new arena. That will go up in 2028. And they're actually going to, I believe the plan is to demolish PACOM. And so I would put one up pretty quick because he has been he and Clay Bennett have been the constant to this organization. It's been successful through so many iterations.

You even have like this one year with this Chris Paul team that overachieved. Like it just They have done so much for the city. Um, that I do think they deserve some recognition. Um, they The thing is, it will probably never happen because Sam won't let that happen. He's like, okay, we need one of Russ.

We need one of Nick Collison. We need, you know, I think that he'll. He'll push off the credit to the players, which he always kind of does. Um but I think that you're on the right track with you know, Presti and and Clay Bennett, you know, as as a duo. There's probably not a better owner, president of basketball ops in the league, you know, that has been together for this long.

I mean, they've been together since the Thunder began. you know in 2008 2009 And That's just it's very rare. It's something very special that I hope Thunder fans understand, you know, what they have in those two. Yeah, Bennett and Presty could give the New York Knicks some advice, but it might be too late on that. That may be too far down the road.

Yeah, I think so too. Hey, Andrew, thank you so much for the time. Tell everybody where they can listen and keep up with everything that you do with the athletic. For sure. You can I have a Thunder podcast called Down to Dunk.

I would love for people to listen to that. And then we have a show called The Athletic NBA Daily hosted by just a great friend of mine, Dave DeFour. and Esperanti and Zena Kata, and they do a great job just breaking down the games every single night. It's a quick twenty minute recap of what happened in the NBA the night before. It's in your feed, six a.m.

Eastern time. You know, Monday through Friday, would love for people to pick that up and become a part of their routine. Hey, well, thank you, Andrew, for your perspective and your knowledge. Enjoy the game on Sunday and. Good luck with the draft too, I guess.

The Thunder always ended up picking up a new guy there, okay? All right. Thanks a lot.