Obviously the added length makes a difference, but I remain mystified as to why teams in any sport will often go away from what’s working. As I’ve joked before, the best thing for the Sooners inside the 10-yard line is to get a penalty so that they get out of the “now we’re a power running team” jumbo mode and go back to their normal offense. Same thing with the Thunder. When they’re moving on offense, they’re very effective, but they go away from that to iso-heavy in the fourth.

And while Russ has mostly played tremendous basketball, we still see the Bad Russ tendencies come out from time to time. He was so effective in the first half, dishing dime after dime after dime. But he only had something like 4-6 points at the half. In the second half, it was almost like he decided, “Now it’s time for me to get mine.” When he does that, he starts shooting his jumpers while he still has forward momentum instead of elevating, and his percentage drops off dramatically.

All that said, it’s still nice to be 10-4. Even with the defensive lapses and stagnant offense, theyre finding ways to win close games. That’s huge.