{"id":5176,"date":"2025-04-30T23:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T23:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/5176\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T23:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T23:28:07","slug":"why-okc-thunder-is-unbothered-by-physicality-seen-in-nba-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/5176\/","title":{"rendered":"Why OKC Thunder is unbothered by physicality seen in NBA Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

They feel it. You see it. The physicality in these NBA Playoffs<\/a> is palpable, and most teams are sensing the shift.<\/p>\n

Some, like the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>, even seem satisfied by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like how we used to play at the park, you know what I\u2019m saying?\u201d center Chet Holmgren<\/a> said. \u201cThere\u2019s no playing for a foul out there. You gotta play to get a bucket. If you played to get a foul at the park, somebody would just take the ball and go home. I\u2019m all for it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Postgame scrums have doubled as meetings \u2014\u00a0calls for intervention, really \u2014 by players and coaches over foul regulation. Minnesota coach Chris Finch noted that he felt that officials have gone \u201cway too far on the physicality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That was before Game 2 of their series. Let alone the dance of elbows and flying scissor kicks that the Warriors<\/a> versus Rockets has become.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Thunder has looked around, awaiting its next opponent, and hasn\u2019t exactly lost sleep over it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More: Buy or sell for OKC Thunder trends? What to make of Chet Holmgren’s shooting, SGA’s slump<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ve got to embrace it to an extent,\u201d Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a> said Wednesday. \u201cAt the end of the day, that\u2019s more the ref\u2019s job to figure out where the line is. We just kind of match the physicality or we try and come in and set the tone in the physicality department. At the end of the day the refs control that aspect of how physical the game\u2019s allowed to be and then we have to adjust to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few seem to be as in tune with the league\u2019s officiating trends as Thunder coach Mark Daigneault<\/a>. Asked what he\u2019s seen transpire in these playoffs, Daigneault pushed back on the notion that general fouls have seen a radically blind eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at league trends, I think they\u2019re actually calling more fouls now than they did in the regular season,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cThey\u2019re calling more off-ball fouls, they\u2019re calling less shooting fouls, they\u2019re calling less illegal screens. We\u2019re tracking it closely. I think the games are more physical. There\u2019s probably more actual fouling going on and the whistle hasn\u2019t reflected that per se, but it\u2019s not like they\u2019re calling less than they did in the regular season.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps Daigneault checked out for the night before Monday Night Raw \u2014 \u201cthe 9 p.m. starts are not built for me,\u201d he said Wednesday when asked if he caught the Nuggets and Clippers live \u2014 when Warriors forward Draymond Green<\/a> used all his available personal and technical fouls, seemingly never quite swinging his feet and flailing his arms to the point that that night\u2019s officiating crew ever considered removing him from the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond the more subtle contact, the exchanges that are more difficult to see for those watching live, coaches and players alike \u2014 namely Finch \u2014 have noted a sort of brutality that\u2019s emerged in this postseason. One unlike that of the regular season in frequency and tolerance. A general acceptance of skirmishes and hooks and everything else that likely doesn\u2019t fall into the tally of the numbers Daigneault\u2019s crew is tracking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then again, Daigneault might not be up in arms about the physicality or the way it\u2019s being regulated because his team has been among the most ferocious groups in the NBA all season.<\/p>\n

More: Why OKC Thunder star Chet Holmgren was more than willing to shoot 3-pointers vs. Grizzlies<\/a><\/p>\n

OKC finished the season called for the sixth-most fouls on average (19.9), while inversely having a bottom-five free-throw rate in the league. It grew to expect its on-ball pressure, its switching and its positional size to all draw whistles. And it grew to expect that those not named Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> \u2014 members of the team have even lobbied for his whistle \u2014 to not receive similar treatment on the other end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Daigneault and his team have been screaming about it from the mountaintops for a season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that three of the teams (Orlando, Detroit and Memphis) that were whistled for more fouls on average during the regular season are involved in these playoffs. Still, OKC\u2019s nature has pushed it closer to the other end of the spectrum with the postseason shift.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Thunder, through four first-round games, averaged 18.8 fouls. Among the 16 playoff teams, that\u2019s the sixth-lowest mark. Only two Western Conference teams have fouled less on average: The Nuggets and the Rockets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe harp on playing through contact,\u201d said All-Star Jalen Williams<\/a> after Game 4, asked if OKC has benefited from any changes in officiating. \u201cI think the same way teams have made us feel, we try and replicate that. We\u2019ve got really good players that can do that defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, after likely benefiting from the shift in tolerance this postseason, the Thunder is singing the same tune it had when its whistle was among the worst in the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really don\u2019t care, to be honest with you,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cWe just want it to be fair and consistent. We want to know what we\u2019re getting night to night and we want to know what we\u2019re getting end to end. If we\u2019re getting a consistent whistle night to night and they\u2019re allowing a lot of physicality, we\u2019ll adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

More: Clippers or Nuggets? Who should scare OKC Thunder in NBA playoff conference semifinals?<\/a><\/p>\n

Joel Lorenzi\u00a0covers the Thunder and NBA for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joel? He can be reached at jlorenzi@oklahoman.com or on X\/Twitter at\u00a0@joelxlorenzi. Support Joel’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a\u00a0digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They feel it. You see it. The physicality in these NBA Playoffs is palpable, and most teams are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[299,7,618,366,311,559,301,187,309,164,948,619,292,194,947,949,298,135,307,152,70,85,6,11,62,67,302,310,179,61,81,34,211,66,83,17,312,308,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-5176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-angeles","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-chet","11":"tag-chet-holmgren","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-clippers","14":"tag-denver","15":"tag-denver-nuggets","16":"tag-golden","17":"tag-golden-state-warriors","18":"tag-hartenstein","19":"tag-holmgren","20":"tag-houston","21":"tag-houston-rockets","22":"tag-isaiah","23":"tag-isaiah-hartenstein","24":"tag-los","25":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","26":"tag-minnesota","27":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","28":"tag-national","29":"tag-national-sports","30":"tag-nba","31":"tag-nba-playoffs","32":"tag-neutral","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-nuggets","35":"tag-oklahoma","36":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","37":"tag-overall","38":"tag-overall-neutral","39":"tag-playoffs","40":"tag-rockets","41":"tag-sports","42":"tag-sports-news","43":"tag-state","44":"tag-thunder","45":"tag-timberwolves","46":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}