What Gonzaga's Chet Holmgren said before NBA Finals debut

The 2025 NBA Finals tip off Thursday night at the Paycom Center, where the Oklahoma City Thunder will look to defend home court against the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of their best-of-seven series.

The Gonzaga men's basketball program has its fingerprints all over this year's championship round, with Chet Holmgren and Andrew Nembhard representing the Zags a few years after spending one season together in Spokane as college teammates.

Holmgren and Nembhard guided the Bulldogs to a 28-4 record during the 2021-22 campaign, fueling a trip to the Sweet 16 before going their separate ways at the draft — Holmgren was picked No. 2 overall by the Thunder and Nembhard went No. 31 overall to the Pacers.

Now, the former Gonzaga standouts will compete against one another for the right to hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy. Gonzaga is the only school with two starters represented in this year's Finals, guaranteeing that at least one former Bulldog will be crowned a champion this month.

Here's more from Holmgren ahead of Game 1 (Thursday at 5:30 p.m. PST, ABC).

On the keys to OKC's success as a younger team

"I'd say the biggest thing is playing for each other, one; and two, the type of guys that we have here. If you ask anybody that, everybody's going to tell you that they're a winner, and everybody is a winner until it's inconvenient for them. You know what I'm saying?"

"I feel like we have a team with 17 winners [who] you know are going to put winning at the top of the totem pole over anything else, really. And does that mean that you're guaranteed to win every single night? No, but you know when that's the main focus and you're not working toward anything else, you're able to kind of chase that better than if you had a different perspective on it."

On the areas of his game that improved from last season

"I feel like I see the game better in different ways. Obviously, last year we had a very defined play style, and we kind of lived or died with it, and this year we have a lot of different looks that we can throw at teams; and I feel like I still have a long ways to go, and I can improve in so many different things on both ends of the ball. But being able to kind of see those situations and work on them, I feel like I've been able to improve on them."

On his love for the playoffs and approach to preparing for an opponent

"I love the playoffs personally. Because in the regular season, you'll run into situations where the schedule is really beating another team down, and they'll kind of take a game to reload and everything; and then toward the end of the season, some teams are playing for certain things or playing for different, I guess you could say intentions."

"But in the playoffs, you get everybody's best shot every single night, which you know is the way you want it to be. And it's been great to be able to learn from every single night and try and figure out how to be better for the next one. And you're also seeing the same team for two weeks rather than playing a new team every single night."

"So you're really able to take a deep dive, get into things and, it's really like a puzzle; you got to take the time to figure it out, rather than in the regular season, I feel like you're just working on your own stuff and trying to build yourself throughout the whole season. In the playoffs, it's been taking that and also trying to kind of figure out the other team."

On what he's learned from his teammate and former champion Alex Caruso

"One of the most important things that he's come in here and taught us is the importance of executing the details. You'll see so many times, he makes a huge play out there and it really comes down to inches. Was he in the right spot by a few inches? Was he able to reach the ball and poke it away by a few inches?"

"That comes down to knowing where you need to be and when you need to be there, what you need to do and how to execute it. And he's really come in and preached the importance of that, and [has] kind of shown us firsthand what that looks like. It's been big. It's helped all of us."