An ugly defensive effort is killing the Thunder's playoffs hopes. How did OKC fall apart on that end of the floor?
The Oklahoma City Thunder are in jeopardy of missing the playoffs. Despite the brilliance of Russell Westbrook, who's done his best to shoulder the load on a shorthanded team, a possible championship season has been undone by injuries. Anthony Davis is marching the New Orleans Pelicans towards the No. 8 seed -- they have a half-game lead with five games to go and also possess the tiebreaker.
Everyone knew the injuries to Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka would hurt Oklahoma City, particularly once it became clear in March that neither would return. What people didn't expect was a complete collapse on the defensive end of the floor, where the Thunder have been solid for many years.
Over the past few weeks, we've seen a much different team, one that's content to involve itself in high-scoring shootouts at the expense of a winning formula. OKC has a 7-7 record since Ibaka's last game on March 11, but that's only because of the heroics of Westbrook. His one-man show hasn't carried over to the defensive end.
Now, the team's postseason hopes are in flux. How did the Thunder go from an above-average defense to 29th in the league over the last month? Let's take a look.
From Ibaka to Kanter
Ibaka is 25 years old and has already made the NBA All-Defense First Team three times. He might have made it again this season if it weren't for the knee issues. The downgrade to 22-year-old Enes Kanter, a big man never known for defense, has been startling.
It's not even that Ibaka was having some miraculous season on the defensive end. He was solid, sure, but OKC's numbers only improved marginally with him on the court. Still, throughout the first half of the season, the Thunder were an above-average defensive team.
Then Kanter arrived. The team's defensive rating has been rising ever since:
| Thunder | Def. Rating | W-L record |
| With Ibaka, no Kanter (Oct. 29-Feb. 20) | 100.7 (10th) | 29-25 |
| With Ibaka and Kanter (Feb. 21-March 11) | 105.0 (25th) | 6-4 |
| With Kanter, no Ibaka (March 12-present) | 109.8 (29th) | 7-7 |
That's a brutal trend that likely wouldn't surprise Kanter's former teammates in Utah . Kanter joined the Thunder with a terrible defensive reputation and has done nothing to dispel that notion over the past couple months. He's among the weakest shot-blockers in the league at his position despite being nearly seven feet tall and rarely shows the effort or instincts to be an effective team defender.
Watch here as Kanter reacts poorly to James Harden coming around a screen. He's left out of position and unable to recover as the ballhandler makes his move to the rim:
And here is Kanter failing to react as Tony Parker blows by him for a layup. It should not be this easy to get by an athletic, 22-year-old 7-footer:
Kanter is putting up great offensive numbers, but having him replace Ibaka brings negative defensive consequences. Over the past few weeks, we've seen just how significant that downgrade is.
Westbrook's gambling
Westbrook deserves a lot of praise for trying to put the team on his shoulders over the past few months, but at times that determination has led to some questionable decision-making, especially on defense.
Westbrook has always been an aggressive perimeter defender, willing to attack passing lanes and muscle up opposing guards. That's often worked in the past in the form of forced turnovers that get him in the open floor.
That aggressiveness has gone overboard in the past few months, though, with Westbrook too often trying to force things and getting caught out of position. It's seems like he's lost some confidence in the big men behind him -- again, Kanter isn't Ibaka -- and that's led to a lot of gambling on risky plays instead of sticking to the system.
On this play against Houston, Westbrook left Harden to anticipate a play under the basket that never came together, leaving him wildly out of position when the ball ended up back in Harden's hands at the top of the key:
OKC's defense has actually been better without Westbrook (100.5 points per 100 possessions) than with him (104.6) this season. And since Ibaka went down, the numbers have gotten ugly across the board, with the team allowing over 110 points per 100 possessions whether Westbrook is out there or not.
It's also telling that Westbrook is on pace for the highest foul rate (2.7 per game) of his career. Typically, defenders tend to cut down on fouls as they gain experience, something we saw from Westbrook over his first few years in the NBA. The increase isn't huge, of course, but it's another example of Westbrook being a bit too assertive on that end of the floor.
Other factors
Maybe the Thunder could've survived a downgrade from Ibaka to Kanter and Westbrook's penchant for gambling with an otherwise healthy roster. Guys like Durant, Anthony Roberson and Nick Collison could've stepped up on the defensive end of the floor, taking some pressure off Westbrook and Kanter to handle things.
But Durant, Roberson and Collison have all been sidelined by injuries, forcing the Thunder to call on less dependable names. Dion Waiters, Anthony Morrow and Mitch McGary are all talented offensive players being asked to play crucial roles on both ends of the floor. None of them were brought in to play great defense and none of them have.
OKC's defensive downfall is ultimately because of a confluence of factors. It's possible the team could've better weathered losing Ibaka, Durant or even both to injury. It's possible that leaning on the likes of Waiters, Morrow and others would have been fine. Maybe even Kanter could've helped out in the right situation.
Take all of those things together, though, and you get this mess of a defense and a spot in the lottery. The Thunder are a shell of a team on the defensive end and it may end up costing the team its playoff spot.
Source SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/1E6BMcG
No comments:
Post a Comment