DALLAS -- Nobody who had seen the Oklahoma City Thunder play this season could doubt they were a club with considerable talent. However, the question with this talented group of youngsters was whether or not they would be able to handle the pressure come playoff time.
After all, this was a group who did advance all the way to the NBA Western Conference Finals in 2011, only to fall to the eventual league champion Dallas Mavericks. And when OKC drew the same Mavs in the opening round of the 2012 playoffs, many viewed the series as a true measuring stick of just how much this club has grown from last season's defeat to Dallas.
Well, after three games, Scott Brooks' club now has a 3-0 lead and will look to send the Mavs to the golf course on Saturday in an elimination game. So, what has been different this time around? Of course, OKC has learned a great deal during the regular season and also from last year's playoffs, but one addition made late in the regular season has also been huge.
That man is none other than Derek Fisher, the 37-year-old veteran point guard who the Thunder signed on March 21. Playoff basketball is nothing new for the Arkansas native and first-round pick in the 1996 NBA Draft because D-Fish was front and center for five championship runs with the Lakers.
And when OKC signed him, there was no doubt about what he would bring to the room in the Oklahoma state capital. He's also contributed on the court, scoring 10 points in OKC's blowout win in Dallas in Game Three on Thursday night. Fisher also had 11 points in a close Game Two win at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
But none of this is a surprise to his latest head coach in the Association.
"It's probably been written many, many times but the bottom line he's a winner. The guy is just a winner, on and off the floor. He's high character and he has toughness. He has everything you want from a player. As his coach, that's what I love about him," Brooks said. "He brings everything that you want your players to bring, that is a professionalism, a consistent approach to work every day and a good teammate. Last game he made shots. It's always nice to make shots but that's not the only thing that we look for him to do."
However, the mark of a player's impact on his team can best be measured by his peers or his teammates. And judging from what several of his current mates had to say about his impact on the team, bringing in Fisher has to rank as a great move by the OKC front office.
"He's been phenomenal for me, just a blessing to get to be on the same team with him. Every chance he gets, he always pulls me to side to tell me what he sees, what I need to do better and also tell me what I'm doing well," perennial Thunder All-Star Kevin Durant said. "Every chance I get, I just go to him and ask him what I can do to improve on the next play, how I can be better the next quarter, the next half. He's been helping me out."
Standout OKC guard James Harden offered a similar assessment of what D-Fish has meant to him and his teammates thus far. "Everything from big shots, leadership, he does it all. He can still play at his age but he's done a great job of when we get up by a certain amount of points [helping us in] keeping our composure, just doing a great job in our huddles of talking to us," Harden said. "He's definitely meant a lot to us."
With eight years of experience in the league, OKC big man Nick Collison is one of the more experienced members of what is a largely young roster, but even he's been around long enough to see what adding a guy with the playoff resume of Fisher can add to such a young and somewhat raw group.
"Yeah, it's been great. I think he's got a ton more experience than anybody else in playoff games. Naz[r Mohammed] has played a lot [of playoff games], won a championship but Derek's played a bunch of playoff games," Collison said. "It definitely helps to have him. He's feeling more comfortable and he's been vocal. It brings about the right mindset you have to have. And then on the court, he's been great too. He's a stabilizer for us. He gets us into offense and defensively, fights through screens and knows the game plan, so it's been great for us."
Much of Fisher's positive impact has naturally been on the Thunder's young backcourt players, guys like Harden and Russell Westbrook. But his head coach sees his presence as impacting the entire roster instead of just a few players in particular.
"Well, I think when you have veteran guys that understand their role and they can still add to the team like Derek can, it helps. I don't think it just necessarily helps Russell [Westbrook]. It helps Kevin [Durant]. It helps James [Harden]. It helps our other guys," Brooks said.
And it might sound cliché, but the veteran floor general is often the last one to leave the gym on practice days.
"Just to see him, his approach, he's 37-years-old but he stays in the gym an hour after practice working on his shot, trying to figure out ways to improve. A lot of guys don't do that at a young age let alone a guy that's been in for 15 or 16 years and [won] multiple championships," Brooks said. "He still has that passion, that enthusiasm for the game that once you get rid of that, you have no shot at being a player in this league."
