{"id":317771,"date":"2025-11-30T03:22:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T03:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/317771\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T03:22:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T03:22:17","slug":"devin-booker-comments-on-okc-thunders-swarming-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/317771\/","title":{"rendered":"Devin Booker Comments on OKC Thunder\u2019s Swarming Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">It was another night at the office for Oklahoma City on Friday, as the Thunder added its 19th win of the season. This one was different, though, as Phoenix gave this Thunder team a hard fight, and Oklahoma City\u2019s stars had to play until the buzzer sounded. In all honesty, these games are good for the Thunder \u2014 a team with championship aspirations should want to play games in a high stakes environment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">For the first time all season, Phoenix got to experience Oklahoma City\u2019s relentless defense. Without a dominant opposing big man, this Thunder team feasted on Phoenix\u2019s backcourt \u2014 a backcourt that doesn\u2019t have a true point guard, either.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6u\">After the game, Suns star Devin Booker had no choice but to praise Oklahoma City\u2019s defense, even if there were a few digs included, too.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;The secret is out. They do speed you up. They play aggressive. They&#8217;ll grab, they&#8217;ll hold, but it&#8217;s never like when you&#8217;re in a shooting position. It&#8217;s always on the handle or on your drives when they get away with it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Devin Booker on Thunder defense as Suns committed 20\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/E27MYSv0Tz\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/E27MYSv0Tz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DuaneRankin\/status\/1994667248204558754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"70\">\u201cThe secret is out, man,\u201d Booker said. \u201cThey do speed you up. They play aggressive. They&#8217;ll grab, they&#8217;ll hold, but it&#8217;s never like when you&#8217;re in a shooting position. It&#8217;s always on the handle or on your drives when they get away with it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"73\">&#8220;Actually tonight, they probably called 40 to 50 percent of them, which is good. For real. For real. But yeah, they have multiple defenders out there. They have their switching partners. Guys that will get after it every time. They&#8217;re a tough matchup.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"76\">Against the Thunder, Phoenix turned the ball over 18 total times. The Suns\u2019 top assist guy was Booker with six, but he also turned the ball over five times. Oklahoma City\u2019s defense was completely swarming, and gave Phoenix so many problems.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"79\">The point that Booker made regarding foul calls was a bit ironic, as the foul count was relatively even. Phoenix committed 24 total fouls compared to the Thunder\u2019s 22 fouls. Oklahoma City\u2019s physical defense got the best of Phoenix, though, as the Suns turnovers turned out to be the difference maker in the end.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7c\">Oklahoma City\u2019s elite defense has propelled this team for two seasons now, and honestly, earned the Thunder its first championship. With Jalen Williams back in the fold, this team added an All-NBA defender to an already dominant unit. And in his return, he contributed two steals and a block.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7f\">Booker is right, Oklahoma City is a tough matchup and they absolutely play aggressive. But there\u2019s no secret, this has been the case for three seasons now, and it\u2019s the recipe that won this franchise a championship. Everyone knows Oklahoma City is elite defensively, and now, Booker knows firsthand.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was another night at the office for Oklahoma City on Friday, as the Thunder added its 19th&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-317771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}