On today's Lockton, NBA Squad Show West preview.

OKC doesn't repeat if, we're not going to say injuries,

but something else will have to happen for them not repeat.

We'll talk about that and more West Squad Show right now.

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No holding back, we're giving the green light. It's time to talk NBA squad show. And welcome the Lockdown NBA Squad Show, the show where we take over the feed of your favorite Lockdown show. It's the West preview show. We're talking about the Western Conference, anything that we can get our hands on and talk about in the West. My name is Nick Engstead, host Lockdown Mavericks podcast, and thank you you for making locked on you the number one sports podcast network out there yes let's go we did it we did it everybody

today we will talk about all kinds of different things we got all kinds of hosts here jackson

gatlin locked on rockets ben garcia locked on sons matt more locked on nuggets joe mullinacs locked on

grisleys ben beacon locked on wolves rylins styles locked on Nuggets, Joe Mullinax, locked on Grizzlies, Ben Beacon, locked on wolves, Rylins, Stiles, locked on Thunder, and the Grand Puba, the man himself from locked on jazz. David Locke is in the building. Gentlemen, we may start and go somewhere completely different from where we are now, but let's start with this one. OKC doesn't repeat in the West as, let's say, the number one seed and the team coming out of the West in the finals. If dot, dot, dot, and Rylan, let's start it off with you. You have to, you now have to defend your team. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple. If the Thudder do not repeat as champions, it's going to be because the things that we think can happen for this team developmentally don't happen. Like if Chet Holmgren doesn't get a lot better offensively, they're not going to win a championship again. Like they can't win a championship again without him getting better offensively and that solving some of the thunder's half court issues offensively. Because whenever they went long in the series with Denver and Indiana, the half court offense really stalled out at times, and that has to be taken away by progression from Chet, by progression from even J-dub, being more consistent throughout that Denver series especially, which he did throughout the rest of the postseason, but he has to do it again this season. And then you look at their three-point shooting. There were 13th out of 16 teams from Beyond the York in the playoffs. They were able to manage it and win a championship, but you can't sustain that in the modern NBA. And so I think that they're going to need to improve from Beyond the Arc and improve the quality of threes that they're generating. That stationary drive-and-kick stuff gets taken away pretty easily. In the postseason, they're going to need to get more creative with how they utilize

their three-point shooters.

But a lot of this does rest on Chet.

And a lot of this does rest on their ability to sustain and duplicate their elite,

historically great defense, because that's what kind of this whole thing is built on.

So they're going to have to continue to be in the passing lanes, kind of has to continue to spark transition to, again, alleviate some of that half-court offensive concerns. But it is a lot on chat, Homegren, to be better offensively. What if, what if, just like, Ryan, I'm going to walk through a hypothetical. What if the officials start doing this thing where they blow the whistle and they actually call fouls on your defense? What happens then? Well, I mean, we saw last year. They were the most fouled tea. They fouled the most in the NBA. They also got called for a lot of them, obviously. So they're going to have to adjust. I think that the bigger thing would be like, what if Nicola Yokic hits more shots in that series? Because even last year, with his beat up as Diver was and as much flaws as you could point to with their roster, there were a couple games in a seven-game series where if Yokic has another shot go in, the Nuggets win, they win the series, the Thunder Out in the second round. So I'm not too concerned about the fouls. I think it would be interesting if they call Shays push off more consistently throughout the season and the postseason, that that could damper some of their offense in particular in games in which their half-court offense is relying solely on Shea because there are still going to be games like that. If you take away a couple of those buckets from the Thunder, then all of a sudden their offense will not be able to generate enough points to win. So there are some things like that, especially with the refs about Yolkich, because they were able to really rough up Yolkich in certain games. But even that series, Matt, like you watched it too. Some games the Thunder could get away with Mallingham, some games they couldn't.

And so it's kind of a night-by-night case. So we just don't know. And I said it on the show at the time. We don't know what officials will show up. And so we don't know how they're going to call the games. But yeah, that could really hurt them because their whole game playing around, Yoak is just, hey, let's just get after them, use our fouls, and see what happens.

The subtle bit of Oklahoma... our whole game plan around. It's just, hey, let's just get after them, use our fouls, and see what happens.

The subtle bit of Oklahoma arrogance, I actually think Rylan answered that question correctly.

And I just, we could find things like the possession advantage that Oklahoma City's had for like

three years gets minimized.

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