At halftime of the Thunder-Celtics game, which was just a week ago, OKC owned a dominating 55-37 lead. I was sitting back wondering how good this team could be. They had just blown out the Chicago Bulls and the Milwaukee Bucks and it appeared they were well on their way to blow out the Celtics for easily their best win of the season. That did not happened and the Thunder have now lost four straight games and their season record has now fallen to 4-7. There is too much talent on this team for them to be playing this poorly. We knew it would take some time to get all these new pieces to become a well oiled machine. So, a slow start was not surprising. But this 4-7 start? This was not expected. Not even a little bit.
It would be one thing if the Thunder had lost games like they did to the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Boston Celtics. Those games went down to the wire and the Thunder just didn’t hit some shots late in the game while their opponents did. Over an 82 games season that’s going to happen. Eventually that will even out and OKC will hit their fair share of game winners. But things have changed since those games. This weeks road trip to Portland, Sacramento and Denver were as bad as we’ve seen. But it isn’t the fact that they lost those games that has me concerned this early in the season. It’s how they’ve lost those games that has caused panic for how this season might unfold. This week begs the question a simple question. What’s wrong with this team?
First, before we get started here, there is a ton of time for this team to figure out how to fix what has been going on. There are 71 games left in the season and the Thunder are just three games out of third in the West. So they aren’t completely behind the eight ball yet. But let’s not kid ourselves. This team had preseason expectations of making it to the Western Conference Finals. To do that, this team has to find a way to win games and right the ship before they fall behind in the standings to where they have to be playing perfect basketball in the final month of the season just to give themselves a chance. They need to help themselves now to feel good about their playoff positioning in March or April. But right now, this team just needs to focus on winning a game. The playoff worries will come later.
One thing that isn’t wrong with the team is their defense. Statistically speaking, this is a really good defense. Heck, they may be an elite defense. OKC ranks first in steals-per-game with 11 and first in opponents turnovers-per-game at 18 a game. The Thunder is second in points allowed per-game, allowing just 97.3 points-per-game. The Thunder are fourth in the NBA in opponent field goal percentage, holding their opponents to 43.5-percent shooting. And OKC ranks fifth in blocks per game with an average of 5.7-per-game.
The Thunder are a really tough defense and Paul George is currently leading the NBA in steals-per-game with 2.5-per-game. The one defensive weakness is defensive rebounding. OKC just ranks 19th in the league in total rebounds, which has opened the door for opponents to grab offensive rebounds for easy put backs. That nullifies good defense when the Thunder gives up offensive rebounds off of a forced miss. That has been leading to easy second chance points for the opposition. Outside of that, the defense is far from the problem.
Surprisingly, the issues have come on the offensive end. It doesn’t take a basketball savant to see how poor the Thunder offense has been. It has been just awful at times. The ball sticks. There are many times where the offense bogs down and either Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony or Paul George settle for tough, contested non-paint two’s. There is little ball movement, especially as the game goes on. There is also little player movement. It looks like four guys are standing, waiting for whoever has the ball to make a play. It is easy to defend and it is infuriating to watch. But let’s take a more in-depth look at this four game skid.
The Thunder offense is actually good in the opening quarter. They’ve outscored opponents over the past four games by 26 points in the first quarter. The ball movement has been good. The player movement has been equally good. But that is where the good news stops. In the second quarter the Thunder are being outscored by 11. The Thunder have been just terrible in the third quarter as they’ve been outscored by 32 points. The Thunder has also been a minus-nine in the fourth quarter over this losing streak. For whatever reason this team is getting worse as the game goes on.
Is this a continuity problem?
It would be understandable for this team struggle to find a rhythm. After all, most of this team has been added through trade or free agency. Key pieces on this team weren’t here a season ago. So we knew it would take time for them to gel. We see that team is trying early in the game to play the right way. But as the game goes along, the Big Three reverts back to their comfort zone of isolation basketball.
We know Westbrook has had that same issue even when Scott Brooks was here. Anthony has made a career of scoring the basketball out of iso-ball. Even George has had to play that way in Indiana. So, when things begin to slow down and a plays first option isn’t there, it seems like there is a lack of trust in the offense to continue with the game plan. That is why the Thunder are tied for 20th in the league in assists-per-game with just 21 assists-per-game. Which is odd, because Westbrook is leading the league in assists with 10.4-assists-per-game. That leaves just 11 assists the the rest of the team. That says Westbrook is setting up the offense almost exclusively. When Russ isn’t moving the ball, no one else is either.
Again, the Thunder over this stretch is a plus-26 in the first quarter. So the guys are buying into whatever the game plan is. But what happens the rest of the game? To me, it is one of two things. After the opponent makes their adjustments the Thunder seem to struggle mightily. So, it that on Billy Donovan not making the necessary adjustments or is that on the players for not executing the adjustment?
I’m honestly not sure which it is. But it is clear that there is an issue with offensive adjustments. And it is painfully obvious in the third quarter. The Thunder are a minus-32 in the third quarter over the last four games.
One of the biggest issues is getting Paul George involved in crunch time. PG, who played the entire fourth quarter in Denver, managed to shoot just one time. Meanwhile, Westbrook went 1-7 and forced contested shots. The offense slowed down and the guy who runs the offense was taking wild shots after standing around for 20 seconds hoping someone might leak open. Or the Thunder throw the ball to Melo and let him take on a defender one-on-one. Either way, in a season where you are hoping to convince George that OKC should become is long term home, it doesn’t seem like a solid idea to make him the awkward third wheel to the Westbrook and Melo show.
To me, this is equal parts Billy D, Westbrook and the two new stars. They’ve got to come together and make this work. Otherwise, this could be a complete flop of a season. The team had a closed door meeting after their loss in Denver. We’ll quickly get to see if their heart-to-heart made any difference as the Thunder take their 0-6 record against Western Conference foes up against the Los Angeles Clippers tonight inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
