The NBA playoffs have been a wild ride so far with a barrage
of 4-point plays, 4th 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?
