Roberson to miss all three road games
Andre Roberson is taking a trip west with the Thunder, but he won’t be making any stops.
Oklahoma City’s defensive specialist will miss all three games on a road trip that begins Wednesday against the Los Angeles Lakers, coach Billy Donovan said after Tuesday’s practice. Roberson has tendinitis in his left knee patellar tendon.
Roberson’s status beyond the next three games — the Thunder plays at the Clippers on Thursday and at the Phoenix Suns on Sunday — will be determined after the trip.
His absence is a significant blow for the Thunder’s defense. With Roberson on the floor this season, Oklahoma City’s other four starters — Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony and Steven Adams — are allowing 96.3 points per 100 possessions.
When Alex Abrines plays alongside those four, the number jumps to 116. It’s 116.6 with Josh Huestis in Roberson’s place.
“I think anytime you take an elite defender off your team like Andre Roberson, your defense is gonna suffer some,” Donovan said. “If you took (off) a really, really explosive offensive player, your offense is gonna struggle some. It’s just a fact of the personnel.
Roberson averages five points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game. He’s shooting 52.4 percent from the floor, but 22 percent from 3-point range and 33 percent from the 3-point line.
But the numbers don’t do justice to his defensive impact. Donovan on Wednesday said he’s “certainly right up there with the best” defenders in the NBA, “if not the best.”
Roberson left last Friday’s 97-95 loss to Milwaukee late in the fourth quarter and didn’t play Sunday, when the Thunder lost to the Mavericks 116-113.
“People a lot of times will look at, ‘Well, his shooting’ or his free-throw shooting,” Donovan said. “But there’s so much more that he does. For me, I think he’s as good as anybody out there, but again, I’m not every single day with every guy to see. But I watch him and see what he does, and you’d be hard-pressed to find many guys better than him.”
Road focus
The Thunder’s three opponents on this western swing entered Tuesday a combined 27 games under .500. The 16-19 Clippers are, on paper, the toughest test in the bunch.
But there’s no reason to assume the Lakers (11-25) and Suns (14-24) will be pushovers for Oklahoma City.
The Thunder has losses this season at Sacramento, Dallas and Orlando and in Mexico City against the Nets. Each of those teams entered Tuesday at least nine games under .500. It’s lost home games to the Mavericks and Hornets, who entered Tuesday a combined 22 games under .500.
They’re head-scratching losses for a team with home wins against the Warriors and Rockets, the NBA’s two best teams.
“I think there’s a
— I wouldn’t say a complacency, but not the same urgency stepping into a game,” forward Paul George said. “Then when we play the elite teams, we know that we’ve got to play at this level. Then when we play sub-. 500 teams, it tinkers a bit. We play up to the competition. We feel at the end we can take over and win the game.”
That’s a habit Donovan wants his team to break. The Thunder is 10-7 this season against sub-. 500 teams wand 10-10 against teams with winning records.
“We’ve gotten beaten by teams with losing records, and we’ve beaten teams with the best records,” Donovan said. “So it’s really a matter of who do we want to be? What’s our identity gonna be? Who are we gonna be? That’s why it really doesn’t make a difference who you’re playing against. Can we play to our standard?”
Quotable
“In Barcelona or Majorca, the lowest (temperature) is probably like the 40s. It’s more humidity since it’s close to the sea, but it’s not as cold. And it doesn’t change as quick, like it does here. Here, sometimes you’re like 20 (degrees) and then in three hours, it’s 45. In Spain, especially close to the sea, you don’t have that.” — Alex Abrines on the adjustment to the Oklahoma City climate from his native Spain.