Oklahoma City Thunder have lost their way and are limping into playoffs
Watch Los Angeles Lakers @ Oklahoma City Thunder live on Sky Sports Arena in the early hours of Wednesday morning (1am)
By Mark Deeks - @MarkDeeksNBA
Last Updated: 03/04/19 4:14am
The Oklahoma City Thunder have lost their way and are limping into the playoffs. Sky Sports NBA analyst Mark Deeks examines what has gone wrong.
Over the first half of the season, the Thunder played with one of the best defensive units in the NBA. Indeed, at the time of that deep dive, they ranked first in the league, and had turned around a slow start to be right there at the top of the highly competitive Western Conference.
Six weeks later, we explored how, although they had lost that elite defense, they had instead become one of the best offensive units in the NBA instead.
Now, though, they have lost their way.
At the time of that second look, the Thunder had a 38-22 record and third place in the West. They have since lost 11 of their last 17 games, falling to a 44-33 record and sinking to a mere half-game ahead of the San Antonio Spurs for the eighth and final playoff spot.
With just over a week left in the season, the Thunder will not fall out of the playoff picture, yet whereas they were once in the ascendancy - twice, even - they are now limping to the barn.
Worse still is the quality of some of these losses. While close defeats at the hands of the Indiana Pacers, Toronto Raptors, Los Angeles Clippers and Philadelphia 76ers are understandable if too frequent, the Thunder have also dropped games in this stretch to the Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings.
It has been a relatively brutal stretch of schedule overall, to be sure, but a true test of competitiveness is to come through these unscathed. And the Thunder failed the test.
In the 16 games they have played since February 24, the Thunder have ranked eighth in defense still, but second-last in offensive efficiency, ahead of only the lowly New York Knicks. It is entirely not a coincidence that the month of March has also been Paul George's worst.
By volume, George is still playing well. Averaging 26.2 points, 8.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game through March is an excellent return, even if they are down from the phenomenal 35.0/8.4/5.4/2.1 he averaged in February.
By efficiency, however, he is not. George is shooting only 40.3 per cent from the field, 34.5 per cent from three-point range, with a .552 true shooting percentage, and with only a 1.11 assist to turnover ratio. Reports of a nagging rotator cuff injury seem increasingly important.
It would appear as though George had been dragging the team's overall offense up to its previous levels. In the midst of the incredibly rare break-out season at age 29, George had been playing like the third-best player in the NBA this season, putting together by far his best offensive season without allowing his defense to drop off.
He did not supplement Russell Westbrook so much as supplant him. With George hobbled, though, the offense looks worryingly sedate. And without his shooting, nothing works.
Given his season-long struggle to make shots, particularly from the three-point and foul-line areas, Westbrook cannot carry the team in the half court any longer. While the triple-double average remains, the MVP of two seasons ago does not - pack the paint against Westbrook and allow him to pull up. Simples.
Indeed, packing the paint against this entire Thunder team is the simple-yet-effective strategy right now. We opined in our earlier looks as to whether the lack of shooting options on the team would eventually prove terminal - somehow, despite having so few shooters, the Thunder had managed to be near the top of the three-point shooting table and had been the best shooting team in the league over the previous six weeks.
Not now, though - since that time, the Thunder have hit only 33.2 per cent of their three-pointers, and have fallen away to 23rd place on the season as a whole.
It would appear as though George's individual brilliance had dragged the team up to a flattering level belying the reality of their situation. And now, as he struggles through injury and the schedule gets tighter, the Thunder have been on a regression to the mean.
This would be fine were they still doing the right things, and if they were rounding into good health at the right time.
Unfortunately, as well as George struggling, Steven Adams is also looking somewhat beaten up on the interior.
Having played without a backup the whole of last season, missing only two games this season and only 25 in his entire six-year career, combined with the physical way he plays, it is entirely reasonable that Adams is ground down somewhat.
Yet the need to steady the ship makes it difficult if not impossible to spot him rest in advance of the postseason, just as it does for George. Nerlens Noel provides a better backup for Adams than anything the Thunder ran out last season, yet on the wings, the team remains remarkably thin.
Offensively, the lack of consistent outside shooting does not justify some of the decisions being made. It is great that Jerami Grant has developed his offensive game, particularly from outside, so as to become the much-needed floor-stretching versatile fifth starter. Yet his ambitious forays into a cluttered paint routinely do not work, and nor do those of Dennis Schroeder, who arrived with that reputation and has unfortunately lived up to it. And reserve wing Abdel Nader really has no excuse.
Perhaps due to his workload, Oklahoma City also seem not to want to use Adams in the post, an area where he has continued to develop over his career. It is true that the post-up play in general has been moved away from as its inefficiencies have been better analysed, and as a poor free-throw shooter, Adams does not help his own cause. Yet his ability to carve out his spot on the interior, and roll to the rim through anybody in his way, should create some much-needed spacing in an entirely different way. But this only works if the team employs it, and they seem not to want to.
Tuesday night's games
- Los Angeles Lakers @ Oklahoma City Thunder, 1am, live on Sky Sports Arena
- Atlanta Hawks @ San Antonio Spurs, 1:30am
- Houston Rockets @ Sacramento Kings, 3am
- Denver Nuggets @ Golden State Warriors, 3:30am
The Thunder are at their best when their defense fuels their offense, and they can play more in transition and semi-transition so as to negate this halfcourt turgidity.
The same story holds true on that end, though. Adams is as solid as a rock on the interior, yet the forcing of turnovers begins with the trapping, quick hands and good pressure exerted on the perimeter. That pressure has dropped off, again in part due to George himself looking laboured.
If they are not playing their best defense, they are more often having to play their worst offense, and they lack the strength in depth to overcome injuries to two of their top three players and a season-long slump for the other one.
Given that there is not enough time left in the season to fall out of the playoff picture, it could well be time to give extended rest to George, Adams and (potentially) Westbrook.
The small differences between the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth seeds are tempting battles to win, certainly, but the result would be the difference only between first-round series against, as things stand, the Golden State Warriors, Denver Nuggets, Portland Trail Blazers or the Houston Rockets.
And if they continue to play how they have done over the last month, the Thunder have little chance in these series anyway.
