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

[SecondTake]

i don't think they could have made these guys this close even if they were conspiring to do it. unreal.

That doesnt look too good, but at least Schroder has a massive advantage passing wise.

[JustOneFix]

Dennis is at least trying on defense...

[SecondTake]

Anyway, looks like we're back on track for the WCF. Yesterday performance was vintage OKC and we played excellent defense for 4 quarters. Looks like Billy realized we should be feeding Adams like we used to. We barely played Morris and no Burton which is a problem, but the rest was good.

We will probably go 6 games in the first round unless its GSW, and if it is, we probably take them out in 6 or 7 anyway.

Things are looking bright.

[JustOneFix]

Man, if Portland could hold on that 3rd seed and we somehow end up being 6th, I would call this a succesful season after all...

Until we get swept.

Who'll sweep us?

[Dadouv47]

Anyway, looks like we're back on track for the WCF. Yesterday performance was vintage OKC and we played excellent defense for 4 quarters. Looks like Billy realized we should be feeding Adams like we used to. We barely played Morris and no Burton which is a problem, but the rest was good.

We will probably go 6 games in the first round unless its GSW, and if it is, we probably take them out in 6 or 7 anyway.

Things are looking bright.

Stop jynxing please. Last time u said something similar it was just before ASG

[acheema0]

Read on Twitter

everythingisfine.gif

[Dadouv47]

Damn wanted to see PG13 playing well in the playoffs (because he sucked last year) but if he plays bad we won't know if it's because of injury or not. Rest him anyway...

[JustOneFix]

Good. Let him heal that shoulder and get some rest. Maybe we'll see some Burton in that case...

[Pillendreher]

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26372850/ten-things-like-including-ragtag-grizzlies

When fealty to your identity goes wrong

Oklahoma City is Boston West in terms of inconsistency, only the Thunder seem to get along and believe in science. When they slumped starting around Christmas, their defense -- best in the league to that point -- dipped toward average. Offense has been the culprit during this 7-12 stretch that has them clawing to avoid the No. 8 seed; only the Knicks have scored fewer points per possession in that span.

One thing has been nagging me about their ultra-aggressive defense dating to last season: Should they soften their scheme more often when they face pick-and-roll combinations that don't merit traps? Like, you don't need to bum-rush the dreaded Jevon Carter-Ivan Rabb two-man game, and unlock a corner triple for Justin Holiday:

The numbers don't suggest a problem. Oklahoma City gives up just 0.92 points per possession when it blitzes a pick-and-roll, one of the stingiest marks in the league, per Second Spectrum. The Thunder are not bleeding 3s; only 32 percent of enemy shots have come from deep, the 11th-lowest such share, per Cleaning The Glass.

All coaches mull the merits of adjusting game-to-game against sticking to one identity, and mastering it. The Thunder know who they are. They are built to play a certain way, and they are good at it. They are even better when they have fresh legs, and they looked tired in that Memphis game. There are no back-to-backs in the playoffs.

They did adjust some against Utah in last season's first round, switching more. But they mostly corralled Ricky Rubio high on the floor instead of ducking picks, staying attached to shooters, and daring Rubio to beat them with jumpers.

Also: Only seven teams give up more corner 3s as a portion of shot attempts, and only two a larger share of shots in the restricted area -- suggesting there might be some cost to sending two to the ball so often. They also foul a lot.

This is something to watch depending on postseason matchups.

THANK YOU! Finally somebody addresses this.

[slick_watts]

THANK YOU! Finally somebody addresses this.

in donovan's first couple years there were various changes to our pick and roll defense. this is from an article in 2015:

“The guards hate it, and it's awesome for us,” Adams said. “We sit back and we're trying to force different shots from the offense.”

“The big guy sits back a little more, so we've gotta press up on the ball and get around the screens,” Andre Roberson said. “It kind of helps our recovery time, so we don't really have to chase around and get back in front if we do our jobs early."

we played this way for awhile, especially with the starters, but the last couple of seasons since kevin durant left we have gone back to being hyper-aggressive with the bigs.

lowe acknowledges the trade-off between being consistent and contextualizing defense to the opponent. i think everyone would agree there's a happy balance somewhere that we aren't close to. but there is such a thing as over contextualization, especially with the kind of players we have who, erm... may not be the brightest.

[ThunderBolt]

Read on Twitter

?s=21

According to translation Abrines is going to issue a statement soon on why he missed so much time

Whatever happened to this?

[Osirus89]

Dennis is at least trying on defense...

Yeah this team is dysfunctional as hell while having good chemistry. I didn't know that was even possible.

1. You have guys that are trying to play defense but its utterly hopeless for various reasons (Dennis, Nader, and Morris)

2. A player that plays schizo defense (Russ)

3. Guys that try but any defense they play gets nullified by the other guys on the floor with them depending on the lineup (Ferg, SA, PG, JG)

Not sure where Noel fits. He plays defense like a person in category 3, but his skinny size sometimes makes him more like a category 1 player. He can't deal with guys like Aldridge and Jokic in spot minutes no matter how hard he tries.

This is the reason there is such a peek a boo defense. The starters when they try can play very good defense. There are at least 4 guys that are good on that end and 1 who occasionally plays defense. The bench is the opposite. There are usually 4 of 5 guys that are useless or close to it on defense. You mix and match and all hell breaks loose.

Does that get better in the playoffs when you can just play the starters a ton of minutes? Maybe, but some of them are already banged up to an extent. You can try to play every starter in the 40 min range, but fatigue and foul trouble can throw a kink in that.

Schroder will play his minutes regardless. There aren't enough people that can handle the ball on the team and his spot has been guaranteed. Ferg could get in foul trouble from time to time so the 2 spot sorts itself out.

Nader will be death in the playoffs. Every possible playoffs opponent has shown the strategy of targeting him on D. Utah, Denver, Hou, GS. He can't play in the playoffs but there is no one to occupy the minutes when PG sits unless they break the Deonte Burton glass.

[Dadouv47]

Dennis is at least trying on defense...

Yeah this team is dysfunctional as hell while having good chemistry. I didn't know that was even possible.

1. You have guys that are trying to play defense but its utterly hopeless for various reasons (Dennis, Nader, and Morris)

2. A player that plays schizo defense (Russ)

3. Guys that try but any defense they play gets nullified by the other guys on the floor with them depending on the lineup (Ferg, SA, PG, JG)

Not sure where Noel fits. He plays defense like a person in category 3, but his skinny size sometimes makes him more like a category 1 player. He can't deal with guys like Aldridge and Jokic in spot minutes no matter how hard he tries.

This is the reason there is such a peek a boo defense. The starters when they try can play very good defense. There are at least 4 guys that are good on that end and 1 who occasionally plays defense. The bench is the opposite. There are usually 4 of 5 guys that are useless or close to it on defense. You mix and match and all hell breaks loose.

Does that get better in the playoffs when you can just play the starters a ton of minutes? Maybe, but some of them are already banged up to an extent. You can try to play every starter in the 40 min range, but fatigue and foul trouble can throw a kink in that.

Schroder will play his minutes regardless. There aren't enough people that can handle the ball on the team and his spot has been guaranteed. Ferg could get in foul trouble from time to time so the 2 spot sorts itself out.

Nader will be death in the playoffs. Every possible playoffs opponent has shown the strategy of targeting him on D. Utah, Denver, Hou, GS. He can't play in the playoffs but there is no one to occupy the minutes when PG sits unless they break the Deonte Burton glass.

Don't think so. If PG13 plays hard on both ends, he can't play so many minutes. He gets tired and that's pretty normal given the intensity he plays on both ends.That's why we are lacking Roberson so much...it would allow PG13 to play more minutes by spending less energy on defense.

Westbrook is the only one that may be able to play lot of minutes with high intensity (even if he's declining, but I still think he can still do it).

Anyway it won't change anything since the odds of facing Gs in the first round are higher each day. We would need to win at least 5 games while hoping for the Spurs or Clippers to lose some (and their schedule is so easy )

[SecondTake]

Dennis is at least trying on defense...

Yeah this team is dysfunctional as hell while having good chemistry. I didn't know that was even possible.

1. You have guys that are trying to play defense but its utterly hopeless for various reasons (Dennis, Nader, and Morris)

2. A player that plays schizo defense (Russ)

3. Guys that try but any defense they play gets nullified by the other guys on the floor with them depending on the lineup (Ferg, SA, PG, JG)

Not sure where Noel fits. He plays defense like a person in category 3, but his skinny size sometimes makes him more like a category 1 player. He can't deal with guys like Aldridge and Jokic in spot minutes no matter how hard he tries.

This is the reason there is such a peek a boo defense. The starters when they try can play very good defense. There are at least 4 guys that are good on that end and 1 who occasionally plays defense. The bench is the opposite. There are usually 4 of 5 guys that are useless or close to it on defense. You mix and match and all hell breaks loose.

Does that get better in the playoffs when you can just play the starters a ton of minutes? Maybe, but some of them are already banged up to an extent. You can try to play every starter in the 40 min range, but fatigue and foul trouble can throw a kink in that.

Schroder will play his minutes regardless. There aren't enough people that can handle the ball on the team and his spot has been guaranteed. Ferg could get in foul trouble from time to time so the 2 spot sorts itself out.

Nader will be death in the playoffs. Every possible playoffs opponent has shown the strategy of targeting him on D. Utah, Denver, Hou, GS. He can't play in the playoffs but there is no one to occupy the minutes when PG sits unless they break the Deonte Burton glass.

Don't think so. If PG13 plays hard on both ends, he can't play so many minutes. He gets tired and that's pretty normal given the intensity he plays on both ends.That's why we are lacking Roberson so much...it would allow PG13 to play more minutes by spending less energy on defense.

Westbrook is the only one that may be able to play lot of minutes with high intensity (even if he's declining, but I still think he can still do it).

Anyway it won't change anything since the odds of facing Gs in the first round are higher each day. We would need to win at least 5 games while hoping for the Spurs or Clippers to lose some (and their schedule is so easy )

We're built for GS. We have a good chance of taking them down. Denver I'm not sure we can handle anymore.

[Dadouv47]

Yeah this team is dysfunctional as hell while having good chemistry. I didn't know that was even possible.

1. You have guys that are trying to play defense but its utterly hopeless for various reasons (Dennis, Nader, and Morris)

2. A player that plays schizo defense (Russ)

3. Guys that try but any defense they play gets nullified by the other guys on the floor with them depending on the lineup (Ferg, SA, PG, JG)

Not sure where Noel fits. He plays defense like a person in category 3, but his skinny size sometimes makes him more like a category 1 player. He can't deal with guys like Aldridge and Jokic in spot minutes no matter how hard he tries.

This is the reason there is such a peek a boo defense. The starters when they try can play very good defense. There are at least 4 guys that are good on that end and 1 who occasionally plays defense. The bench is the opposite. There are usually 4 of 5 guys that are useless or close to it on defense. You mix and match and all hell breaks loose.

Does that get better in the playoffs when you can just play the starters a ton of minutes? Maybe, but some of them are already banged up to an extent. You can try to play every starter in the 40 min range, but fatigue and foul trouble can throw a kink in that.

Schroder will play his minutes regardless. There aren't enough people that can handle the ball on the team and his spot has been guaranteed. Ferg could get in foul trouble from time to time so the 2 spot sorts itself out.

Nader will be death in the playoffs. Every possible playoffs opponent has shown the strategy of targeting him on D. Utah, Denver, Hou, GS. He can't play in the playoffs but there is no one to occupy the minutes when PG sits unless they break the Deonte Burton glass.

Don't think so. If PG13 plays hard on both ends, he can't play so many minutes. He gets tired and that's pretty normal given the intensity he plays on both ends.That's why we are lacking Roberson so much...it would allow PG13 to play more minutes by spending less energy on defense.

Westbrook is the only one that may be able to play lot of minutes with high intensity (even if he's declining, but I still think he can still do it).

Anyway it won't change anything since the odds of facing Gs in the first round are higher each day. We would need to win at least 5 games while hoping for the Spurs or Clippers to lose some (and their schedule is so easy )

We're built for GS. We have a good chance of taking them down. Denver I'm not sure we can handle anymore.

Not anymore because Roberson is out and they have Cousins.

It's too easy for Klay or any other to go against Ferguson.

It's better to play Gs in the first round than in the WCF because they are coasting for months and will start taking things seriously when the playoffs begins. It could give us the chance to win a game or two at best but not a series

[oreojenkins]

Burn this team to the ground.

[Pillendreher]

To illustrate this franchise's struggles to aquire shooting, just look at this:

>=40 % 3pt shooters in Thunder history:

08/09 Durant
12/13 Thabo
12/13 Martin
12/13 Durant
14/15 Morrow
17/18 George

Number of >= 35 % 3pt shooters on the roster (at least 100 attempts):

08/09: 2
09/10: 2
10/11: 1
11/12: 2
12/13: 3
13/14: 3
14/15: 2
15/16: 3
16/17: 3
17/18: 5
18/19: 3

Top 10 in 3PM made for the Thunder:

1: Durant
2: Westbrook
3: George
4: Harden
5: Thabo
6: Green
7: Morrow
8: Abrines
9: Ibaka
10: Grant

The lack of shooting has been present on this roster every damn season and yet nothing happens. It's a disgrace.

[Pillendreher]

It's the end of the season and we're 29th in outperforming our expected eFG% (per pbpstats.com). As you can see by the team I put in italic, this simply isn't something Playoff bound teams do:

[Pillendreher]

538 and basketball reference project us to finish with 47 wins, the same amount of wins we had in Westbrook's MVP year aka the Semaj Christon season. Think about that for a second.

[slick_watts]

538 and basketball reference project us to finish with 47 wins, the same amount of wins we had in Westbrook's MVP year aka the Semaj Christon season. Think about that for a second.

since the new year we've been playing to about that level. ~1.00-ish SRS.