Defense works late as OKC escapes United
Steven Adams is a New Zealander, and that brings with it a certain disdain for his Australian neighbors.
And so it was reasonable to wonder if – as Adams and the Thunder found themselves in a tightly contested exhibition game Sunday against Melbourne United from Australia’s NBL – there was a little something extra on the line for the Oklahoma City center.
“I tried not to get too emotional,” Adams said after the Thunder’s 86-85 win, then joked, “I thought they were gonna cheat, mate.”
Patriotism aside, Adams was dialed in down the stretch Sunday, and he wasn’t alone.
On a day when the Thunder’s offense looked like the work in progress it likely will be for some time, its defense dug deep. OKC held Melbourne to 55 points on 27.1 percent shooting over the final three quarters.
It needed that defense, too. Every stop mattered
down to the last one. Josh Huestis swatted a shot by United’s Casey Prather – one of Huestis’ four fourth-quarter blocks – to seal the deal with 1.1 seconds to play.
“It’s fun to be able to do that, but it comes down to team defense,” Huestis said. “We had guys funnel everybody to the right spots, had the right rotations. I just happened to be in the right spot to be able to make a play.”
The Thunder needed defensive plays. The offensive ones were rare.
But OKC expects its scoring will come.
It has a high-octane attack now, with new additions Paul George and Carmelo Anthony added to reigning MVP Russell Westbrook. Eventually, that combination combined with the surrounding parts figures to make something sweet.
On Sunday, though, it was a bitter mixture.
George scored 22
points, Anthony 19 and Westbrook nine, but they were a combined 14 of 46 from the floor. As a team, the Thunder shot 34.6 percent – the same 28 for 81 as Melbourne – and 7 for 28 from the 3-point line.
With Anthony and Westbrook sitting late in the fourth quarter, the onus was on the Thunder’s defense to carry the day. And Billy Donovan wants that constant to be there even as OKC finds its way offensively.
“You have to play defense,” Donovan said. “We have to do that. We have length, we have size, I think we have really high-intelligence guys that can do different things schematically.”
That was on display Sunday. Melbourne scored 30 points on 12 of 28 shooting in the first quarter. It scored 55 the rest of the game, making 16 of 59 shots in the final three quarters.
“They switched quite a bit and made a big emphasis on clogging the lane,” said Prather, who played college ball for Donovan at Florida.
“As soon as we penetrated the lane, you see like four or five bodies.”
The Thunder blocked 10 shots. Huestis swatted two and George one on Melbourne’s final possession.
Andre Roberson, who ignited OKC with his defense in the third quarter, had one midway through that period that led to a fast break and led to Anthony – trailing Westbrook down the court – drilling an open 3-pointer.
Those easy points were key on a day when scoring in the halfcourt was hard.
But “offense is easy” in general, Westbrook said, and Donovan said “most of our focus” has been on defense early in practice, as it was late in Sunday’s game.
“Offensively, we know that we’re gonna have bad shooting nights,” Anthony said. “We don’t really worry about that. We don’t harp on that. But defensively, we can’t have a bad night defensively if we want to be a great team.”