RealGM

So the season is over. At the halfway point I posted our team's rankings in the offensive and defensive four factors of winning and our ranking in offensive and defensive rating. Here's how we finished the year, compared to how we were 41 games into the season.

Offense NOW (THEN)

eFG%: 19th (21st) of 30
TOV%: 24th (26th) of 30
ORB%: 3rd (7th) of 30
FT/FGA: 2nd (4th) of 30
ORTG: 12th (20th) of 30

We made progress offensively, that much is clear. We improved across the board in the four factors relative to the rest of the league, and it's reflected in our offensive rating. Much of this improvement can be chalked up to Jeff Green and our bench having more productive second halves of the season (Green was awful offensively for almost half the year), Kevin Durant getting to the line constantly, and our ability to secure offensive rebounds (more on this later). Although our TOV% and eFG% also improved relative to the league, they're still problem areas. We need better three point shooting and shot selection in general (especially from our guards), and we obviously turn the ball over way too much.

Areas of improvement are much greater utilization of the corner three. The problem is that none of our players makes them all that frequently. On a few recent late game plays we ended up with iso to ball reversal and got a wide open corner three... only it was Russell Westbrook taking the shot. Right idea, wrong player. Another area of improvement has been finishing in the paint, especially by our big men. And our fast break offense, though still not great, has improved a lot. We still get too cute and tend to turn the ball over a lot on easy transition attempts.

I'd say overall there is some positive stuff going on with our offense but it remains inconsistent. We rely very heavily on getting Kevin Durant and others to the line, and our ability to get second chance shots. Our shot selection has improved a little, but we still take a whole lot of long two pointers (GREEEEN) and Russ hasn't really made the progress I would have hoped for in his shooting, although he's made some.

Defense NOW (THEN)

eFG% 5th (2nd) of 30
TOV% 8th (11th) of 30
ORB% 17th (22nd) of 30
FT/FGA: 18th (17th) of 30
DRTG: 9th (3rd) of 30

Almost as much as we've improved offensively, we've regressed on the other end. Advance scouting in the NBA is very good. When you give a team a look the first time you face them, and continue to give them the same look after the fact you will pay for it. I think this is what happened to our defense in the second half of the year. If you look at our rankings in the four factors, there's little difference in many of them and actually some improvements. We got better relative to the league at forcing turnovers and defensive rebounding. We're sending people to the line at about the same rate

However, the most important factor is our opponent's shooting, and that's where we're getting killed. 2nd down to 5th may not seem like a lot, but that's misleading since we were ahead of the pack (with Charlotte) by quite a margin at the mid way point.

Our problem is that we do a lot of switching on defense. We go under screens, we switch, we collapse the lane, and then help again. Our length and athleticism at many positions makes this seem like a reasonable strategy. However, it's very susceptible to teams that move the ball well, or have a guard that is good at penetrating the lane and/or shooting and can find the open man in traffic. When you switch as often as we do and help as often as we do you're making a bet. You're betting that your defenders can close out to perimeter shooters, or recover on the cutter to the basket without fouling. We're losing those bets a lot more often these days. Watch the tape of the Golden State game and you'll see us losing those bets constantly. Monta Ellis popping long range jumpers when we switch off or go under the screen. Stephen Curry making a wrap around pass to a three point shooter while Jeff Green is a fraction of a second late to close out. Corey Maggette drawing both Nick Collison and Serge Ibaka into the lane, missing his shot, but Ronny Turiaf is there unchecked by his man (because of the help). It's all there.

The other thing that is there is our poor transition defense. We don't give up a lot of transition points, generally. But our transition defense is still poor. It took Hubie Brown about two minutes to figure that one out. The reason? Our guards crash the offensive boards. Look at our offensive rebound ranking and then take a look at our roster. Jeff Green, Kevin Durant are both poor offensive rebounders for their position. Nick Collison is good, and Serge Ibaka is good, but neither plays all that much. So why are we a good offensive rebounding team? Our guards completely sell out on crashing the boards. This leads to some spectacular plays, especially by Russell Westbrook. However, when it doesn't work, or when our guards hang back for steals, it leads to fast break opportunities for the other team. At least half of our fast break points given up recently are due to this trend. And it is by design; Scott Brooks wants our guards (Westbrook and Sefolosha primarily) to crash the boards.

Which brings us to the question: Why do we switch so much and help so aggressively? Why do we use our guards to crash the boards? I'll save my opinion for later.. hopefully someone can respond with their thoughts.

I think we crash the boards aggressively because we don't have the bigs to get the necessary rebounds. It leads to some fast breaks but I guess they live with that because we get more 2nd chance opportunities. I think when we get better rebounder's in the front court we will see less aggressiveness on the boards from our back court.

Also I think we switch so much because they want to instill the principals into the team. I'm guessing switching will be a big part of our future.

great breakdown slick

our offense should improve naturally with the natural progression of our youngsters (and starting Harden, im looking at you Brooks)

and managing to land a real paint protector would do wonders for our defense. Im not saying the effort shouldn't be consistent but we wouldn't have to be nearly as perfect to play good D with a real shot blocker and intimidator in the middle.

edit: its an interesting point you raise about the offensive rebounding, hmmmmmmmm

I was looking over Eric Maynor's shooting stats and was pleasantly surprised when I noticed he shot the ball really well from 10 feet and out since being traded here.

http://www.hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=Eric%20Maynor
10-15 feet = 48.1%
16-23 feet = 48.0%
three's = 54.3 eFG%

If he can consistently hit the mid range jumper and 3 point shot he can be a really good backup for us.

Wow. Small sample but very encouraging. Nice find. Surprised me too...

slick_watts wrote:So the season is over. At the halfway point I posted our team's rankings in the offensive and defensive four factors of winning and our ranking in offensive and defensive rating. Here's how we finished the year, compared to how we were 41 games into the season.

Offense NOW (THEN)

eFG%: 19th (21st) of 30
TOV%: 24th (26th) of 30
ORB%: 3rd (7th) of 30
FT/FGA: 2nd (4th) of 30
ORTG: 12th (20th) of 30

We made progress offensively, that much is clear. We improved across the board in the four factors relative to the rest of the league, and it's reflected in our offensive rating. Much of this improvement can be chalked up to Jeff Green and our bench having more productive second halves of the season (Green was awful offensively for almost half the year), Kevin Durant getting to the line constantly, and our ability to secure offensive rebounds (more on this later). Although our TOV% and eFG% also improved relative to the league, they're still problem areas. We need better three point shooting and shot selection in general (especially from our guards), and we obviously turn the ball over way too much.

Areas of improvement are much greater utilization of the corner three. The problem is that none of our players makes them all that frequently. On a few recent late game plays we ended up with iso to ball reversal and got a wide open corner three... only it was Russell Westbrook taking the shot. Right idea, wrong player. Another area of improvement has been finishing in the paint, especially by our big men. And our fast break offense, though still not great, has improved a lot. We still get too cute and tend to turn the ball over a lot on easy transition attempts.

I'd say overall there is some positive stuff going on with our offense but it remains inconsistent. We rely very heavily on getting Kevin Durant and others to the line, and our ability to get second chance shots. Our shot selection has improved a little, but we still take a whole lot of long two pointers (GREEEEN) and Russ hasn't really made the progress I would have hoped for in his shooting, although he's made some.

Defense NOW (THEN)

eFG% 5th (2nd) of 30
TOV% 8th (11th) of 30
ORB% 17th (22nd) of 30
FT/FGA: 18th (17th) of 30
DRTG: 9th (3rd) of 30

Almost as much as we've improved offensively, we've regressed on the other end. Advance scouting in the NBA is very good. When you give a team a look the first time you face them, and continue to give them the same look after the fact you will pay for it. I think this is what happened to our defense in the second half of the year. If you look at our rankings in the four factors, there's little difference in many of them and actually some improvements. We got better relative to the league at forcing turnovers and defensive rebounding. We're sending people to the line at about the same rate

However, the most important factor is our opponent's shooting, and that's where we're getting killed. 2nd down to 5th may not seem like a lot, but that's misleading since we were ahead of the pack (with Charlotte) by quite a margin at the mid way point.

Our problem is that we do a lot of switching on defense. We go under screens, we switch, we collapse the lane, and then help again. Our length and athleticism at many positions makes this seem like a reasonable strategy. However, it's very susceptible to teams that move the ball well, or have a guard that is good at penetrating the lane and/or shooting and can find the open man in traffic. When you switch as often as we do and help as often as we do you're making a bet. You're betting that your defenders can close out to perimeter shooters, or recover on the cutter to the basket without fouling. We're losing those bets a lot more often these days. Watch the tape of the Golden State game and you'll see us losing those bets constantly. Monta Ellis popping long range jumpers when we switch off or go under the screen. Stephen Curry making a wrap around pass to a three point shooter while Jeff Green is a fraction of a second late to close out. Corey Maggette drawing both Nick Collison and Serge Ibaka into the lane, missing his shot, but Ronny Turiaf is there unchecked by his man (because of the help). It's all there.

The other thing that is there is our poor transition defense. We don't give up a lot of transition points, generally. But our transition defense is still poor. It took Hubie Brown about two minutes to figure that one out. The reason? Our guards crash the offensive boards. Look at our offensive rebound ranking and then take a look at our roster. Jeff Green, Kevin Durant are both poor offensive rebounders for their position. Nick Collison is good, and Serge Ibaka is good, but neither plays all that much. So why are we a good offensive rebounding team? Our guards completely sell out on crashing the boards. This leads to some spectacular plays, especially by Russell Westbrook. However, when it doesn't work, or when our guards hang back for steals, it leads to fast break opportunities for the other team. At least half of our fast break points given up recently are due to this trend. And it is by design; Scott Brooks wants our guards (Westbrook and Sefolosha primarily) to crash the boards.

Which brings us to the question: Why do we switch so much and help so aggressively? Why do we use our guards to crash the boards? I'll save my opinion for later.. hopefully someone can respond with their thoughts.

Great work as always man.
Some general toughts;

Offense: we do rely too much on Kevin. We spend an awful lot of time putting screens for him, and if for whatever reason it doesn't work, we're stuck with a forced Russel penetration or a quick hasty Kevin shoot.
One of our main problems, imo, is still the use of Westbrook. He's becoming better and better as a point guard. IMO, we still don't iso him enough, coz he can do wonders against loads of point guards there.
We don't have nearly enough ball movement. We don't use Green in a good way. Like I said earlier, if you're gonna live with his many weaknesses as a PF, then you better use his qualities on offence, coz we're only getting the bad side of the deal, which is an undersized, light PF. We should use him more, make him use his speed and triple-threat skills more, use him in the post as a passer more.
We need some P&R with Durant and Green too, especially Durant. We don't do that enough.

About the offensive rebounding, I don't really view an explanation on Brooks' idea. I mean, its great having Westbrook so active, but if he want that to continue, then Kevin,Jeff, Thabo needs to get back quicker and more often on D.

Congrats on Coach of the Year Well deserved!!!!!!!