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MEMPHIS — Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault knows his team can learn numerous lessons from Thursday’s 114-108 Game 3 win against the Memphis Grizzlies. Daigneault addressed a few during his media availability after Thunder practice on Friday.
For his young team, Daigneault says the playoff experience of facing such a deficit on the road comes with challenges that will strengthen his players’ mindset and approach moving forward, whether or not the Thunder were able to pull off the comeback. Fortunately for Daigneault and the Thunder, they were.
“That game was rich with lessons, obviously, a wild win,” Daigneault said. “We should be really proud of the perseverance and the way we came back in the game. “There’s also lessons in how they were able to generate a 29-point lead. There were definitely stretches in the second quarter that we can learn from, that we tried to learn from, that are important as well. We always want to have the confidence that we can come back, but we also want to have the edge to understand that we can’t let ourselves get into those types of holes and expect to win night after night.
“There’s a reason that that was a record. That’s a really hard to come back on. So, there’s a lot of good, there’s a lot of learning, and that would have been the case even if we fell short,” Daigneault concluded.
The Thunder’s 29-point comeback win against the Grizzlies is the second-biggest in NBA playoff history. The 2018-19 Los Angeles Clippers erased a 31-point deficit to beat the Golden State Warriors 135-131 in an opening-round series.
Chet Holmgren thanks Mark Daigneault after Thunder win
Thunder forward Chet Holmgren thanked head coach Mark Daigneault for not benching him amid offensive struggles throughout the first half. After halftime, Holmgren turned things around, connecting on 4-of-5 from deep as the Thunder outscored their opponent 36-18 in the third quarter.
Holmgren feels it set the stage for the Thunder’s historic comeback win.
“First of all, credit to Mark for sticking with me,” Holmgren said. “It changed the trajectory of the game. He trusted me in calling a play to bomb one out of the half after the s*** storm that I put up in the first half. So, credit to him on that. Then, once I saw one go in, I kind of felt good, and as a team, we controlled what we could control, and we were able to pull off the win.”
The Thunder will go for the sweep in Game 4 against the Grizzlies on Saturday.
