OKLAHOMA CITY –<\/p>\n
Ajay Mitchell spoke one-on-one with Thunder Reporter Steve McGehee about the Oklahoma City Thunder heading into the playoffs, his development in year two and what he expects from this postseason.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: You and your teammates have dealt with health all season long. This could be the healthiest this team has been all season long.<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: For sure. I mean, I think we\u2019re all ready to go. So it\u2019s great and it\u2019s had the best time of the year. So we\u2019re excited.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: You had the injury late last year, so you got to play some in the playoffs, but you\u2019re going to have a better run this year. How excited are you for that?<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: Very excited. I mean, obviously last year we got to play a little bit in the playoffs, so kind of have that experience. But now going into year two, I\u2019m really excited to get to play and get that real experience of the playoffs.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: I think you\u2019re going to be able to help out this team coming off the bench probably more times than not.<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: We\u2019re bringing in energy, doing everything I can to help this team win and just trying to make us better. So that\u2019s my goal.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: Your drive to the basket was good last year, even better this year. Besides that, where have you gotten better in your mind?<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: I think just overall, I think my whole game, I\u2019m trying to get better every year at everything. So trying to work on every little thing. I think my shot\u2019s been great. And then just trying to keep getting better at everything I can do.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: All season long you guys have been playing with a target on your back being the defending NBA champs. Did you feel that and did that help you guys get better for the postseason?<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: I don\u2019t think we felt that. Obviously I think in most of our games we could tell that we would get the best shot of every team, but for us our main goal was just to get better as a team so we didn\u2019t look at it as a target, just as an opportunity to get better and I think it helped us a lot.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: You have the luxury of playing on a team with great teammates and great character on and off the floor. How much does that help in year two for you?<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: It helps a lot. I mean, there\u2019s a lot of guys that set the example for us. So for me, coming in year two is just amazing. And it\u2019s great to have those guys around and be able to learn from those guys.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: How much do you lean on SGA and Dub? Two NBA All-Stars, that\u2019s pretty good advice if you want to ask them a question.<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: Sure, I mean those two guys have been great and been able to ask them questions and just learn from them. Like seeing them on the court, seeing what they do in practice, like all the little things. It\u2019s an amazing example for me. I\u2019m grateful that I get that chance to learn from them.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: How is Mark and his staff preparing you for this run at another NBA championship?<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: Yeah, I mean, that\u2019s what we talked about. It\u2019s all about details, not trying to look too far and just focus on the first moment. And that\u2019s the first game of the playoffs. And we\u2019re just focused on that. But they\u2019ve done a great job just getting us ready for this.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: This team is known for a deep bench. How much will you guys lean on that?<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: Yeah, I mean, I think we got guys that are ready no matter what. And that\u2019s what makes us special is like we lean on everybody and everybody\u2019s ready to go. So that\u2019s a great feeling to have as a team.<\/p>\n
MCGEHEE: Were you kind of hoping for this season after watching some of the playoffs from the bench?<\/p>\n
MITCHELL: For sure, for sure. I\u2019m really, really excited to just get out there and get that feeling of the playoffs. So it\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY – Ajay Mitchell spoke one-on-one with Thunder Reporter Steve McGehee about the Oklahoma City Thunder heading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-712119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116417312427524951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712119","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=712119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}