Oklahoma City Thunder Regular Season 2015-2016 Part 2

[bondom34]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/anthonyVslater/status/675535477798137856[/tweet]

That's better than Golden State.

Golden State has tailed off on defense this season a bit. The Celtics scared the crap out of them tonite.

Was away from the computer watching the game, glad to see you're back posting RK, its a welcome and wise voice . KD was just gassed, but came up big. I'd be annoyed but second of a btb and he's still not totally in shape IMO. Kanter was ehh....Dion to me made shots but didn't really play well, too much looking for himself. Russ was still the energizer bunny mostly, and Serge turned back to a pumpkin. Jazz fans got to boo Kanter to no end, but in the end they hung tough and pulled it out. Rest up tomorrow fellas. Not a game that makes me feel good, but not bad either.

[bondom34]

Also, if Russ took the shots KD did at the end, reddit woulda flipped.

[bondom34]

And I like the smile from Donovan, KD seems happy...

[tweet]https://twitter.com/royceyoung/status/675524266092322816[/tweet]

[Cuban_Linx]

From NewOK's old fuddy-duddy, the "Fruit", Berry Tramel:



http://newsok.com/sharing-is-caring-durant-westbrook-pass-thunder-to-victory/article/5466125

Nobody in the media was more cheesed by the Brooks firing than Tramel... nobody.

Not saying I'm not pleased with the last 2 games. Just saying so far we still haven't seen more than that (2 games), and overall the results are no better than what Brooks got. They're still miles behind GSW and maybe a little (though I'm not entirely sure) behind the Spurs.

snip

This is cool. We've been needing someone to defend Donovan with good arguments. He's been very nice this past week. Although I'm still not completely happy with the rotations. Dion's reverted back to old habits and you can't keep enabling that stupid brand of ball by giving him 30mpg. We also still need to fully realize Morrow and Kanter's skills by putting them in there with Russ.

There's still a couple things we can improve on, but we're heading to the right direction.

[Cuban_Linx]

On the comments about this team having the same Ortg as Brooks' teams. I think you're looking at it wrong if you're just comparing it by the end results of Ortg. Brooks had some potent RS offenses, but the questions always revolved around how reliable that type of offense would be when it got tough. In the PS we can't afford to just let Russ and KD ISO until they run out of gas and the offense bleeds to death.

If Donovan gets us the same Ortg, but with better distribution of the shots among the role players and Serge I'll be very happy. I'm always gonna prefer ISO as a last resort over ISO as our primary form of offense.

[spearsy23]

On the comments about this team having the same Ortg as Brooks' teams. I think you're looking at it wrong if you're just comparing it by the end results of Ortg. Brooks had some potent RS offenses, but the questions always revolved around how reliable that type of offense would be when it got tough. In the PS we can't afford to just let Russ and KD ISO until they run out of gas and the offense bleeds to death.

If Donovan gets us the same Ortg, but with better distribution of the shots among the role players and Serge I'll be very happy. I'm always gonna prefer ISO as a last resort over ISO as our primary form of offense.

Post season offenses were always fine as long as we had Russ AND KD. we haven't lost a playoff series with both of them and Serge healthy since the finals. On top of that, who was Brooks supposed to be getting involved? Perkins, Thabo, Fisher, Nick, young Reggie, K-Mart, Butler, rookie Steven, Thabeet. The only positive offensive players were K-Mart and, to a very minor extent, RJ. Even Serge wasn't a real positive offensively until Russ missed most of a season.

[Cuban_Linx]

On the comments about this team having the same Ortg as Brooks' teams. I think you're looking at it wrong if you're just comparing it by the end results of Ortg. Brooks had some potent RS offenses, but the questions always revolved around how reliable that type of offense would be when it got tough. In the PS we can't afford to just let Russ and KD ISO until they run out of gas and the offense bleeds to death.

If Donovan gets us the same Ortg, but with better distribution of the shots among the role players and Serge I'll be very happy. I'm always gonna prefer ISO as a last resort over ISO as our primary form of offense.

Post season offenses were always fine as long as we had Russ AND KD. we haven't lost a playoff series with both of them and Serge healthy since the finals. On top of that, who was Brooks supposed to be getting involved? Perkins, Thabo, Fisher, Nick, young Reggie, K-Mart, Butler, rookie Steven, Thabeet. The only positive offensive players were K-Mart and, to a very minor extent, RJ. Even Serge wasn't a real positive offensively until Russ missed most of a season.

Thabo, Fish, Nick, Reggie, K-Mart, Butler, Adams could all be used as at least some sort of distraction instead of just letting them loaf around as basically another obstacle KD and Russ will have to work around on their way to the basket. If guys like 2011 Spo and Pop looked at players like that and went on thinking most of them didn't deserve to be involved in the offense, their teams would've never gotten to the championship level they eventually got to.

Not saying I expected us to make that Heat like transformation, but I've always thought we'd be better of with some more sophistication in our offense.

[Pillendreher]

Kevin Durant's return watch:

Record: 7-2
ORtG: 107.6 (2rd); 107.5 overall (2nd)
DRtG: 97.1 (5th); 100.00 overall (11th)
NetRtG: 10.6 (3rd); 7.5 overall (3rd)

[spearsy23]

On the comments about this team having the same Ortg as Brooks' teams. I think you're looking at it wrong if you're just comparing it by the end results of Ortg. Brooks had some potent RS offenses, but the questions always revolved around how reliable that type of offense would be when it got tough. In the PS we can't afford to just let Russ and KD ISO until they run out of gas and the offense bleeds to death.

If Donovan gets us the same Ortg, but with better distribution of the shots among the role players and Serge I'll be very happy. I'm always gonna prefer ISO as a last resort over ISO as our primary form of offense.

Post season offenses were always fine as long as we had Russ AND KD. we haven't lost a playoff series with both of them and Serge healthy since the finals. On top of that, who was Brooks supposed to be getting involved? Perkins, Thabo, Fisher, Nick, young Reggie, K-Mart, Butler, rookie Steven, Thabeet. The only positive offensive players were K-Mart and, to a very minor extent, RJ. Even Serge wasn't a real positive offensively until Russ missed most of a season.

Thabo, Fish, Nick, Reggie, K-Mart, Butler, Adams could all be used as at least some sort of distraction instead of just letting them loaf around as basically another obstacle KD and Russ will have to work around on their way to the basket. If guys like 2011 Spo and Pop looked at players like that and went on thinking most of them didn't deserve to be involved in the offense, their teams would've never gotten to the championship level they eventually got to.

Not saying I expected us to make that Heat like transformation, but I've always thought we'd be better of with some more sophistication in our offense.

They all were. The idea that every player not named KD/Russ were just standing there is ridiculous. You don't put together o-ratings of 110+ like that. Seriously, I'm so sick of seeing bull**** like this, Brooks was good at using non-talented offensive players to create space for KD, Russ, Serge, Harden and Martin. They were put in good positions and took advantage of matchups, and it lead to great offensive teams.

Pop is on record saying that if he had players like Russ and KD he would be putting them in isolation situations constantly. Spo basically turned the offense over to Lebron in the playoffs the last couple of years.

[getrichordie]

Didn't catch the game last night @ Utah. What happened? Only 4 pts? Were guys not hitting shots? Were we getting open looks? Lackadaisical on defense again? What stood out to you guys as to why we struggled with Utah.

[Pillendreher]

Oh, I think it was just the game being the 3rd in 4 days and the team not bringing its best . We would have blown those Jazz out of their own arena if we were locked in.

But I'll take it. This is not a "They're this bad" win, it's "they just grinded it out" win.

[KD35Brah]

Didn't catch the game last night @ Utah. What happened? Only 4 pts? Were guys not hitting shots? Were we getting open looks? Lackadaisical on defense again? What stood out to you guys as to why we struggled with Utah.

Westbrook went to the bench and Durant gave up the lead(not taking over and playing TRASH defense) late in the 3rd.

Westbrook missed all five of his shots on some wild shot attempts in the 4th along with horrible defense on Burke. Grabbed the game sealing reboound though.

Serge forgot how to box out his man. Dumbest travel ever on a potential Westbrook assist.

Once again allowing penetration with NO HELP, which lead to sending Utah to the line excessively.

Everyone looked gassed and out of it, Durant was complete trash until the 4th. Serge started 1-8 on wide open shots, if he makes atlaest 5 of these shots, the game would have been much different.

[KD35Brah]

Also we had Serge and Kanter on the floor at the same time, Westbrook got the switch onto one of the bigs and Serge and Kanter made no attempts to clear out to the 3pt line. They just clogged the paint.

Donovan was probably telling them to space out and none of them heard him( has said the same to KD several times).

[Cuban_Linx]

Post season offenses were always fine as long as we had Russ AND KD. we haven't lost a playoff series with both of them and Serge healthy since the finals. On top of that, who was Brooks supposed to be getting involved? Perkins, Thabo, Fisher, Nick, young Reggie, K-Mart, Butler, rookie Steven, Thabeet. The only positive offensive players were K-Mart and, to a very minor extent, RJ. Even Serge wasn't a real positive offensively until Russ missed most of a season.

Thabo, Fish, Nick, Reggie, K-Mart, Butler, Adams could all be used as at least some sort of distraction instead of just letting them loaf around as basically another obstacle KD and Russ will have to work around on their way to the basket. If guys like 2011 Spo and Pop looked at players like that and went on thinking most of them didn't deserve to be involved in the offense, their teams would've never gotten to the championship level they eventually got to.

Not saying I expected us to make that Heat like transformation, but I've always thought we'd be better of with some more sophistication in our offense.

They all were. The idea that every player not named KD/Russ were just standing there is ridiculous. You don't put together o-ratings of 110+ like that. Seriously, I'm so sick of seeing bull**** like this, Brooks was good at using non-talented offensive players to create space for KD, Russ, Serge, Harden and Martin. They were put in good positions and took advantage of matchups, and it lead to great offensive teams.

I don't mean to say it was all ISO all the time, but acting like running some basic horns sets was some ingenious way to involve everyone just isn't true. Brooks never been good at exploiting matchups. Remember what happened when Doc put CP3 on KD? Brooks responded by calling post up after post up for KD 25 feet from the basket where he couldn't do anything without fear of getting it stripped. The offense has stalled tons of times and we've had some difficulties getting the ball to guys who weren't KD or Russ in 4th quarters. Remember Serge (back when he was hyperefficient) basically getting shut out of 4th quarters whenever it got tough? We've even had Thabo or Martin (forgot which one) saying it's hard to stay engaged as a role player in OKC because you never know when your next shot is gonna come. Brooks put none of those guys in good positions. He was a good coach because he was a motivator and improved his rotations as time went on, but he's never been a smart offensive coach.

Pop is on record saying that if he had players like Russ and KD he would be putting them in isolation situations constantly. Spo basically turned the offense over to Lebron in the playoffs the last couple of years.

That's just an offhand Pop quote you're taking outta context. You're not gonna tell me Pop and Brooks would run the exact same offense.
As for the Heat, they had a whole offensive system around LeBron and they were one of the smartest passing teams in the league.

[Soonerule]

And I like the smile from Donovan, KD seems happy...

[tweet]https://twitter.com/royceyoung/status/675524266092322816[/tweet]

Good, I wasn't the only one that saw that! and yeh, I liked the smile Billy D gave back to KD, it was like, "told ya, I got this". Now Billy D is one of "guys", KD just made him a part of the team's sideline celebration.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.
Confucius

Presti has planted a seed, that will become a tree, that will teach his players for a long long time. I'm telling you, the guy doesn't think like the rest of us.

[Pillendreher]

'm telling you, the guy doesn't think like the rest of us.

No, he clearly doesn't. This guy wouldn't be here if it were up to us:

[KD35Brah]

Lamb would still be here if Donovan was the coach last year.

[slick_watts]

on ortg and drtg-- these numbers are meaningless in a vacuum. comparing ortg and drtg for teams in different years is not meaningful because league average pp100 can fluctuate. scoring 100pp100 in a season where the average team is scoring 90pp100 is obviously more impressive than doing the same in a season where the average is 100pp100.

by the same token, league pp100 is depressed this year. at its lowest since the hand-check rule changes were implemented in 2004-05. this actually makes our offense better than it seems, and our defense worse.

here's a nifty link: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/

notice that our rel. ortg this year is only slightly behind 2012-13 (our best season offensively) despite the absolute ortg being nearly two points worse. also notice our rel. drtg is -.9 -- worse than 2012-13 defense despite the absolute drtg being nearly the same.

so yeah. be careful comparing offenses and defenses absolutely between seasons.

[slick_watts]

On the comments about this team having the same Ortg as Brooks' teams. I think you're looking at it wrong if you're just comparing it by the end results of Ortg. Brooks had some potent RS offenses, but the questions always revolved around how reliable that type of offense would be when it got tough. In the PS we can't afford to just let Russ and KD ISO until they run out of gas and the offense bleeds to death.

If Donovan gets us the same Ortg, but with better distribution of the shots among the role players and Serge I'll be very happy. I'm always gonna prefer ISO as a last resort over ISO as our primary form of offense.

i'm calling bull on this one. the usage on our team is concentrated at the top with durant and westbrook just like it always is. when they are on the court together in fourth quarters, it's not likely anyone else is going to shoot-- just like it always was. westbrook's usage this year: 34.2%. westbrook's usage in 2013-14: 34.1%.

if anything this team is more reliant on westbrook and durant than it ever was because of the lack of offensive talent elsewhere on the roster. in 2013-14, only thabo and perkins were role players under league average ts%. this year, ibaka, collison, roberson, waiters, singler are all below.

[Cuban_Linx]

On the comments about this team having the same Ortg as Brooks' teams. I think you're looking at it wrong if you're just comparing it by the end results of Ortg. Brooks had some potent RS offenses, but the questions always revolved around how reliable that type of offense would be when it got tough. In the PS we can't afford to just let Russ and KD ISO until they run out of gas and the offense bleeds to death.

If Donovan gets us the same Ortg, but with better distribution of the shots among the role players and Serge I'll be very happy. I'm always gonna prefer ISO as a last resort over ISO as our primary form of offense.

i'm calling bull on this one. the usage on our team is concentrated at the top with durant and westbrook just like it always is. when they are on the court together in fourth quarters, it's not likely anyone else is going to shoot-- just like it always was. westbrook's usage this year: 34.2%. westbrook's usage in 2013-14: 34.1%.

if anything this team is more reliant on westbrook and durant than it ever was because of the lack of offensive talent elsewhere on the roster. in 2013-14, only thabo and perkins were role players under league average ts%. this year, ibaka, collison, roberson, waiters, singler are all below.

You're calling bull on what exactly? I didn't say the shots were better distributed. I'm saying, hypothetically, if Donovan ends up with the same Ortg, but in a way that that makes us less reliant on the shotmaking of KD and Russ I'll be happy.

KD and Russ are always gonna be our primary players, but I just believe shotmaking role players are gonna play a factor if you're gonna go all the way. If we can get the same Ortg by having Russ and KD try involving roleplayers and taking over if necessary, I'm gonna prefer that over having the same Ortg by letting Russ and KD play 2 on 5. It just seems more reliable to me against good defensive teams. Again, not saying that's what's already happening. Just that I'd be glad if that would be where this team is going.