11/17 - POSTGAME | Oklahoma City Thunder (101) - (104) San Antonio Spurs

[Old Man Game]

Firing 2 coaches in 3 years isn't a good look. I've seen the light, Russ is the common denominator here.

We've seen countless players leave and suddenly they change. The common denominator is 2 coaches with no system. I'm not saying Russ is blameless, he sucked, but as soon as players leave they magically become more willing passers. That's not Russ.

There's plenty of blame to go around unfortunately.

[Old Man Game]

I just hate how **** this season has been so far compared to what we were all expecting once those trades went down this Summer. I was thinking 2 or 3 seed. We look barely functional at times. And Golden State is going to blow our doors off once again. *sigh*

[bondom34]

Firing 2 coaches in 3 years isn't a good look. I've seen the light, Russ is the common denominator here.

We've seen countless players leave and suddenly they change. The common denominator is 2 coaches with no system. I'm not saying Russ is blameless, he sucked, but as soon as players leave they magically become more willing passers. That's not Russ.

There's plenty of blame to go around unfortunately.

Oh don't get me started . Not even gonna lie, I'm over it right now. It took about 4 weeks and I'm emotionally detached from this team.

[Old Man Game]

We've seen countless players leave and suddenly they change. The common denominator is 2 coaches with no system. I'm not saying Russ is blameless, he sucked, but as soon as players leave they magically become more willing passers. That's not Russ.

There's plenty of blame to go around unfortunately.

Oh don't get me started . Not even gonna lie, I'm over it right now. It took about 4 weeks and I'm emotionally detached from this team.

I'll say this. I don't think Russ is uncoachable, but I do think there are only certain coaches who could do it effectively. I think both Brooks to an extent and now especially Donovan coach(ed) him scared. Billy can't tell Russ anything. It doesn't look like Russ respects him or to the extent he does respect him he doesn't respect him as much as his overriding belief in himself to just say F it and do quasi-super human things. Hard to get through to that when he says so much experience telling him he's right.

[getrichordie]

Why did Russ feel the need to force things with a commanding lead in the 2nd quarter?

According to this board, because Billy Donovan.


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[bondom34]

There's plenty of blame to go around unfortunately.

Oh don't get me started . Not even gonna lie, I'm over it right now. It took about 4 weeks and I'm emotionally detached from this team.

I'll say this. I don't think Russ is uncoachable, but I do think there are only certain coaches who could do it effectively. I think both Brooks to an extent and now especially Donovan coach(ed) him scared. Billy can't tell Russ anything. It doesn't look like Russ respects him or to the extent he does respect him he doesn't respect him as much as his overriding belief in himself to just say F it and do quasi-super human things. Hard to get through to that when he says so much experience telling him he's right.

I think Brooks could actually, which bugs me more.

Just checked, and they improved rebounding a good bit. But what sticks out is in the 1st half of games, they're giving up a 19.9 percent opponent O rebounding rate. 2nd half it jumps to 30 percent. That's massive, and a big gap in the defense. But it's not just players, lineup numbers even jump. Don't know why.

[getrichordie]

Losses suck, but this was against a really good team (even without Kawhi). You can tell OKC was a way more talented team though, they just need to figure out a way to play winning basketball for 48 minutes a game. Talent wise, they really are capable of becoming contenders. It took the Miami Heat a while to figure it out too.

Thank you. This is exactly what I have been saying. Everyone expects perfection now. It takes time.

But Russ has to play better. 3 for 22 and now 5 for 22? Unacceptable from a supposed “top 5 player in the league.”

But that’s because Donovan & Melo.


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[bondom34]

Losses suck, but this was against a really good team (even without Kawhi). You can tell OKC was a way more talented team though, they just need to figure out a way to play winning basketball for 48 minutes a game. Talent wise, they really are capable of becoming contenders. It took the Miami Heat a while to figure it out too.

Thank you. This is exactly what I have been saying. Everyone expects perfection now. It takes time.

But Russ has to play better. 3 for 22 and now 5 for 22? Unacceptable from a supposed “top 5 player in the league.”

But that’s because Donovan & Melo.


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15 games doesn't change what they are. Melo played well, Donovan is still a problem, Russ sucked. Everyone needs to be better, but Russ and Donovan are head of it.

[Orlando_kingdom]

WESTBROOKS's BBALL IQ is killing me

[pelifan]

loser of OKC/NO on monday will probably need to schedule an appointment with a therapist.

But I'm excited got the game thread up already. My 2 favorite team 1 on one

[sleestak33]

Looks like another team meeting after the game is needed! LOL. It's the same thing over and over with this team...complete lack of any kind of an offensive system which leads to inefficient offense. Meanwhile the Spurs run everything through good sets with ball movement, screens proper usage of the low post and they simply get better looks throughout the game which leads to more efficient scoring. Russ and PG combined to go 10-38 and it's just because they're taking much more difficult shots than the Spurs are taking. Add into the equation that Roberson's defender is literally not guarding him and either standing in the lane clogging it or double teaming since he doesn't need to be guarded and it's just never going to work since he's out there for 25 minutes every game. Nothing is going to change until they get Roberson out of the starting lineup and implement some sort of an offense and considering those two things haven't happened in Donovan's time here it's never going to happen.

[Pillendreher]

once again, westbrook could not control his emotions and it gave the game away. dre was playing excellent defense in 1H, as was the team. then up 18 points or something he turns down a three and westbrook has an emotional breakdown, yells at him, pulls him for abrines. abrines can't defend like robes obviously. but from that point westbrook went nuts, shooting a pull-up 28 footer, falling to the floor on missed layups three times the rest of the quarter (without getting back on defense), and somehow playing worse d than before. in 3Q the team shot 9 mid-range shots between westbrook, george, anthony.

We were up 43-25 with 6:52 to go in the 2nd quarter when that happened. After that, over the next 31 minutes our ORtG was 94.8 and our DRtG 140.5.

[Pillendreher]

USG% >= 30 %, TS% <= 50 %, Guards, PPG Leaderboard:



Justin was right.

[ThunderBolt]

Firing 2 coaches in 3 years isn't a good look. I've seen the light, Russ is the common denominator here.

We've seen countless players leave and suddenly they change. The common denominator is 2 coaches with no system. I'm not saying Russ is blameless, he sucked, but as soon as players leave they magically become more willing passers. That's not Russ.

There's plenty of blame to go around unfortunately.

When you have a player with Russ’ ability then it’s the coaches job to use him effectively. That being said, I can’t completelt blame dononvan when I see Felton play like a true point guard. Is it because Felton learned how to run an offense before he came here or is Russ only capable of playing one way? I have no idea.

[Pillendreher]

Not running the offense (at least partially) through George and playing him with the bench has not worked at all.

[ThunderBolt]

Not running the offense (at least partially) through George and playing him with the bench has not worked at all.

You know last year we had a guy who struggled with the second unit too. He looks good playing elsewhere. Hmm...

[Old Man Game]

once again, westbrook could not control his emotions and it gave the game away. dre was playing excellent defense in 1H, as was the team. then up 18 points or something he turns down a three and westbrook has an emotional breakdown, yells at him, pulls him for abrines. abrines can't defend like robes obviously. but from that point westbrook went nuts, shooting a pull-up 28 footer, falling to the floor on missed layups three times the rest of the quarter (without getting back on defense), and somehow playing worse d than before. in 3Q the team shot 9 mid-range shots between westbrook, george, anthony.

We were up 43-25 with 6:52 to go in the 2nd quarter when that happened. After that, over the next 31 minutes our ORtG was 94.8 and our DRtG 140.5.

It kills me how often Russ won't rotate on defense at all. Like it's someone else's job to just cover for him so he can go looking for his steals.

[Pillendreher]

Fun fact: We have the 4th best DRtG and the 5th best NetRtG in losses. That kinda reminds me of the 2015-2016 season (although we lost those games in a different fashion; this season we just stop playing after having one good quarter): 3rd in ORtG in losses, 1st in NetRtG in losses.

[Dadouv47]

Why was Abrines doing the inbound in the last play? I don't get it.

It sort of makes sense to have a shooter inbound because you can pass it back to him right after the pass.

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except we had 2.4 seconds.

[Pillendreher]

We've seen countless players leave and suddenly they change. The common denominator is 2 coaches with no system. I'm not saying Russ is blameless, he sucked, but as soon as players leave they magically become more willing passers. That's not Russ.

There's plenty of blame to go around unfortunately.

When you have a player with Russ’ ability then it’s the coaches job to use him effectively. That being said, I can’t completelt blame dononvan when I see Felton play like a true point guard. Is it because Felton learned how to run an offense before he came here or is Russ only capable of playing one way? I have no idea.

Not running the offense (at least partially) through George and playing him with the bench has not worked at all.

You know last year we had a guy who struggled with the second unit too. He looks good playing elsewhere. Hmm...

There's plenty of blame for both sides. Russ is playing like an idiot all season long. Forcing shots, forcing passes, not creating good offense for his teammates. He has this much more help and our offense with him on the floor is worse than last year's offense with him on the floor? Insanity.

On the other hand, it's not just on Russ. Like I said during lour losing streak (hey, we might just start another one!): The offese can't just come from one guy and when his impact falls off a cliff, you're done.

Donovan's biggest weakness is not being able to understand what your players are capable of and how they should be used (accordingly). Patterson was signed to start on a bargain deal, heralded by journalists all over the league. Now he's 9th in minutes per game, 8th in USG% (10 % which is the lowest of his career by far) and has only played a total (!!!!) of 23 minutes (!!!) next to Russ and Adams over a whole month.
So the guy who was starting as of 2 days before training camp is not getting minutes with the starters and is instead wasting away on the bench. Somebody explain that to me. The +/- king of Toronto, a real glue guy, is not getting a chance to improve our most important lineups. Yet we have Grant out there 5th (!!) in minutes and 5th (!!) in USG%.