Even though the Oklahoma City Thunder ripped the heart out of the Dallas Mavericks in game one with a last second jumper by Kevin Durant to win the game, the league's leading scorer realizes that there's still a long road ahead if the team wants to win the opening series of the 2012 NBA Playoffs. The Mavs, after all, are the defending champions, so one game doesn't make or break such a storied team.
"Those guys, man, they're a mentally tough team," Durant said after Game 1. "They come at you in so many different ways so I don't think we got their best shot. We've just got to keep playing. Our defense was decent. We've just go to continue to pick each other up. We'll see what happens. This is a long series."
The Thunder have the pivotal win in the first game, which means quite a bit moving forward having the momentum and the advantage. However, Dirk Nowitzki and company have been in such places before. Scott Brooks, OKC's head coach, isn't fooled for a minute into thinking that they can rest on their laurels at this point.
"You always know that they can play better because they have in the past," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "They are the defending champions, although they don't have a few of the players they won the championship with last year. But they have some key players that are champions and are going to have good games. We have to keep fighting them and forcing them to take tough shots. I thought we did that in the second half [of Game 1] as well as we've done."
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