PHOTO/Randy Renner
After the Thunder's first practice of training camp Andre Roberson told reporters he felt great and his goal was to play in the first game, the first preseason game.
The Thunder will play their third preseason game on Monday night and Roberson, who hasn't returned yet to game action, will once again be held out of the lineup.
Head coach Billy Donovan told reporters before the team's Sunday afternoon flight to Dallas "nothing's changed we amped him up really, really good (the first days of camp) and it's probably gonna take his body time to adjust to what we've done to this point."
There's not been an indication that Roberson has suffered any kind of setback, it's more just dealing with some soreness associated with all the extra work in practice. Roberson continues to practice but some of what he's involved in has been scaled back a bit.
"He is doing certain things but not to the level he was before so we're letting him kinda regroup then we'll start with the same process over again," Donovan said.
Chris Paul and Steven Adams will also be held out of the Mavs game but that's more to give them a little rest and give others more playing time. Nerlens Noel will likely pick up most of Adams's minutes. With CP3 out Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will spend more time running the point.
"The responsibility becomes a little different with him becoming the primary ball handler," Donovan pointed out. "So getting us into offense, getting the floor organized, generating good actions for the group. Now we'll play probably he and Dennis (Shroder) some together and some apart from each other but we still want Shai to be aggressive but balanced in terms of what we're doing."
The Thunder have also made some changes in their approach to playing defense. In their first two games they've held Dallas to 36.2% shooting overall and 26% from three and New Zealand to 41.5% overall and 29.6% on threes.
Hamidou Diallo admits changes have been made but he only wanted to go so far in describing what those changes are.
"Yeah we'been workin' on it, we don't have the same defensive principles as last year...uh...that's probably as much as I can say without giving you it all but, yeah we've changed up a couple things, working on a couple different strategies to help us guards and the bigs have a better level of communication on the court."
The game in Dallas tips at 7:30 Monday night and can be seen on Fox Sports Oklahoma. The Thunder will finish their preseason schedule on Wednesday night by hosting Memphis at The Peake.
The full interview sessions with Billy Donovan and Hami Diallo are in the blocks below.