OKC Thunder: Jalen Williams Reveals What He Learned From Initial Playoff Run

The Oklahoma City Thunder ripped off 57 wins in what was a special season in Bricktown. Their second consecutive year seeing a 15-plus win improvement that should leave the Thunder faithful encouraged for the future.

Along the way, Oklahoma City pulled off multiple feats such as seeing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finish runner-up for the MVP award, Mark Daigneault take home the Coach of the Year honors and becoming the youngest team to ever capture the No. 1 seed.

As their young core continued to grow together, the Thunder earned their first series win since 2016 spearheaded by the growth of rising star Jalen Williams and fellow 2022 lottery pick Chet Holmgren making his debut.

Williams has parlayed his popularity and electric personality into frequent podcast spots with NBA veteran JJ Redick to talk shop. The Santa Clara product dished on what the Thunder learned this postseason on Thursday's episode.

Jalen Williams said defensively he thinks the Thunder did a really good job but mentioned how easy it is to panic against Dallas because the Mavericks go on really loud runs. pic.twitter.com/SI1ZZP7XtT
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) June 6, 2024

Williams mentioned that even after reviewing the series at length he thought the Thunder defended the Mavericks well despite Dallas ousting them in six games. The problem for the youngest squad to ever win a playoff series came with the loud Mavericks runs spurred on by their uptick in 3-point production that series.

Jalen Williams also told a really cool story on the Podcast about Mark Daigneault using Al Horford’s playoff experience as an example of not taking these chances for granted. pic.twitter.com/8yo31Jm3db
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) June 6, 2024

On the show, Williams went as far as to give listeners a peek behind the curtain at the message Daigneault shared with the group about not taking the postseason for granted. The bench boss pointed to his former big man Al Horford who has played in 181 playoff games to date still searching for that elusive NBA title.

The No. 12 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft mentioned how the postseason motivated his summer plans when it comes to working on his game to learn from his first playoff stint which he said was treated as a "trail run" in 2024.

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