Thunder still looking to solve ball-movement puzzle

OKC is improving in assists and hanging onto the ball better, but still isn't where elite teams usually are in those stats.
By John Rohde Published: November 6, 2012

“Hmm, that's a tough one,” Maynor said. “Everybody wants to make the right play. As long as we continue go out there and want to make the right play, I think it's going to happen, more nights than not.”

Veteran forward Nick Collison believes good ball movement coincides with a team's energy level.

“If we're running down into our plays and we're running our plays sharp, the passes are obvious, right?” Collison said. “If we're kind of like going half-speed and the execution isn't crisp, then all the sudden there's not really anything open, guys have to go one-on-one and play in a crowd. So I just think our pace and our energy helps with that. Then it becomes contagious where one pass leads to another, and that's when we're at our best.”

Brooks said his team often responds with good ball movement when it's emphasized in practice, but apparently reminders are required.

“It's like a lot of things, we focus on one area and then we don't focus on the area two or three days prior to that,” Brooks said. “With our group, when we really lock in and move the basketball and play the defense we played (tonight), it's great basketball. We move it. We share it, but it doesn't happen all the time. I can't complain about the ball movement with the small sample size of four games.

“If we could stay at this level the rest of the year, we're only going to get better as the season goes on.”

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