Thunder, Celtics Friday
Listening to Billy Donovan and Thunder players talk over the last couple of days, it's clear they are ready to face another team. Forward Kevin Hervey says, "the atmosphere of the gym is competitive."... "It's super intense; we're going at it every single day."
The grind of playing against your teammates can get monotonous lucky for the Thunder they get to scrimmage the Boston Celtics on Friday. With four months off since Oklahoma City's last game, it's hard to know what to expect, but Billy Donvan says having another team in the arena will be a welcome sight.
"They'd like to play against somebody other than themselves."..."We need to see different looks, we need to see different personnel, different things."
"I think these scrimmages, these preseasons so to speak games are gonna be coming at a good time for us."..."We'll have two more days to get ready for that and we'll probably have a recovery day on Thursday, today (Monday) was a little bit of a lighter day for us."
"Coming to the end of the week we're gonna need to start to see other people, I think that will be good for us."
The Celtics were the Thunder's last opponent before the shutdown. Oklahoma City came away with a 105-104 victory in Boston, Dennis Schroder, and Chris Paul combined for 55 points.
In February, former Oklahoma State Cowboy Marcus Smart was able to steal the ball from Shai Gilgous-Alexander with 5.8 seconds left, helping the Celtics to a 112-111 win in the Peake.
July 24: Celtics, 4 p.m., Thunder Mobile App/okcthunder.com
July 26: 76ers, 11 a.m., Thunder Mobile App/okcthunder.com
July 28: Trail Blazers, 5 p.m., Fox Sports Oklahoma
Aug. 1: Jazz, 2:30 p.m., ESPN/Fox Sports Oklahoma
Aug. 3: Nuggets, 3 p.m., Fox Sports Oklahoma/NBA TV
Aug. 5: Lakers, 5:30 p.m., ESPN/Fox Sports Oklahoma
Aug. 7: Grizzlies, 3 p.m., Fox Sports Oklahoma/NBA TV
Aug. 9: Wizards, 11:30 a.m., Fox Sports OklahomaAug. 10: Suns, 1:30 p.m., Fox Sports Oklahoma
Aug. 12: Heat, 7 p.m., Fox Sports OklahomaAug. 14: Clippers, TBD
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With more than 20 years of experience hosting local and national radio shows, Erik Gee is a fixture of Oklahoma sports media. He has covered the Oklahoma City Thunder for the past six seasons. He is also the co-host of the Pat Jones show on 97.1 The Sports Animal in Tulsa.
