11/22 - POSTGAME | Golden State Warriors (91) - (108) Oklahoma City Thunder

[getrichordie]

His reliance on pick-and-roll variants (particularly Spain pick-and-roll) is similar. We run a ton of that.

Darn it you beat my edit. Houston runs a good bit more, as well as a lot more shooting and different shot types. They can have similarity without being terribly similar overall.

I think you need to distinguish between what's being run as a part of the offense and what's being run as "break glass in case of emergency" or freelance. Yes, we have some designed plays that wind up in the midrange (PG pindowns often generate that). I'm fine with that. Basketball isn't played on spreadsheets, and having guys comfortable enough with the midrange to hit those looks in the playoffs when defenses clamp down on easy shots is a good thing IMO.

Watch the way the Spurs killed the Rockets offense on the vine last year because of the Moreyball emphasis on only taking high-value shots. The fact that the Rockets passed up on simpler looks in areas they didn't like to take more challenging looks in areas that were "higher-value" made it easier for the Spurs to defend. They conceded areas of the court they might not normally because they knew the Rockets wouldn't use them.

Great way to explain it. Houston just looks different because they have a completely different group of guys to work with - a lot of them are great 3-pt shooters which is why they are so effective at running it. They have a ton of space where we have, as Jeff Van Gundy put it in the Lowe Post podcast, the Roberson dilemma which makes things more challenging. Van Gundy also pointed out that it is naive of a coach to ask a player this late in their career (Melo, George) to play differently. He summed it up great by saying, "you aren't going to Klay Thompson and asking him to take more shots off the dribble and create isolation plays for himself."

Anyways, you seem to understand the problem of generating elite offense in this system when Westbrook is shooting as bad as Roberson. Is it just me or can you see where that would be incredibly challenging for the offense to overcome?

[slick_watts]

starters last year:



starters this year:



i mean. it's pretty clear where the drop-off is here. the question is whether or not this is on billy donovan? solve this problem and regain those 7pp100 with the starters on offense and we could be a 6+ srs team. i do not think teams are approaching dre any differently especially to make such a huge difference that we have right now between offensive impact last year to this year.

theoretically, westbrook should be more efficient with this group considering the drop in usage. carmelo also has a drop in usage.

whether or not he is to blame in reality, billy will be the scapegoat if this continues.

[getrichordie]

Spoiler:

starters last year:



starters this year:

i mean. it's pretty clear where the drop-off is here. the question is whether or not this is on billy donovan? solve this problem and regain those 7pp100 with the starters on offense and we could be a 6+ srs team. i do not think teams are approaching dre any differently especially to make such a huge difference that we have right now between offensive impact last year to this year.

theoretically, westbrook should be more efficient with this group considering the drop in usage. carmelo also has a drop in usage.

whether or not he is to blame in reality, billy will be the scapegoat if this continues.

Am I missing something? stats.nba is showing Westbrook's USG% at 31.5 and basketball-reference has it at 32.2

Where are you pulling this info from? nbawowy?

EDIT: Oh, I see this is just the starter's advanced stats.

Maybe Westbrook has trouble not going 100 mph and now that he is playing at a slower, more controlled pace, he's struggling? Seems feasible.

And yeah, teams aren't approaching Dre any differently, it's just hard when Westbrook's shooting so bad. It's a offensive brain-teaser in itself just having Roberson out there. Imagine a guy not named Westbrook shooting that bad. It would suddenly make sense to a lot of folks because his name isn't attached to the terrible play.

[slick_watts]

Spoiler:

starters last year:



starters this year:

i mean. it's pretty clear where the drop-off is here. the question is whether or not this is on billy donovan? solve this problem and regain those 7pp100 with the starters on offense and we could be a 6+ srs team. i do not think teams are approaching dre any differently especially to make such a huge difference that we have right now between offensive impact last year to this year.

theoretically, westbrook should be more efficient with this group considering the drop in usage. carmelo also has a drop in usage.

whether or not he is to blame in reality, billy will be the scapegoat if this continues.

Am I missing something? stats.nba is showing Westbrook's USG% at 31.5 and basketball-reference has it at 32.2

Where are you pulling this info from? nbawowy?

EDIT: Oh, I see this is just the starter's advanced stats.

Maybe Westbrook has trouble not going 100 mph and now that he is playing at a slower, more controlled pace, he's struggling? Seems feasible.

it's not only westbrook, though. it's anthony, too. and playing slow is presumably beneficial to his game, no?

in any event, with the roster changes that have been made, someone needs to bear responsibility for the drop-off offensively with the starters if it continues much longer.

[getrichordie]

Spoiler:

starters last year:



starters this year:

i mean. it's pretty clear where the drop-off is here. the question is whether or not this is on billy donovan? solve this problem and regain those 7pp100 with the starters on offense and we could be a 6+ srs team. i do not think teams are approaching dre any differently especially to make such a huge difference that we have right now between offensive impact last year to this year.

theoretically, westbrook should be more efficient with this group considering the drop in usage. carmelo also has a drop in usage.

whether or not he is to blame in reality, billy will be the scapegoat if this continues.

Am I missing something? stats.nba is showing Westbrook's USG% at 31.5 and basketball-reference has it at 32.2

Where are you pulling this info from? nbawowy?

EDIT: Oh, I see this is just the starter's advanced stats.

Maybe Westbrook has trouble not going 100 mph and now that he is playing at a slower, more controlled pace, he's struggling? Seems feasible.

it's not only westbrook, though. it's anthony, too. and playing slow is presumably beneficial to his game, no?

in any event, with the roster changes that have been made, someone needs to bear responsibility for the drop-off offensively with the starters if it continues much longer.

I think the simplest explanation is usually right - Westbrook needs to shoot better like he did last night. We look totally different when he's making shots. And are you saying that playing slow benefits Melo? Or are you saying it benefits Westbrook? Melo, yes. Westbrook, no. But when we are playing defense at this high of a level, something has to give. The team can't go 100 mph all the time. They have to pace themselves. Pun intended. It's a long season.

[spearsy23]

whether or not he is to blame in reality, billy will be the scapegoat if this continues.

I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive. Billy can shoulder a lot of blame despite Russ also struggling.

[spearsy23]

Am I missing something? stats.nba is showing Westbrook's USG% at 31.5 and basketball-reference has it at 32.2

Where are you pulling this info from? nbawowy?

EDIT: Oh, I see this is just the starter's advanced stats.

Maybe Westbrook has trouble not going 100 mph and now that he is playing at a slower, more controlled pace, he's struggling? Seems feasible.

it's not only westbrook, though. it's anthony, too. and playing slow is presumably beneficial to his game, no?

in any event, with the roster changes that have been made, someone needs to bear responsibility for the drop-off offensively with the starters if it continues much longer.

I think the simplest explanation is usually right - Westbrook needs to shoot better like he did last night. We look totally different when he's making shots.

This is the criticism. Even I could take the ball, hand it to Russ, and say "Go make baskets." Designing sets that get him, George, and Anthony good looks in comfortable positions is another matter. Establishing the correct pecking order is even more advanced, and generating equal opportunity best shot offense is in a realm that only the truly GOAT coaches can reach.

Then there is designing sets that generate quality offense without Russ/PG. When Raymond Felton has to be an isolation superstar for our bench to get a bucket that's indicative of poor offensive sets/execution. And this isn't something new, it's not like this is context dependent, we've watched the same struggles for three years.

You don't like Russ, that's no secret, but trying to shift the conversation from Donovan by saying 'Russ has been bad' is not a productive defense of Donovan. And saying 'if Russ makes shots we win games' is even more worthless, because we added PG and Melo with the idea that we wouldn't be 100% dependent on Russ making shots like we were last year.

[ThunderBolt]

The game was ESPN's largest audience for a regular-season non-Christmas game since the Warriors beat the Memphis Grizzlies on April 13, 2016, to set the NBA regular-season wins record.

[spearsy23]

The game was ESPN's largest audience for a regular-season non-Christmas game since the Warriors beat the Memphis Grizzlies on April 13, 2016, to set the NBA regular-season wins record.

And how sweet it is to finally not suck in a nationally televised game after the embarrassment that was last year.

[getrichordie]

Spoiler:

[

In response to spearsy's statement (not question), I'll have to go through the threads and see what's been said as I don't always get on here often, though I have been lately. It'd be helpful if you could point me in the right direction.

As far as that being an example of dumb lineups, can you give me a better one? Because that was a terrible example. So what if he stuck his end of the bench guys in when they were up 20 late in the 4th against Chicago? I mean that is seriously riding Donovan hard if we are going to criticize him for that.

As far as playing Adams more minutes versus NOP, you realize that his calf had been bothering him right? That's why he only played 25 minutes versus NOP. Donovan even said that his playing time would be dependant upon how he was feeling. So yeah, if Adams' says his calf is bothering him, I'm letting him rest, because it's a long season. As I said before, if Adams was to ever go down, this team would be screwed because we have no depth at the 5.

And I'm not excusing the 3rd or 4th quarter. It's obviously been an issue. But I guess the easy thing to do is to put it all on Donovan.

Even Adams said it:

“Mainly me, to be honest (should be blamed). Because the play itself you have to execute it properly and it has to be legit down to the t. I screwed up my feet on a couple of them in terms of spacing. … Everyone plays a part in the plight so you can say yeah the shot doesn’t go in which sucks. But to get them that shot I didn’t help them.”

Oh and there's this:

Read on Twitter

That's suggestive that the players are not sticking with the gameplan down the stretch. I personally think when they get punched in the mouth, Westbrook's response is to play hero ball and jacks up shots; it has a really bad effect on the rest of the team when your leader scraps the gameplan.

Yeah, Westbrook isn't great at working through screens either, but if he actually worked on that part of his game, he could close out better. Let's not pretend like Westbrook always tries on defense. Everyone knows Westbrook is notorious for giving sub-par effort on defense. I think I saw a clip the other day of Westbrook standing right beside a guy on the perimeter and Westbrook just walked towards him with his hands down and he hit the 3. I think it might have been NOP?

So... Sabonis. #1. He was a rookie with us. He's made progress. It's his 2nd year. Indiana is using him at the 5 primarily. How did you expect us to use Sabonis? Play him instead of Kanter at the 5? Yeah, let's bench our 17mil/yr center for Sabonis or we could ask Kanter to play PF? I mean, there's a lot wrong with playing Sabonis at the 5 last year. I can go into more detail if needed. And so what if they are trying to develop his outside shot? It's helped him obviously. But if you can convince me of a better way to use Sabonis last year than what we were doing, I'll concede that point. But there was no way he was playing 5 instead of Kanter. Kanter would have been pretty much useless at that point.

And you are excusing the fact that Donovan designed last year's offense around Russ last year. It was all about Russ. And Russ won MVP. But Donovan had nothing to do with that, I'm sure.

OK...

Literally half of last season. We saw Grant/Semaj/Roberson trios. We see now Felton close games alongside Russ. We see things that clearly have no shot at working thrown out for 5 minute stretches weekly. You have to really not pay attention to miss them.

Adams was however playing remarkably well showing no signs he was hurt. He got 2 early fouls, was pulled, and didn't sub back in because, well....?

Sure, the 3rd and 4th isn't on Donovan. It's magic. He gets no blame at all. The opponent adjusts and OKC does too, but OKC's adjustments just don't show because clearly our players are all morons who don't pay attention.

And what do you want Adams to say "Yea, our coach is a bleepin moron."? He's doing what a good leader and every player does.

I personally think you've gone way too far for years to blame Westbrook when the coach is hired because his boss is his friend and has only won because he's had more talent, never actually proving he was capable of anything but basic interactions. Many here feel that way, and you don't, but have yet to substantiate that with anything other than deflection.

And that's the thing. He's SUPPOSED to sink those screens. Horne wrote on it. If he was supposed to be there, great, complain. But that's the game plan! So is switching Adams on to PGs when they're killing him! The genius gameplan!

And yes, you could have found minutes for Domas at the 5, especially given Kanter was useless defensively. Or play him not at the 3 point line all the time so he can play to his strengths.

And last year Donovan didn't design an offense. It was literally "Here's the ball, I hope Russ does something". You keep saying he designed things that have no design. There's nothing there, its 3 guys standing still and a high screen. You've even said it's similar to Houston's offense now which is mind-blowing to me. One is run by one of the greatest offensive minds of all time and has historic numbers over the years with varying talent. One is a bunch of guys playing street ball. Seriously?

How many people have to demonstrate he's a bad coach before we reach the conclusion he's a bad coach. Because I don't think I know many, if any, who consistently watch this team and think they're well coached.

Last year was all about player development which is the minute distribution was the way it was. Presti is huge on player development and Donovan has a lot of experience developing young players. Donovan will sometimes throw guys in uncomfortable situations on purpose to help them grow and see how they respond and adjust accordingly. Sacramento is doing the same thing right now with their squad where no one is averaging more than 26 minutes a game. It's the smart thing to do when you are out of contention.

Do you know many coaches are friends with GMs? A lot. It's a GM's job to have connections and recruit personnel.

We can quibble about Domas, but ultimately he is in his second year and Indiana has had a need at center. We didn't. We needed a stretch 4. Big deal. The league is going to stretch 4s anyway. Nothing wrong with experimenting. Kind of how we experimented with Serge Ibaka. I think that turned out pretty good. But I get it. Some fans don't have the patience for player development. Especially the year we were a Draymond-Green-ejection away from making the Finals.

And I think we already came to the conclusion that Donovan did have a system in place. So I'll just leave it at that. No one has demonstrated he's a bad coach. Bad coaches don't almost knock off a 73-win team in the WCF. I mean, if you like to think it was just the players, that's fine.

Oh, and by the way, did you know that Russ had career-highs in TS%, VORP, Offensive Win-Shares, Defensive Win-Shares, ORtg on his 4th lowest USG% of his career in Donovan's first year as coach. Not bad, I'd say.

And yeah, no one has demonstrated that he's a bad coach. There's not a shred of evidence for it.

[spearsy23]

And yeah, no one has demonstrated that he's a bad coach. There's not a shred of evidence for it.

He played Semaj Christon and Norris Cole in a playoff series. At the same time.

You don't get to ignore evidence then say there is none. That's not the way the world works.

[bondom34]

Spoiler:

[

In response to spearsy's statement (not question), I'll have to go through the threads and see what's been said as I don't always get on here often, though I have been lately. It'd be helpful if you could point me in the right direction.

As far as that being an example of dumb lineups, can you give me a better one? Because that was a terrible example. So what if he stuck his end of the bench guys in when they were up 20 late in the 4th against Chicago? I mean that is seriously riding Donovan hard if we are going to criticize him for that.

As far as playing Adams more minutes versus NOP, you realize that his calf had been bothering him right? That's why he only played 25 minutes versus NOP. Donovan even said that his playing time would be dependant upon how he was feeling. So yeah, if Adams' says his calf is bothering him, I'm letting him rest, because it's a long season. As I said before, if Adams was to ever go down, this team would be screwed because we have no depth at the 5.

And I'm not excusing the 3rd or 4th quarter. It's obviously been an issue. But I guess the easy thing to do is to put it all on Donovan.

Even Adams said it:



Oh and there's this:

Read on Twitter

That's suggestive that the players are not sticking with the gameplan down the stretch. I personally think when they get punched in the mouth, Westbrook's response is to play hero ball and jacks up shots; it has a really bad effect on the rest of the team when your leader scraps the gameplan.

Yeah, Westbrook isn't great at working through screens either, but if he actually worked on that part of his game, he could close out better. Let's not pretend like Westbrook always tries on defense. Everyone knows Westbrook is notorious for giving sub-par effort on defense. I think I saw a clip the other day of Westbrook standing right beside a guy on the perimeter and Westbrook just walked towards him with his hands down and he hit the 3. I think it might have been NOP?

So... Sabonis. #1. He was a rookie with us. He's made progress. It's his 2nd year. Indiana is using him at the 5 primarily. How did you expect us to use Sabonis? Play him instead of Kanter at the 5? Yeah, let's bench our 17mil/yr center for Sabonis or we could ask Kanter to play PF? I mean, there's a lot wrong with playing Sabonis at the 5 last year. I can go into more detail if needed. And so what if they are trying to develop his outside shot? It's helped him obviously. But if you can convince me of a better way to use Sabonis last year than what we were doing, I'll concede that point. But there was no way he was playing 5 instead of Kanter. Kanter would have been pretty much useless at that point.

And you are excusing the fact that Donovan designed last year's offense around Russ last year. It was all about Russ. And Russ won MVP. But Donovan had nothing to do with that, I'm sure.

OK...

Literally half of last season. We saw Grant/Semaj/Roberson trios. We see now Felton close games alongside Russ. We see things that clearly have no shot at working thrown out for 5 minute stretches weekly. You have to really not pay attention to miss them.

Adams was however playing remarkably well showing no signs he was hurt. He got 2 early fouls, was pulled, and didn't sub back in because, well....?

Sure, the 3rd and 4th isn't on Donovan. It's magic. He gets no blame at all. The opponent adjusts and OKC does too, but OKC's adjustments just don't show because clearly our players are all morons who don't pay attention.

And what do you want Adams to say "Yea, our coach is a bleepin moron."? He's doing what a good leader and every player does.

I personally think you've gone way too far for years to blame Westbrook when the coach is hired because his boss is his friend and has only won because he's had more talent, never actually proving he was capable of anything but basic interactions. Many here feel that way, and you don't, but have yet to substantiate that with anything other than deflection.

And that's the thing. He's SUPPOSED to sink those screens. Horne wrote on it. If he was supposed to be there, great, complain. But that's the game plan! So is switching Adams on to PGs when they're killing him! The genius gameplan!

And yes, you could have found minutes for Domas at the 5, especially given Kanter was useless defensively. Or play him not at the 3 point line all the time so he can play to his strengths.

And last year Donovan didn't design an offense. It was literally "Here's the ball, I hope Russ does something". You keep saying he designed things that have no design. There's nothing there, its 3 guys standing still and a high screen. You've even said it's similar to Houston's offense now which is mind-blowing to me. One is run by one of the greatest offensive minds of all time and has historic numbers over the years with varying talent. One is a bunch of guys playing street ball. Seriously?

How many people have to demonstrate he's a bad coach before we reach the conclusion he's a bad coach. Because I don't think I know many, if any, who consistently watch this team and think they're well coached.

Last year was all about player development which is the minute distribution was the way it was. Presti is huge on player development and Donovan has a lot of experience developing young players. Donovan will sometimes throw guys in uncomfortable situations on purpose to help them grow and see how they respond and adjust accordingly. Sacramento is doing the same thing right now with their squad where no one is averaging more than 26 minutes a game. It's the smart thing to do when you are out of contention.

Do you know many coaches are friends with GMs? A lot. It's a GM's job to have connections and recruit personnel.

We can quibble about Domas, but ultimately he is in his second year and Indiana has had a need at center. We didn't. We needed a stretch 4. Big deal. The league is going to stretch 4s anyway. Nothing wrong with experimenting. Kind of how we experimented with Serge Ibaka. I think that turned out pretty good. But I get it. Some fans don't have the patience for player development. Especially the year we were a Draymond-Green-ejection away from making the Finals.

And I think we already came to the conclusion that Donovan did have a system in place. So I'll just leave it at that. No one has demonstrated he's a bad coach. Bad coaches don't almost knock off a 73-win team in the WCF. I mean, if you like to think it was just the players, that's fine.

Oh, and by the way, did you know that Russ had career-highs in TS%, VORP, Offensive Win-Shares, Defensive Win-Shares, ORtg on his 4th lowest USG% of his career in Donovan's first year as coach. Not bad, I'd say.

And yeah, no one has demonstrated that he's a bad coach. There's not a shred of evidence for it.

Last year was development? That's bad, because the young players didn't develop. It took most of them leaving to do that.

And I don't know how many people you've ignored to say nobody's shown he's a bad coach. It's been countless people, I'm not sure you are paying attention now.

And no, we didn't conclude he had a system. His entire system is "Give someone the ball and do something". Players developed better under Brooks, with the same offense, and more success. I'm not sure how anyone has shown he's a good coach, and you've somehow ignored everyone showing he's a bad one.

Edit: As for coaches and GMs being friends, how many do you know? And how many did said GM hire without interviewing any other candidates? Because I can think of one, and it's not a front office you want to be compared to.

[bondom34]

it's not only westbrook, though. it's anthony, too. and playing slow is presumably beneficial to his game, no?

in any event, with the roster changes that have been made, someone needs to bear responsibility for the drop-off offensively with the starters if it continues much longer.

I think the simplest explanation is usually right - Westbrook needs to shoot better like he did last night. We look totally different when he's making shots.

This is the criticism. Even I could take the ball, hand it to Russ, and say "Go make baskets." Designing sets that get him, George, and Anthony good looks in comfortable positions is another matter. Establishing the correct pecking order is even more advanced, and generating equal opportunity best shot offense is in a realm that only the truly GOAT coaches can reach.

Then there is designing sets that generate quality offense without Russ/PG. When Raymond Felton has to be an isolation superstar for our bench to get a bucket that's indicative of poor offensive sets/execution. And this isn't something new, it's not like this is context dependent, we've watched the same struggles for three years.

You don't like Russ, that's no secret, but trying to shift the conversation from Donovan by saying 'Russ has been bad' is not a productive defense of Donovan. And saying 'if Russ makes shots we win games' is even more worthless, because we added PG and Melo with the idea that we wouldn't be 100% dependent on Russ making shots like we were last year.

All of this.

Scenario: If I have a class full of students and give them a test, and they didn't study. One group does nothing but choose answer A. One group only answers C.

The answers were all C. The students who chose C got a better grade, are they better students or did they walk into it blindly? Because that's whats happening here.

[Pillendreher]

Oh, and by the way, did you know that Russ had career-highs in TS%, VORP, Offensive Win-Shares, Defensive Win-Shares, ORtg on his 4th lowest USG% of his career in Donovan's first year as coach. Not bad, I'd say.

Donovan himself admitted he didn't want to change the offense because it was already working really well. So you habe the same team running Brooks' successful offense and Russ coming off taking a leap the prior season.

Russ having a great year? Anything less would have been a surprise.

And yeah, no one has demonstrated that he's a bad coach. There's not a shred of evidence for it.

The well presented evidence does not go away because you choose to ignore it.

Let's face it: The only thing that has ever lead me to believe that Donovan is better than it seems is that 2016 Playoffs run. Other than that, the overwhelming evidence points to him being way over his head. Him coaching NBA players like they're in College (he himself said he wants players to do things he knows they can't do; this explains why he is never able to get the most out of players because he is intentionally putting them in situations in which they can't succeed) is one of the main reasons we're constantly underperforming.

[getrichordie]

it's not only westbrook, though. it's anthony, too. and playing slow is presumably beneficial to his game, no?

in any event, with the roster changes that have been made, someone needs to bear responsibility for the drop-off offensively with the starters if it continues much longer.

I think the simplest explanation is usually right - Westbrook needs to shoot better like he did last night. We look totally different when he's making shots.

This is the criticism. Even I could take the ball, hand it to Russ, and say "Go make baskets." Designing sets that get him, George, and Anthony good looks in comfortable positions is another matter. Establishing the correct pecking order is even more advanced, and generating equal-opportunity best-shot offense is in a realm that only the truly GOAT coaches can reach.

Then there is designing sets that generate quality offense without Russ/PG. When Raymond Felton has to be an isolation superstar for our bench to get a bucket that's indicative of poor offensive sets/execution. And this isn't something new, it's not like this is context dependent, we've watched the same struggles for three years.

You don't like Russ, that's no secret, but trying to shift the conversation from Donovan by saying 'Russ has been bad' is not a productive defense of Donovan. And saying 'if Russ makes shots we win games' is even more worthless because we added PG and Melo with the idea that we wouldn't be 100% dependent on Russ making shots like we were last year.

There's a huge difference between not being dependent on Russ making shots like last year and overcoming Russ' awful shooting performances this year. It's not the same thing. Do you know many games are won when a player shoots sub-35% from the field on 20 or more shots? It's not a lot. Russ' record when he plays like that is 18-39. It's that hard to overcome. To think it's an in an indictment of a team or a coach not to overcome that poor of a performance is just crazy talk.

It is up to Russ to decide what a good shot is and a bad shot is. He's been getting good shots. He has been getting in his usual spots and he's been getting comfortable looks. He's just not making them. We aren't running anything different than we did last year and he matched his career high in TS%. If anything, he's getting better looks.

And Felton is not ISO-ing enough to even mention that as being a factor or to add credibility to your statement. He has an ISO Freq of 9.1% and when he happens to ISO his eFG% is 72.7%. He's been in 11 ISO situations total over 17 games. That's 1 ISO every other game. Are you seriously that anal about ISO play?

And I don't know why people think I don't like Russ. I love Russ. I love OKC basketball. But I don't let my fandom get in the way of what I'm seeing. I think Russ has to be better. Doesn't mean I don't like the guy.

And shouldn't the conversation shift away from Donovan if there is sufficient evidence that it is Russ' poor performance that has been the main catalyst in our early season struggles? What's wrong with getting down to the nitty gritty and figuring out what's actually wrong? You know, even Van Gundy said, "The analysis of coaches - we always say it's a player's league until we analyze the reasons for losing and once a team starts losing we are in this sports culture of immediately focusing on the coach and asking if he's lost the locker room." Before this statement, Lowe and Van Gundy discussed that sometimes the reason you lose games is simple and it's sometimes just due to players playing bad.

And by the way, can you point me to the lineup where both Cole and Norris were on the court at the same time? I'd like to see that. And so what if he played Christon at times and Cole at times if that's what you are talking about. It's not like Donovan had a full deck to work with so you are really going to criticize him for his end of the bench substitution choices when HOU was blowing them out in Game 1? It's amazing we were even able to take 1 game vs HOU last year. I would say Donovan coached his ass off. Did you really expect us to beat HOU? Hell, we kept it super close - the last 3 losses were by 6 points or less. If you look at that roster on paper you would say there is no way we would be able to touch HOU, but he made it work.

[spearsy23]

There's a huge difference between not being dependent on Russ making shots like last year and overcoming Russ' awful shooting performances this year. It's not the same thing. Do you know many games are won when a player shoots sub-35% from the field on 20 or more shots? It's not a lot. Russ' record when he plays like that is 18-39. It's that hard to overcome. To think it's an in an indictment of a team or a coach not to overcome that poor of a performance is just crazy talk.

That's 4 games total this year, less than half of what we've lost. And Ignoring the question of why Russ feels it's necessary to take 20 shots (hint: we don't create offense any other way in the half court). Again, this is a horrible defense of Donovan, literally nobody has claimed Russ has been a positive. You're attempting to obfuscate the conversation by bringing up irrelevant information.

It is up to Russ to decide what a good shot is and a bad shot is. He's been getting good shots. He has been getting in his usual spots and he's been getting comfortable looks. He's just not making them. We aren't running anything different than we did last year and he matched his career high in TS%. If anything, he's getting better looks.

We aren't running anything different than last year?
If this were true, Bringing in Carmelo and George and not running a single new set would be a pretty blatant example of bad coaching, would it not?

And Felton is not ISO-ing enough to even mention that as being a factor or to add credibility to your statement. He has an ISO Freq of 9.1% and when he happens to ISO his eFG% is 72.7%. He's been in 11 ISO situations total over 17 games. That's 1 ISO every other game. Are you seriously that anal about ISO play?

This has been a theme this season, the bench only scores when Felton goes ham (admittedly not actually in iso most of the time, that was hyperbole). The broader point is that we continue to get no offense from the bench, and subpar contributions from role players, directly because of Donovan's inability to generate them comfortable looks. His 'offense' is entirely predicated on shot creation by the primary ball-handler. This works when a guy like Russell Westbrook is on the floor, it doesn't when an average point guard replaces him. Again, this is not specific to this season, it is a three year trend. When Westbrook sits the offense tanks. A 'good' coach mitigates this with player movement to generate good shots, Billy mitigates this by isoing Enes Kanter or Carmelo Anthony. Even the best iso scorers are not efficient.

And I don't know why people think I don't like Russ. I love Russ. I love OKC basketball. But I don't let my fandom get in the way of what I'm seeing. I think Russ has to be better. Doesn't mean I don't like the guy.

You literally said Damian Lillard was a better basketball player last year. You either don't like Russ, are the biggest Lillard fan in the universe, or are stupid. Those are the options.

And shouldn't the conversation shift away from Donovan if there is sufficient evidence that it is Russ' poor performance that has been the main catalyst in our early season struggles? What's wrong with getting down to the nitty gritty and figuring out what's actually wrong?

That depends, are you attempting to start a conversation about why the team is losing or trying to defend Donovan? Because you jumped into a conversation about Donovan, provided no counter-evidence to many specific criticisms lobbied against him over multiple years, and started yelling 'well Russ is bad!' Again, that's not a productive argument.

You know, even Van Gundy said, "The analysis of coaches - we always say it's a player's league until we analyze the reasons for losing and once a team starts losing we are in this sports culture of immediately focusing on the coach and asking if he's lost the locker room." Before this statement, Lowe and Van Gundy discussed that sometimes the reason you lose games is simple and it's sometimes just due to players playing bad.

Do you know anything about Jeff Van Gundy? Like that he was a coach for many years and consistently defends any and all other coaches?

And by the way, can you point me to the lineup where both Cole and Norris were on the court at the same time? I'd like to see that. And so what if he played Christon at times and Cole at times if that's what you are talking about. It's not like Donovan had a full deck to work with so you are really going to criticize him for his end of the bench substitution choices when HOU was blowing them out in Game 1?

I could have sworn it was 2nd quarter game 1. But it looks like he was actually pairing Cole and Westbrook, which I guess IS marginally better.

It's amazing we were even able to take 1 game vs HOU last year. I would say Donovan coached his ass off. Did you really expect us to beat HOU? Hell, we kept it super close - the last 3 losses were by 6 points or less. If you look at that roster on paper you would say there is no way we would be able to touch HOU, but he made it work.

What did Donovan do in the series that "made it work"?

[Pillendreher]

What did Donovan do in the series that "made it work"?

He capped Taj Gibson at 20 minutes a game.

[ThunderBolt]

I know it’s time to put this game behind us but a couple of things-
1- Russ and Cupcake’s exchange. We know what Cupcake said, but russ didn’t call him any vulgar words but he called him “soft”. That’s got to get under cupcakes skin more than anything.

2-If there was a Presti-cam in the audience I wonder if at anytime he cracked a smile.