Hamidou Diallo of the Oklahoma City Thunder shared his thoughts with the media about this season for his and what it’s like to have Chris Paul as a teammate.

On what he has learned so far this season

“Just learning how to guard players, getting a feel for the game. Just staying composed.”

On the OKC Thunder’s defence

“We’re battling. We have athletic guards that just want to battle and just go out there guard the best players every night. We challenge ourselves to go out there and stop those guys. They’re great players and great players make tough shots.

“It’s great to go out there and guard the best players and try to stop those guys. It’s fun for me and it’s fun to be able to do other things as well. I am just trying to be as all-around of a player as I can be.”

On what stands out about OKC so far

“Our will. We have the will to compete and we have the will to go after it. Many people think coming in that it’s going to be a walk in the park. We just come and fight and play hard and leave it all on the court.

“The goal is to win games and do whatever it takes to get wins. I feel like we have a group of guys that’s willing to do that. We just have to come in every night and keep getting better.”

“We’re a hungry team and we’re trying to go out there to compete and leave it all on the court.”

On the addition of Chris Paul

“Chris is a guy that just scopes things out minutes before they even happen. He is a guy that’s been around for so long. Just being able to soak up knowledge from him and him being confident in me, that’s big for us as a team. He is that way with all of us. Giving us pointers in the game, in practice, on bus rides, on planes. Just being a veteran guy. For him to be confident in this team and be confident in us, it’s great to have him on our side.”

On taking pride in the team playing close games

“It just speaks for what kind of team we are. We are a team that is going to fight, we’re never going to stop fighting and no matter what the scoreboard says we’re going to come out there and we’re going to keep pushing and keep pushing.”

NBA Saturdays presented by NBA2K20 on Sky Sports – part of a record 48 Primetime games live on Sky Sports starting from 8:30pmevery weekend. This week on 2 November the Oklahoma City Thunder host the New Orleans Pelicans on Sky Sports Mix from 9pm