Nuggets From The Head Coaches Before OKC And Dallas Square Off

Thunder coach Scott Brooks:

-On KD imitating Dirk's one-legged fade away: "I like it now. It's taken him—he's worked on it for a couple of years now, it's a great shot. It's a hard shot to defend as we all know and when Dirk takes that off balance leaner, it's so unorthodox, you can't teach that. It's a skill that's hard to ever get and only a few people can have that. You have to have ability like Kevin or Dirk; coaches aren't going to teach that."

-On Russell Westbrook's health after Monday's win: "He was fine. He's fine, yesterday was fine, two days after, he's fine. He was like any other day after a game. He's 100 percent; we wouldn't have put him out there if he wasn't. He passed every test that we had and the medical staff had. The thing that's going to take some time is the rust, there's no question. I think the thing that I saw is just his ball-handling. A lot of times he would get by (the defender) but the ball wasn't with him, that's something that's going take some time, whether it takes a week, two weeks, I don't know.

-On winning 10 straight against Dallas: "I'll tell you how much it matters—I didn't even know that. Every game is different just like every year is different. We know that they're a good team; they're a talented team with experienced players that know how to play.

-Scouting the Mavs: "They're on a high, high level offensively for such an early part of the season. They're more than just two guys. Calderon's good too, he's a high-assist, low-turnover guy; he's a 3-point shooter. Ellis is as fast as any guard in this league and once he puts in his mind where he wants to go it's hard to stop and his outside shooting has improved every year and he's not only a scorer and a shot-maker but he's a passer. They have a good mixture of good shooting; good passing and they can get to the free throw line.

Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle

-Scouting the Thunder: "This team is in it for the long haul, there's no doubt about that. They've got Westbrook back now and he'll re-gain his form very quickly because he's young and he works really hard. Their challenge is going to be to keep integrating younger guys which they've done a great job with Jackson and now Lamb is doing good things. But they've got three max-type guys in Durant, Westbrook and Ibaka and they've got a lot of other real quality guys, like Collison. Every team in the league would love to have Collison.