A Tale of two OKC Offenses

The NBA playoffs have been a wild ride so far with a barrage of 4-point plays, 4^th quarter comebacks, and even game winning shots. Yet, perhaps the most befuddling story of the playoffs has been the inconsistent Oklahoma City offense. With two of the most capable scorers in the entire NBA in Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, the Thunder offense has at times looked unstoppable, and at others looked like it didn’t even belong in the playoffs.

The late game offense in particular seems to lack significant rhythm and flow in crunch time, and when the first option is nullified by the opposing defense, one of OKC’s star players too often settles for a contested look. 

The assist is often a misleading statistic when considering the concepts of a potential assist (a good pass to a shooter who misses a shot, or gets fouled) and an accidental assist (a meaningless pass to a player who happens to shoot an unexpected shot, yielding a semi-unwarranted assist to the passer), but the Thunder’s offense has typically succeeded with better ball movement that spaces the floor and keeps the defense a step out of the paint for their stars to better attack. Posting up Westbrook and Durant and running the Westbrook-Durant pick and roll are two of my favorite offensive plays run by the Thunder, and these sets awarded them terrific success in games 2 and 3. Running these plays lures double teams, and Westbrook is an elite passer in these situations.

Yet, for a large part of games 4 and 5, Oklahoma City inexplicably went away from these successful offensive sets and resorted to one-dimensional basketball, relying on their athletic advantage to create a shot. It actually “worked” in game 5 (barely), but one has to wonder if this type of play is consistent enough to even get out of this second round.

Let’s take a look at some statistics. Using the “advanced” analytic metric of AST% (percentage of makes that were assisted), this figure can give us a relative idea of the type of ball movement OKC employed to get the ball in the basket. As one would presume, OKC’s AST% figure is 52.1% in wins, and 47.2% in losses – a significant margin. However, it’s important to dive even deeper when making the argument that the offense still sputtered despite the win in game 5. In games 4 and 5 of the L.A. series, OKC registered an AST% figure of 42.4% and 51.5% respectively. However, that figure is hiked up to 62.2% and 59.1% in games 2 and 3.

Here are a few highlights of some brilliant ball movement that created some open looks for Oklahoma City.

In the clip we can see some post ups, nice pick-and-roll sets between Westbrook and Durant, and some effective spacing by the Thunder as they are able to shift the ball to the weak side and throw off the defense. By my unofficial count, the Westbrook-Durant pick-and-roll works basically every time IF and only if, Westbrook makes the correct read. However, there are some times where Westbrook hesitates to thread the pass (which he is very capable of), and settles for a much lower percentage shot as shown below.

It’s always maddening when Westbrook takes matters into his own hands instead of making the correct read, but even worse is when OKC takes the ball into the half court offense with no plan, and resorts to jacking up threes.

It’s hard to watch sometimes, but OKC has proved that they can run sets to get good looks, and they have the talent to do so. There’s been a lot of heat on Scott Brooks lately, and rightfully so, but he has shown us in games 6 and 7 of the Memphis series as well as games 2 and 3 of the Clippers series that he knows how to run an effective offense. OKC just has to get in the rhythm, get their stars in the pick and roll to collapse the defense, and make the correct pass. It’s easier said than done, but it has been done before.

Skip Bayless often makes impulsive and critical remarks to gather interest, and often comments on intangibles in sports, rather than formulating effective statistical arguments. However, he has tweeted “the only team that can beat Oklahoma City is Oklahoma City” after nearly every Thunder playoff game this postseason. Skip may actually be correct on this one. Oklahoma City’s offensive stars breathe life and efficiency into the overall offensive unit when the ball is rotating and keeping the defense off balance. However, when the ball stops moving, the Thunder offense becomes one dimensional and easy to defend.

Which OKC offense will we see in game 6?