Captain Obvious here. Hey, if the Oklahoma City Thunder want to cure their ills in game three versus the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, they might want to work on fixing their slow starts in the series.
Thanks Captain Obvious.
Its a narrative that's been beaten into the ground, and its something that the Oklahoma City Thunder players, coaches, staff, fans, ball boys, vendors and security guards all recognize as well. Looking at film helps, and as Kevin Durant noted in interviews yesterday, it was "painful" to watch.
Kevin Durant on the slow starts the Thunder have endured in the first two games:
"We just have to play harder to start the games. We have to play harder. We're doing it a little too late. We watched the film, first 10 minutes of the game, we're kind of relaxed. I don't know why, but we've just got to play harder. I think we will after watching that. It was tough to watch, go to the film and look at it and say, wow, did I really just do that? It falls back on me as a leader."
Scott Brooks on what's plaguing the Thunder in the slow starts, and how they can improve:
"We got off to a bad start. I mean, that's the obvious thing to everybody. We have things that we could have done better. We missed some shots. We missed layups, we missed some pull-up shots. Defensively we didn't match up in transition. There's a lot of things that we could have done better and hopefully Game 3 we do better."
Thabo Sefolosha on the Thunder's chances to win on the road:
"We have shown all year we can play well on the road. We have three games here, but we're only concerned about Game 3."
Game 3 between the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder at 7:00 pm Central Time.
For more on the 2012 NBA Finals between the Thunder and Heat go check out Welcome To Loud City and Peninsula Is Mightier. For more news and notes from around the NBA head over to SB Nation's NBA Basketball page.