Offense stunting Thunder’s growth
–Making life easier wasn’t going to be easy.
In Paul George and Carmelo Anthony, the Thunder added two All-Stars, two Olympians and probable future Hall of Famers, to the one it already had in Russell Westbrook, and making that work always was going to take time.
Lightening each player’s load takes some adjustment from the Thunder’s big three, and that’s never easy. But it wasn’t supposed to look this hard.
Oklahoma City enters Thursday’s game in Denver having lost three straight games. None was sloppier than Tuesday’s,
when OKC managed 86 points in a loss to the 2-9 Kings in Sacramento.
“We put pressure on individuals,” George said after the Kings game. “When we get stagnant, we put pressure on individuals, and we’re too good of a team one through 14 – especially with that starting five – we’re too good of a team to allow ourselves to put pressure on one another.”
For OKC’s big three, it’s less a matter of sharing shots than meshing parts.
Ten games in, the Thunder is getting remarkable balance from Westbrook, George and Anthony.
Anthony is averaging 20.1 points on 17.1 shots per game. George is scoring 20.1 points on 17.5 shots and Westbrook 20 points on 17.4 shots. Each is shooting between 41.5 and 43.1 percent from the floor.
But the Thunder is scoring 102 points per 100 possessions, 22nd in the NBA.
“I think the balance is, we need to keep all three of them engaged because they’re that gifted and that talented,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “But at the same point, we can’t go your turn, my turn, your turn, my turn. That’s not gonna be good. But there is a balance.”
The data suggests the Thunder is struggling to strike it.
Donovan stresses ball and player movement, but that isn’t the Thunder’s game anymore so far this season than it has been in recent years.
OKC ranks last in the NBA in passes per game at 256.4, almost eight fewer than the next-lowest team. League-leading Philadelphia makes 350.7 passes per game. OKC has ranked in the bottom five in passes per game in each of the previous four seasons.
The ball still stops in the hands of a star. There are just more stars to hold it.
The Thunder runs isolation plays – those on which a player goes oneon-one against a single defender – 12.3 percent of the time. That’s the highest number in the NBA. But it’s scoring 0.87 points per isolation possession, which ranks 19th in the league.
Anthony is second in the league in isolation possessions per game at 6.6. Westbrook (3.2) and George (three) rank 19th and 21st, respectively.
Sometimes those are good plays, Donovan said, favorable matchups when teammates rightly get out of the way for a star to go to work.
But, Donovan said, “there’s other times where we’re kind of standing and watching,” and that’s not what he wants.
He’d prefer the Thunder swing the ball to create easier shots – for the big three and its supporting cast.
It doesn’t help that the shots the Thunder does get aren’t falling. Players other than the big three are shooting 38.1 percent on shots the NBA considers either open or wide open, based on the distance from the nearest defender.
Ultimately some of those shots figure to fall. And eventually, the Thunder likely will figure out its offensive rhythm. In the 202 minutes that Westbrook, George and Anthony have shared the court, the Thunder has outscored its opponents by 13 points, and that number likely will improve.
But not overnight. The Miami Heat famously started 9-8 when LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in 2010. They finished with 58 wins.
It might not go that well for OKC, but it’ll take some time to find out.
“I’m encouraged by the group of guys we have in that (locker) room,” Westbrook said. “I will be better. I take ownership in how we’re playing. I will be better and we will be better, so I’m not worried.”