Hornets vs Thunder: Coach Charles Lee Postgame Media Availability | 11/15/2025
I guess just talk about what makes OKC just a welloiled machine where it seems like, you know, they don’t really have those lols sometimes. They can just keep getting you over and over again. Yeah, good team. Um, I think that we are just as good of a team as well. Um, we showed that in the first half and you go to halftime kind of down three. Thought we did a lot of really good things on both ends of the floor to give ourselves a chance. Um, and then in the second half, to your point, uh, just sometimes that defensive physicality, intensity kind of wears you down a little bit. Um, ball starts sticking. Um, then that’s when they’re allowed to, you know, increase their physicality. So, um, I definitely thought that the ball movement in the second half just wasn’t as as good. Some of our rim reads weren’t as good and you start turning it over and they turn those turnovers, um, into points and then they also kind of just stall you out a little bit. They went on a pretty big run there to open the third quarter. you subbed in five five new guys. What were you saying to your team there? Yeah, just um wanted to find a little bit more pop, a little bit more energy. Um you know, I I thought that there was just a couple transition plays where like we just looked a little sluggish. Um guys kind of just hugged up with one person in the corner and you give up a dunk or, you know, just the things that we have done so well in this game and and and last night uh you just didn’t see a high enough level. So, you were trying to find some juice, some energy, um just something a little bit more from that other group and I thought they gave it to us for a little bit and then you know you give the give the starting group one more chance to kind of go after in that fourth quarter. Charles, right now you guys are third in the league in first quarter scoring. You’re 15th in the second quarter, 19th in the third and 20th in the fourth. What do you think is just contributing to that drop off and how do you address it going forward? Yeah, I think that uh as we continue to kind of just build out the rest of the season and how we attack each quarter, some of that comes down to like you know, we talked about it today, just you know, your continued habits, the consistency that you have to be able to make sure that you are in shape physically and mentally at the end of the game to still be able to execute at the highest level come fourth quarter. And uh this league, you know, it’s hard to win in this league and I think that everything kind of slows down in the fourth quarter. Physicality ramps up um and we just got to be a little bit better. But I think that we have um done a ton of really good things um in all four quarters uh to put ourselves in a chance to win games. No, for sure. I thought that, you know, defensively we had some good possessions. I felt like that first half there was I think they had six offensive rebounds, but I don’t know, each one felt a little bit backbreaking or um definitely, you know, affected us and how we then approached our next offensive possession or whatever. It kind of just wore us down. Um but I do think, you know, we we we kept him off the free throw line, which is tough. And Gilgus Alexander, I think he’s averaging like 10 free throws a game, so to hold him to five, um knowing I don’t think he played very much in the fourth, but still um the effort there, the was the focus was there. uh for for a majority of the game. It felt like you guys were doing a pretty good job on Chay, but no matter how good of a job you do, he’s still able to get to his spots and get shots up. What is it like to coach against the type of player where even if your guys on the floor are doing the best job they can for 23.9 seconds, he can still get to a shot and get a good look? Yeah. Uh you know, it’s one of those things where you have to not overreact to some of those tough buckets. Uh you live with some of them. um you try to throw him off balance a little bit with different matchups or different coverages. Uh but like you said, he he did it in the final on the road to the finals last year and uh he he’s hit a lot of tough shots and so I thought our guys though it’s a it’s a good learning experience to kind of go from last night what you experienced in the cup and how you have to guard ano as a creator and then Gilgus Alexander is a different type of creator and then how you have to be more mindful of him his tendencies. So, I think for our group, it’s it’s good to be to have those back-to-back nights of different environments, different creators, and see that, you know, we we were up to the test for most of the game.
Coach Charles Lee speaks to the media following the loss at home vs the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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1 comment
A bad night.