Triples troubling for OKC defense
It’s a matter of movement.
That’s how Paul George sees the Thunder’s struggles with 3-point defense. It’s the notion of motion that’s giving Oklahoma City trouble, he said, as it tries to get over its recent triple troubles.
Over its past eight games, the Thunder has allowed 12.9 made 3-pointers per game, and it can be flustered by fluidity. “I think it’s just player movement,” George said. “That’s the element of defense that we’re struggling at, understanding guys are moving and causing us to move around.”
On Tuesday, the Thunder plays the Warriors in Oakland, Calif.
And facing Golden State when you’re struggling against movement is like staring down Serena Williams when you can’t seem to serve to her backhand. It’s like stepping into the ring against Conor McGregor with no answer
for a straight left.
It’s problematic. The Warriors don’t make or attempt the most 3-pointers in the NBA. But Golden State leads the league in 3-point percentage and in effective fieldgoal percentage, which weights the importance of 3-point shots.
And the Warriors are fourth in the NBA in made 3-pointers per game (11.7) despite sharpshooting Stephen Curry having missed 15 games.
Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant combine to make 10.1 3-pointers per game. The Thunder averages 10.2 as a team.
Beyond the volume, though, it’s the way the Warriors get 3-pointers that makes defending them so difficult. Golden State’s offense is built on rhythm and movement. It’s predicated on players giving up good shots for better ones, on cutting and running off screens.
The Warriors move and so does that ball, and that means a defense has to be in motion, too.
That’s been an issue on a couple of fronts lately for the Thunder.
In five games since OKC lost Andre Roberson — one of the league’s best perimeter defenders — to a season-ending ruptured left patellar tendon, the Thunder has allowed opponents to shoot 40.4 percent from 3-point range. Opponents shot 35.6 percent from 3-point range prior to Roberson’s injury.
Part of the reason, coach Billy Donovan said, is the ball is getting to the middle of the floor and moving from there. That’s creating situations where Thunder defenders have to sprint to contest 3-point shots.
But Donovan’s players are struggling to close out hard, for fear that shooters will take advantage of their momentum to drive past them for a shot at the rim.
“You’re closing out to prevent the 3-point attempt, but it’s the way the league is — it’s layups or it’s 3s,” George said. “So you want to close out to prevent that 3 as well as not give them at least a straight line drive to the basket.”
That’s where help defense is critical. When a player closes out to a shooter, he has to trust that the players behind him will rotate into position to protect the paint.
“I think that’s what gives us confidence flying out at these guys, that we know our back side has us protected,” George said. “That’s what we got to get back to again.”
The Warriors score the fewest points of any NBA team off the drive, 13.6 per game. Still, they’ll take advantage of hard closeouts to move the ball, sometimes to find other open shooters. Golden State leads the league in catch-and-shoot scoring at 34.6 points per game.
That means defensive rotations — a Thunder struggle of late — are critical.
When the Warriors are moving and the ball is finding them, slowing their 3-point shooting is a tall task for any team. The Thunder’s recent deficiencies make it particularly daunting.
“I always say, you’re not gonna stop teams from necessarily shooting 3-point shots, but what we do try to do is break rhythm, where you can take them and try to eliminate the rhythm 3s,” Donovan said. “If guys are playing with the ball up top off the dribble, and they shoot off the dribble, that’s generally gonna be pretty contested, and that’s pretty good defense even if they make it. It’s the ones where they’re in rhythm: the ball gets moved around, and a guy is just stepping into a shot uninhibited and is just shooting. Even if there’s a guy closing to him, you got to close there quicker to get him off the line.”