The Oklahoma City Thunder spent most of Monday's practice getting back to the basics of defense, not that there's a problem.
"We just want to continue to improve," said Thunder coach Scott Brooks after the session. "Our guys continue to understand the defense better and they're growing with it."
And it has shown, after being at the bottom of most all defensive stats last season, OKC is near the top this year.
"We have to make the second effort on plays, sometimes on defense that second effort is even more important than the first," said forward Jeff Green.
Green has seen his offensive numbers go down this year but his defnese has improved.
"We're a better team when Jeff rebounds the ball," said Brooks. We have a lot of coachable guys on this team who understand what the team needs and they do it."
Oklahoma City is coming off a four game road trip with a 2-2 record. Winning the first two games at Atlanta and Minnesota and losing close games in Memphis and Cleveland.
Being at home now for a stretch of four games in the next week and a half will give the team more time to work on things in practice.
"It's always good to work on what you're doing," said Brooks. "Our guys love to work so that won't be a problem. Today (Monday) it was all defense and then we put some shots up toward the end of practice and worked on some gamelike situations."
The Thunder will practice again Tuesday, have a shoot-aroun d on Wednesday morning before hosting the Chicago Bulls at the Ford Center Wednesday night.
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