Paint points
Why is Russell Westbrook focusing so much on taking shots in the paint?
Russell Westbrook takes particular delight in scoring over and around smaller guards on post ups.
Westbrook enjoys it so much, he’s taken to celebrating the feat in mid-game over the past three seasons. This season, he’s “rocking the baby” — part-tribute to his fatherly duties with a 17-month old son, and twin girls on the way, part-emasculation of player he scores against.
“Any time I’ve got a small guard, or the point guard’s guarding his position, I’m going to punish him,” Westbrook said Tuesday after punishing Patrick Beverley twice in the first quarter of the Thunder’s 128-110 win against the Clippers.
In this early sample of Westbrook’s season, his play in the paint has been more than a mission to exploit a size mismatch. It’s to get his offense going after an absent preseason and an ever-changing NBA.
Westbrook’s aggression and discretion has been evident through four games. Thirty of his 39 made field goals have come from within eight feet of the rim. Of his 81 shot attempts, 53 have come in the paint.
It’s been effective. Westbrook is shooting 69 percent from within five feet when the league average is 62.5 percent.
It’s come with fewer midrange shots and touches overall.
The Thunder doesn’t want to
take away Westbrook’s mid-range jump shot, even in a league where layups, free throws and 3-pointers are the most valuable currency. Westbrook has become known for his “cotton shot” — that pull-up jumper at powerful pace — taken in the mid-range area he’s lived at throughout his career. Only eight of Westbrook’s attempts have come from 15-to-19 feet this season.
“If you’re 48, 49, 50 percent from the midrange, you’re fine,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said of the mid-range philosophy today. Westbrook shot 39.3 percent from 15-to-19 feet last season.
“It’s just very few people are that. That’s what we tell our guys: We don’t mind you taking them, but you better make it.”
It’s only been four games, but Westbrook has operated more offball as well. The addition of Dennis Schroder has shaved nearly a minute per game off Westbrook’s time of possession from last season.
Westbrook off the ball offers different looks to the opposing defense. Like the great point guards of the league, Westbrook’s presence has to be accounted for and his gravity can draw defenders away from teammates for open shots.
“I think that gives us great flexibility, where we can have any one of those three guys with the ball in their hands in terms of initiating offense,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said of Westbrook, Schroder and Paul George.
“We need to keep building (that) out. Because he’s missed all of training camp, unfortunately some of these experiences are having to take place during games.”
Because he missed preseason while recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery, some of Westbrook’s four-game sample may be him getting recalibrated and reconditioned.
He was noticeably fatigued in his first two games of the season against Sacramento and Boston, and several of his 3-point attempts against the Celtics were short. Westbrook is shooting just 2-of-14 from 3, but has taken only three combined in the Thunder’s consecutive wins.
Until he finds his rhythm from the perimeter, it’s not hurting the Thunder that Westbrook is getting to the rim with regularity, or letting Schroder and George initiate offense.
“As long as we defend, score and put the ball in the basket, I don’t care if it’s two or three. It don’t really matter, honestly,” Westbrook said after Tuesday’s win against the Clippers.
“That’s for y’all and the analytics teams and all that s***. I don’t really care as long as we win.”