DEFENSIVE GEM
Thunder returns to playing like the league’s defensive leader
Clippers forward Danilo Gallinari lost the ball as the Thunder guard Terrance Ferguson and center Steven Adams sandwiched him in the paint. Ferguson had slid in front of Gallinari with each change of direction, and Adams was waiting for them.
Russell Westbrook stood at the edge of the restricted area, in perfect position to catch the loose ball. He slung it out to Paul George for a layup in transition. The steal accounted for one of the Clippers’ 26 turnovers Saturday.
“I don’t think we ever go into a game saying, ‘Hey listen, we want to turn this team over,’” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said before OKC’s 110-104 win over the Clippers. “You want to go in and you want to play solid defense.”
At the end of Saturday night, OKC still had the best defensive rating in the league (102.1), even after New Orleans and Denver took advantage of
defensive lapses to hand the Thunder two consecutive road losses earlier in the week. On Saturday, the second night of a back-to-back and the Thunder’s fourth game in six days, OKC righted its defense to snap a twogame losing streak.
“When we defend like
that, best team in the league,” said Westbrook, who led the team with six steals. “So we know what we have to do to win games, we’ve got to defend to win.”
The Thunder’s perimeter defense was shaky in the first quarter. The Clippers shot 5-of-8 from beyond the arc in that period, largely on open looks.
But OKC dropped hints of what was to come, with steals from George, Westbrook and Nerlens Noel spread throughout the quarter.
Los Angeles took a brief lead in the middle of the second quarter, but a barrage of steals from Westbrook, whose first quarter defense had lacked urgency, launched the Thunder into playing
the best basketball they had all night.
Westbrook recorded three steals in the final six minutes of the second quarter. Jerami Grant added another in that stretch. Not every steal led immediately to points in transition, but they increased the pace of the game, bent the Clippers defense out of shape, and got the Thunder playing a style it thrives in.
“We cause guys that aren’t necessarily playmakers to make plays,” George said of OKC’s defense.
“I thought that’s what we did: we shrunk the floor, we moved around, we were in the right spots.”
Some of the Thunder’s 13 total steals came from Westbrook jumping the passing lane, but they also resulted from hustling back on defense and disciplined help-side rotations.
The Thunder’s defense
Saturday was reminiscent of its performance against the Clippers on Oct. 30, the second game of what would become a sevengame winning streak. OKC turned Los Angeles over 24 times in that meeting.
“They have a lot of length,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said before Saturday’s game. “They know that. And they have quickness, and they use it. They’re up in the bodies, man. They’re a physical, tough team in an offensive league. They play defense; it’s kind of nice to see.”
BULLS AT THUNDER
•When: 7 p.m., Monday
•Where: Chesapeake Energy Arena
•TV: FS Oklahoma (Cox 37/ HD 722, Dish 412, DirecTV 675, U-verse 751/1751)
•Radio: WWLS-AM 640/98.1 FM
Three things to know
•The Bulls are expected to be without leading scorer Zach LaVine (23.8 ppg), who missed Saturday’s win against the Spurs with an ankle injury.
•The Thunder is 11-2 when it makes at least a third of its 3-point attempts. Its only losses when making 33.3 percent of its 3-pointers or more are to Denver (Friday) and Chicago (Dec. 7).
•In his last five games, Paul George is tied for sixth in the NBA in scoring (28 ppg) while shooting 53.5 percent from the field (46-of-86), 48.6 percent from 3 (18-of37) and 83.3 percent from 3 (30-of-36).
PROJECTED STARTERS
Thunder (18-10) Player Ht. Pts. Reb. Ast. G Russell Westbrook 6-3 21.1 10.5 10.0 G Terrance Ferguson 6-7 4.1 1.9 0.8 F Paul George 6-9 24.9 7.8 4.3 F Jerami Grant 6-9 11.8 4.4 1.3* C Steven Adams 7-0 16.0 9.8 1.7 Bulls (7-23) Player Ht. Pts. Reb. Ast. G Ryan Arcidacono 6-3 7.1 2.8 3.8 G Kris Dunn 6-4 11.8 4.5 4.5 G Justin Holiday 6-6 12.5 4.5 2.4 F Lauri Markkanen 7-0 15.1 6.1 0.9* C Wendell Carter Jr. 6-10 10.6 6.2 1.5* * — Blocks per game