2018-2019 OKC Thunder Regular Season Pt 1: A Renewed Hope

[Old Man Game]

Throwing off the backboard passes against PHX is fun and all, but I find myself wanting to see this team play and play well against better competition. Next week with the Kings and then the Warriors, then Denver as the tail end of a back to back beginning with Charlotte will tell us a lot more about where we're at.

[getrichordie]

Ferguson-George-Grant-Adams per stats.nba.com:

119.7 ORtG | 93.9 DRtG | +25.8 NetRtG in 172 minutes

Among 4-Man-Lineups with at least 150 mp, that's the 2nd best offense and the 3rd best defense.

per ctg:

122.8 ORtG | 95.3 DRtG | +27.5 NetRtG in 711 possessions

I still don't know why this is working, especially offensively. I think a lot of it is variance (like Grant shooting 53.3 % from 3 or Ferguson shooting 38.5 % from 3 in that lineup), but at some point one has to consider that there is actually something there on both ends.

wait until our schedule gets harder.

This. Our schedule will get harder, but we are without question playing better on both sides of the ball than we were last year and we don’t have Roberson yet and Westbrook has missed about half of the games.


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[Pillendreher]

Ferguson-George-Grant-Adams per stats.nba.com:

119.7 ORtG | 93.9 DRtG | +25.8 NetRtG in 172 minutes

Among 4-Man-Lineups with at least 150 mp, that's the 2nd best offense and the 3rd best defense.

per ctg:

122.8 ORtG | 95.3 DRtG | +27.5 NetRtG in 711 possessions

I still don't know why this is working, especially offensively. I think a lot of it is variance (like Grant shooting 53.3 % from 3 or Ferguson shooting 38.5 % from 3 in that lineup), but at some point one has to consider that there is actually something there on both ends.

wait until our schedule gets harder.

Sure, that absolutely matters. But at the same time, I think it's interesting that contrary to last season, this iteration of the starters has been working, especially defensively, so far. After Roberson went down, the starters had no chance at defending anybody at a respectable level. That lineup without Roberson last year gave up 16 more points per 100 possessions than the Ferguson-Grant starters have so far. They basically tried everybody at the 2 last season and not a single one of those lineups even managed an average defensive performance.

I'm sure this lineup won't stay at +25 NetRtG as the season progresses, but it's something they can be content with so far. Like I've said: I still don't understand why it's working.

[CROklahoma]

Bob Beyer.

[slick_watts]

Bob Beyer.

wrong.

if the defense holds up it's billy donovan who should get the lion's share of the credit. i don't think it will hold up like this but some of the scapegoaters here will be eating crow if it does.

bob beyer was a failure in detroit. svg's defense was a failure. it was steve clifford who ran those orlando defenses for svg not beyer. beyer is a stooge.

[getrichordie]

Ferguson-George-Grant-Adams per stats.nba.com:



Among 4-Man-Lineups with at least 150 mp, that's the 2nd best offense and the 3rd best defense.

per ctg:



I still don't know why this is working, especially offensively. I think a lot of it is variance (like Grant shooting 53.3 % from 3 or Ferguson shooting 38.5 % from 3 in that lineup), but at some point one has to consider that there is actually something there on both ends.

wait until our schedule gets harder.

Sure, that absolutely matters. But at the same time, I think it's interesting that contrary to last season, this iteration of the starters has been working, especially defensively, so far. After Roberson went down, the starters had no chance at defending anybody at a respectable level. That lineup without Roberson last year gave up 16 more points per 100 possessions than the Ferguson-Grant starters have so far. They basically tried everybody at the 2 last season and not a single one of those lineups even managed an average defensive performance.

I'm sure this lineup won't stay at +25 NetRtG as the season progresses, but it's something they can be content with so far. Like I've said: I still don't understand why it's working.

Defense is why it’s working. We get super easy buckets in transition; enough so that we can still be **** at shooting but get enough possessions and play well enough defense that the **** shooting doesn’t matter.


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[CROklahoma]

Bob Beyer.

wrong.

if the defense holds up it's billy donovan who should get the lion's share of the credit. i don't think it will hold up like this but some of the scapegoaters here will be eating crow if it does.

bob beyer was a failure in detroit. svg's defense was a failure. it was steve clifford who ran those orlando defenses for svg not beyer. beyer is a stooge.

You cant be a good cook, without good ingredients.
Its simple, your hate for him is currently hugely unargumented.

[ThunderBolt]

If Bob beyer doesn’t get any credit and it all goes to Dononvan, that’s kind of a black mark for Adrian Griffin.

[getrichordie]

Bob Beyer.

wrong.

if the defense holds up it's billy donovan who should get the lion's share of the credit. i don't think it will hold up like this but some of the scapegoaters here will be eating crow if it does.

bob beyer was a failure in detroit. svg's defense was a failure. it was steve clifford who ran those orlando defenses for svg not beyer. beyer is a stooge.

You cant be a good cook, without good ingredients.
Its simple, your hate for him is currently hugely unargumented.

That perfectly sums up my feelings on Billy Donovan. Thank you for putting it so eloquently. I wouldn’t have been able to come up with such a great analogy.



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[Kiwi_thunder]

For me one of the major reasons that the defence is looking much better is that we don't have Russ on the floor and we no longer have Melo on the team.

It doesn't matter how good a defensive scheme you have (whoever is responsible for it) if you have players who either a) are incapable of keeping up with players like Melo couldn't and b) you have a player in Russ who constantly compromises the defence by being out of position or losing his man.

With Robes we can at least mitigate Russ' worst tendencies but having both Russ and Melo and no Robes on the court? Im surprised we didn't lose more games last year. I hope that PG (and also Adams) calls out Russ when he compromises the defence to chase rebounds or argue a call with the ref.

Great podcast about Robes and his defence by Rob Mahoney

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cadence13/breakaway-2/e/53187301

[bondom34]

Problem with that is Schroder hasn't historically been as good a defender as Westbrook. Speaking of defense, Bobby wrote a good piece on the issues with the pick and roll coverage.

https://www.welcometoloudcity.com/2018/11/13/18082624/last-chance-pick-and-roll-defense-thunder

[Osirus89]

For me one of the major reasons that the defence is looking much better is that we don't have Russ on the floor and we no longer have Melo on the team.

It doesn't matter how good a defensive scheme you have (whoever is responsible for it) if you have players who either a) are incapable of keeping up with players like Melo couldn't and b) you have a player in Russ who constantly compromises the defence by being out of position or losing his man.

With Robes we can at least mitigate Russ' worst tendencies but having both Russ and Melo and no Robes on the court? Im surprised we didn't lose more games last year. I hope that PG (and also Adams) calls out Russ when he compromises the defence to chase rebounds or argue a call with the ref.

Great podcast about Robes and his defence by Rob Mahoney

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cadence13/breakaway-2/e/53187301

Brother...... Nobody on this team is calling out Russ. I think we have all made peace with that

[slick_watts]

anyone want to discuss the westbrook / no westbrook defensive splits?

[bondom34]

Weak so. And only common opponent was better defense with him.

[bondom34]

[url][/url]Weak sos. And only common opponent was better defense with him.

[slick_watts]

Weak so. And only common opponent was better defense with him.

we're allowing 6pp100 less relative to opponent pp100 in games he does not play. in games he has played, we're allowing 7pp100 less when he is on the bench.

not drawing any conclusions, just putting the numbers out there.

[bondom34]

Weak so. And only common opponent was better defense with him.

we're allowing 6pp100 less relative to opponent pp100 in games he does not play. in games he has played, we're allowing 7pp100 less when he is on the bench.

not drawing any conclusions, just putting the numbers out there.

Sounds like you're trying to.

And the only common opponent was held to a lower pp100 with him.

[slick_watts]

in games westbrook has played, we are allowing 109.48pp100 in his 220 minutes.

in 141 minutes without dennis schroder paired with him, we are allowing 103.82pp100.
in 79 minutes with dennis schroder paired with him, we are allowing 119.88pp100.

this seems like a more reasonable explanation than what you are saying, bondom.

westbrook-schroder pairing are going to kill the team.

[Pillendreher]

Just looking at the starters, the difference in DRtG is negligible imo: 93.5 for the Schröder starters, 98.1 for the Westbrook starters. Both excellent.

[bondom34]

Westbrook/Schroder has been a bad pairing. The rest doesn't seem reasonable given sample size. Especially when yesterday just you argued the schedule was weak sans Westbrook.