LukasBMW wrote:My takeaways:
Positive:
- We played way better.
- TJ Warren is the real deal folks. 30 points and 9 boards on 13-18 shooting. That's absurd!
- Booker missed so many shots he usually makes, but he will be fine. I love love his confidence and swagger.
- Bledsoe and Chandler are good players. If we have any playoff hopes, it requires both of them stay healthy. That may be a tall order. Can we please get them some help? They won't last if we have to play them 40 minutes a game!
Negative:
-Knight with 19 and 6 on 7/18 shooting. From the stat line, it MIGHT seem like he had a good game. If you watched, you know differently. He cannot make any passes in traffic nor can he find any open players. His other stat line says it all -18 in the +/-
-Len with -19 in +/-. Also had 3 points and 4 fouls. What a waste. He seriously played better as a rookie!
-Imagine...JUST IMAGINE how good we would be with a REAL center!!! We'd win games! Can we get Tyson some help please?
-Knight should not start OR FINISH games. He really shouldn't finish games because he CHOKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSS!
Misc:
-Westbook is a beast. He might be the best small player EVER. Is there a PG that could ever do what he does? He carries the Thunder. Taking 44 shots is comical, but 51/13/10 is INSANE!
Westbrook is an amazing athlete and probably the best guard ever at reaching the front of the rim on the fast break. His combination of explosiveness with the ball, long strides, and leaping ability is historically unique, and he plays with the mentality of an animal. Actually, he is analogous to the Velociraptors from the
Jurassic Park movies. (Never mind that I deem
Jurassic World insulting and that the species of dinosaur incorrectly labeled "Velociraptor" in the films is actually called "Deinonychus.")
http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/typesofdinosaurs/ss/10-Facts-About-Deinonychus.htm#step7 But therein lies the rub. A point guard ultimately needs to be a human being, not a dinosaur, in terms of how he plays. A point guard (even if he is not a traditional point guard, even if he is not a true point guard) should never attempt 44 field goals in a game—never. At the press conference following the triple-overtime Game Three of the 1993 NBA Finals, Charles Barkley—flanked by Dan Majerle and Kevin Johnson—scanned the box score printout and noticed that Michael Jordan had attempted 43 field goals. (Jordan converted 19, scoring 44 points.) Exclaimed Barkley, who had played that game with his painful right elbow heavily padded (he had crashed to the floor in the previous contest):
Michael Jordan shot the ball forty-three times! Damn. Damn! He's gonna be icing his elbow, too.
(Kevin Johnson, who had played the first 62 minutes and 40 seconds of the 63-minute game without a break and had guarded Jordan for most of that 43-FGA assault, could merely muster a mild smile. I think that he was too tired to do anything else.)
Of course, Jordan was a shooting guard and he attempted those 43 field goals over 57 minutes of NBA Finals action. A point guard (even if he is a "combo guard" or whatever), on the other hand, should possess some sense of discernment and a conscience. Russell Westbrook, however, has no conscience on the basketball floor. That absence of conscience is one of his greatest strengths, but it is also his greatest weakness. He never hesitates to try and devour the defense—and he often does so, just like Deinonychus in dinosaur times. But Westbrook is also, in effect, a glutton. His voracious appetite still leads to too many wild shots (mainly threes), dubious shot selection, bad plays, and overall inefficiency. Keep in mind that over his last five postseasons, Westbrook has shot .414 from the field, .445 on two-point field goal attempts, .294 on threes (in 4.3 attempts per game), and posted an assists-to-turnover ratio of barely 2.0:1.0 (2.02:1.00). Despite vastly superior scoring talent, those shooting statistics are not all that different from what Jason Kidd shot in the playoffs from 1997-2009, as Kidd over that time shot .399 from the field, .443 on two-point field goal attempts, and .314 on threes (in 4.2 attempts per game) during the postseason. Granted, Westbrook enjoys something of an equalizer in the sense that he is a high-volume free throw shooter who buries his free throws, thus salvaging his True Shooting Percentage (his scoring efficiency) to some extent, but Kidd was much more efficient as a playmaker.
Earlier during last season's playoffs, I stated that I doubted that a team led or co-led by Russell Westbrook would ever win a championship. bwgood wondered why I would say that, but in the end, while Westbrook averaged a spectacular 26.7 points, 11.3 assists, 7.0 rebounds, 3.7 steals, and 8.7 free throw attempts (shooting .820) during the 2016 Western Conference Finals versus Golden State, he also shot .395 from the field in 22.4 attempts per game, including .317 on threes in 5.9 attempts per game. In the last two games, when the Thunder blew major opportunities, he shot 2-11 on threes. When you throw away possessions in the playoffs due to a reckless style and a lack of discipline, you almost always come up short.
Given his ability to reach the free throw line and get wherever he wants on the court, Russell Westbrook should rarely attempt a three. Yes, he hit two in his third-quarter explosion against the Suns, but overall, he shot 2-10 on threes. Remove his three-point attempts and Westbrook would have shot 15-34 from the field—still a very high volume of field goal attempts for a point guard (especially in a regular season game) and still not a great percentage, but much more palatable. Westbrook could have used those other possessions, meanwhile, to move the ball more (beyond assists), get some other guys some more touches, diversify the offense a little, and so forth. But again, Westbrook has no conscience—his mental strength is his weakness and his weakness is his strength.
And, sure, without Kevin Durant, the Thunder does not seem to possess much of an offense right now beyond Westbrook attacking on the break, rocketing to the basket off the high pick-and-roll, or occasionally isolating on the block, the baseline, or the wing (or else once in awhile curling off a down-screen that might then turn into a pick-and-roll/pop). Some of the responsibility for Westbrook's 44 field goal attempts must thus go to the coaching staff, but clearly, this player lacks self-discipline.
When Barkley still played for Philadelphia, Phil Jackson once told the
Chicago Tribune that he deemed Sir Charles "a great, great player, maybe unstoppable. But he's got no discipline, none. You can't win with a player like that." To me, those words similarly fit Westbrook. Now, that is not to say that Oklahoma City should look to trade him or anything; the Thunder is blessed to have Westbrook and blessed that he wanted to remain with the franchise. But just as Phoenix's failure to win a championship with Barkley should be unsurprising given Jackson's comments, Westbrook presents a similar paradox. For that reason, I would take a number of "small guards" in NBA history over Westbrook, including—to cite a current player—Chris Paul, even though Paul has never played in a conference finals in eleven NBA seasons and even though Paul cannot change directions nearly as dynamically as Westbrook, often leading to more stagnant and predictable playoff offenses. Even so, discipline, discernment, and a conscience are so important in the postseason, especially for a point guard. Chris Paul is a human being; Russell Westbrook is Deinonychus. Deinonychus is scarier, but in the end, you still need that human mind and human ethic.
I will say that Westbrook may constitute the most spectacular "small guard" in history, although I would actually consider Westbrook a mid-sized guard. He is 6'3" in actual height, the same actual height as Dwyane Wade, and his length, strength, and leaping ability allow him to play even bigger, so to speak. (For a point of comparison, Steve Nash's listed height was 6'3", but I doubt that he is any taller than 6'1" and 1/2 without sneakers. Nash himself once said that he was just 6'2", and he may have only reached that height in shoes.) Make no mistake, Russell Westbrook is a relatively big point guard, and he posted up all three of Phoenix's point guards at one time or another. Regardless, I have never seen him more spectacular and unstoppable than Friday night, especially in the open floor. Somehow, as he nears his twenty-eighth birthday, he seems more explosive than ever.
Nothing may have been able to stop Westbrook on Friday night, but I do question what the Suns were doing defensively. In pick-and-roll situations, the Phoenix big man (usually Chandler or Len) defending the screener seemed to just be laying way back, as if to tempt Westbrook into shooting jump shots. Indeed, the term "soft trap" would seem to be too generous. The problem is that when you allow Westbrook to build up a head of steam (whether in the open floor or in pick-and-rolls), he generates so much thrust that you are pretty much at his mercy. Instead, the defense has to pressure Westbrook sooner and give him less space so that he cannot build up that head of steam and fully ignite (or else find plenty of space for a mid-range jumper around the foul line or see the court very clearly to find shooters or cutters). Yes, if you blitz Westbrook or use a high, hard trap in pick-and-rolls, the danger is that the big man will get too high on the floor, that Westbrook will turn the corner or split the trap, and then your big man is out of the picture and cannot recover.
(Partly for this reason, what would help is to have length, height, and shot-blocking beyond the center, for instance a forward tandem of Chriss and Bender, something that we will not see much of any time soon yet would not be implausible at some point in the future. Two decades ago, the NBA featured these sorts of "tall" lineups much more often. In '97-'98, for example, San Antonio often started three centers—Will Perdue, David Robinson, and Tim Duncan. By default, Duncan became the "small forward," and he actually spent much of the Spurs' 1998 playoff opener at Phoenix defending Jason Kidd. And when Houston won its first championship in 1994, the Rockets' starting small forward was Robert Horry, an extremely athletic 6'9" shot-blocker with long arms. The potential drawback to such lineups, of course, tends to be a lack of floor spacing, but Horry developed three-point range that season. Then in February 1995, Houston traded its starting power forward, interior stalwart Otis Thorpe, to Portland for Clyde Drexler, and for the rest of the year, the Rockets featured a three-point shooting finesse "power forward," either Horry or Pete Chilcutt, hence prefiguring the types of spatial schemes that dominate the NBA nowadays. Since both Bender and Chriss possess potential as three-point shooters, the Suns might one day be able to spread the floor without sacrificing height, length, and shot-blocking—at least that is the hope.)
But even with the risk of Westbrook turning the corner or splitting the trap, the Suns still needed to pressure him sooner rather than allowing him to accelerate in space. During the 1995 Western Conference Semifinals between Houston and Phoenix (especially in Game Seven), NBC's Steve "Snapper" Jones (a former ABA guard) would talk about how Kenny Smith needed to go to Kevin Johnson when the latter had the ball, meaning that he needed to pick Johnson up sooner—higher on the floor—and then try to direct him one way or the other. If Johnson came at him with a head of steam and got Smith back-peddling, the Suns' point guard could choose his own direction. Bill Walton, also working the game, agreed with Jones, remembering back to their playing days in the 1970s when Pete Maravich would be unstoppable after he got a head of steam going. Likewise, in his 1995 autobiography,
Living the Dream (page 282), Hakeem Olajuwon states that during Game Seven, he told Smith and Sam Cassell, Houston's other point guard, "Meet him [Johnson] way out front, don't just let him come."
Again, the risk against an explosive point guard like that is that you will be burned too far up the floor and then your whole defense will collapse. But in pick-and-roll situations, the Suns should have at least thrown some harder traps at Westbrook or sent a help defender to the play sooner. Instead, Phoenix gave him the space to resupply his jet fuel constantly.
Worse, the Suns did not seem to make any notable strategic adjustments as the game went on. In recent months, I have been studying a Phoenix game at Detroit from March 1996 that I will mention in another thread if I get back to it. The Pistons back then possessed a lot of outside shooting and could really stretch the floor, especially by the standards of the time. Early on, the Suns dealt with Detroit's pick-and-rolls by trapping the ball-handler and sending a help defender from the weak side to cover the rolling screener (or else they would send the help defender to trap ball-handler, while the big man defender would never leave the screener in the first place). The Pistons would then swing the ball out to an open shooter, and because Detroit possessed so much shooting or perimeter skill and could space the floor so widely, the Suns could not get out to the uncovered shooter in time. But before the first quarter was even over, Phoenix had changed its defensive scheme entirely. Instead of trapping, helping, and rotating, the Suns started switching to prevent an opening in the first place. Naturally, this scheme was not perfect and would create some mismatches, but it worked much better overall, and mismatches in the post could be more easily attacked with double teams and shorter defensive rotations.
Unfortunately, I did not see the Suns attempt to alter their strategy in any significant way last night. Instead, they kept giving Westbrook the space to do what he does best off the high pick-and-roll. Perhaps that failure was a product of a thirty-seven-year old head coach in his first full season, as opposed to a sixty-four-year old Cotton Fitzsimmons back in 1996. Or maybe the Suns thought that since they were leading for most of the game, they did not need to adjust their strategy, as Westbrook supposedly could not beat them by himself. But as Kenny Smith stated on TNT on Thursday night, in pick-and-roll defense, the big man defending the screener has to remain attached, or connected, to either the screener or the ball-handler. He cannot just float around in what Smith called "no man's land," yet that seemed to be the Suns strategy against Westbrook: just hang back and vaguely try to discourage him. Well, with his explosiveness and long strides, Westbrook will eat up that space very quickly, change directions as he sees fit, and elevate with supreme power.
By the way, I did not feel that Len played that badly, especially in the second half, and unadjusted Plus-Minus figures are unreliable, particularly for a given game. That said, arguing with a 1-4 FG, 0-point, 0-rebound, 4-foul performance in 14 minutes is difficult. Still, the Suns' defensive scheme may have placed him in disadvantageous positions for the reasons that I mentioned.
I also do not understand Watson's lineup for Oklahoma City's final live-ball offensive possession, after Westbrook called timeout with Phoenix leading by one. Instead of going with a small lineup, Watson should have opted for more size and length. Feature a front-court of Chandler, Chriss, and Warren or Dudley, and bench one of the three guards. Moreover, I would have assigned Bledsoe to Westbrook rather than Knight. Yes, Bledsoe had five fouls, but there were less than twenty seconds remaining and the Suns possessed the lead. With one stop, Phoenix probably would have won the game. Moreover, Bledsoe had been ineffective offensively in the overtime session (and for much of the game, really), so losing him would not have been that meaningful at that point, especially since both Booker and Knight could create with the ball. And Knight has ranked as one of the lesser defensive point guards in the NBA, rendering him a less than ideal choice to defend Westbrook one-on-one with the game on the line.
http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2016/page/2/sort/DRPM/position/1http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2015/page/2/sort/DRPM/position/1http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/2014/sort/DRPM/position/1 As for the shots that Booker "usually makes," see my earlier comments a couple of posts ago.
I basically agree about Knight, but shooting 7-18 from the field and 1-6 on threes, with 2 assists against 5 turnovers, does not indicate a good game regardless of his 19 points. Knight was actually playing well for awhile, but then he started struggling—he is a streaky player who needs to be pulled once he loses his rhythm and confidence. Indeed, he tends to look either really good or really bad, with little in between, and he presumes and prejudges too many plays, hence accounting for his awful assists-to-turnover numbers in general. Bledsoe is similar in that regard, only not quite as bad.
Warren certainly seems to have worked on his ball handling and his shooting ability off the dribble; he is a much more complete offensive player now, especially compared to when he first entered the NBA two years ago.
