Practice Notes: Moving on from Lob City

Here are Scott Brooks and Kendrick Perkins talking at practice today:

SCOTT BROOKS

PERK

Brooks on KD’s last shot: “He hit the 3 right before that. And on that, I give him the choice. If he’s open for a look initially, take it. He was open for 3. But he has the choice. He can either take that shot or drive and create a play. He’s done them both. I think the last time against Denver he did it and drove to the basket and got a dunk. But that’s a choice I feel confident enough in his decision making. But he was open for a second. It would’ve been a great game-winner.”

Brooks on the execution after looking at the film: “Execution was good. I thought one time actually two times, we didn’t execute. You want perfection but it’s not a game of perfection. It’s a game of playing with instincts and effort. And we did that. We took a couple of tough shots I thought. One was a bad shot, one was a bad execution.”Brooks on moving forward: “We didn’t focus on last night, we focused on our mindset going forward more so than the game. Sure we would’ve loved to won the game, but we didn’t. It’s more important about how we play going forward. We got eight games in 13 nights. Not a lot of practice time, not a lot of shootarounds. But we have to have a good mindset going into every game.”

Perk on the game: “I think just our body language when they took the lead. They took the lead and we acted like the game was over with six minutes left in the game. It was like a one or three-point game, and we’re at home, I just felt like we didn’t have the right fight or right mindset to keep going. We’re not going to blow everybody out or win by 10 points every night. Some nights you got to go get games. I felt like it was one of those nights you had to dig deep and go get it.”

Perk on if he had to speak up about how he felt: “I don’t have to say too much around here as far as discipline guys or mindset because you come in today and you got like, seven of the guys, practice at 11, and you got seven guys here at 8:45 working on their game. You don’t have to say much. It’s kind of like things is known and don’t have to be said mentality around here and that’s how it be.”

Perk on Kenyon Martin coming after him a bit: “I was good but at the same time, I’m the enforcer on the team. I’m not going to change how I play. I’m not going to worrying about getting if I’m going to a tech or something like that. I know how to control my emotions as far as to the referees. When you’re in the heat of the battle nothing else matters. At the same time I got to go out and be me, so that’s what it is.”

Audio via Randy Renner