Thunder 127, Wizards 108
Give the people what they want, Scott Brooks…And the players for that matter.
Up and down. Fast-paced. High octane.
It’s what we saw in Friday night’s 127-108 win over the Washington Wizards, arguably the most entertaining game the Ford Center has seen this season, with the three-point overtime loss to the Los Angeles Lakers the only other contest that comes remotely close.
But Brooks backed away from almost everything that made this game fun. Didn’t like the score. Didn’t like his team’s commitment to offense and lack of attention to detail on defense. Didn’t like that the Thunder succumbed to an opponent’s style of play.
How about the result, Scotty?
“It was a good win,” Brooks said before immediately transforming into all-out party-pooper. “We won the game, but it’s not the way we like to play basketball. We’re not a team that’s going to score 30 points in four quarters.”
To that I asked, why not? Why not make it a shootout? Why not turn the game into a catch-me-if-you-can contest?
Seems a reasonable method since the Thunder has more offensive-oriented players than defensive, right? Brooks says not so much, maintaining that this team is not built for a shootout. Not now. Not ever. This team’s identity, Brooks said, is defense.
“We have to get it straight,” Brooks said, “our players understand that you get burned more times than not if you play this style of basketball with our group right now and where we are as a team. We have to continue to get better defensively.”
Every player on the roster, especially the eight who played the majority of minutes in Friday night’s blowout, will tell you that that faster pace is more fun.
“It’s fun to play like that when it’s going well, especially the way we played tonight,” said Jeff Green after the game.
Said James Harden: “It’s fun. It’s just like in high school. It’s like the way you were raised.”
Said Kevin Durant: “It’s kind of 50-50. We could have slowed it down a little bit more. But we also had a lot of opportunities to run, which we like.”
The problem is this defensive philosophy is paying dividends. Before Friday night, the Thunder was 0-5 in games it allowed 100 points or more. OKC was limiting opponents to a little more than 90 points per game and the method was manifesting itself into wins.
For young teams like the Thunder, it’s easy to get sucked into high-scoring affairs. Easy to forget that defense wins games and fourth-quarter stops still matter most. It’s why Brooks preaches defense and will continue to no matter how much his team lights up the scoreboard.
“We can’t get baited into playing this way,” Brooks said. “We have to continue to get better at playing our style of basketball. We have to do things according to who we are. And we are a defensive team that gets stops.”
Thunder 100, Heat 87
The date was Feb. 28, 2009.
That’s when the Thunder recorded its fourth road win last season, a full four months into the season.
Shocking isn’t it?
But in what’s become the latest bit of evidence of how much Oklahoma City has improved, the Thunder secured its fourth road win Tuesday night at Miami, just three weeks into the 2009-10 season. It was a dominating 100-87 win over Miami at American Airlines Arena, one that bumped the Thunder’s road record to 4-2, or half its win total from last season’s 41 road games.
Good teams win on the road, and Tuesday’s win proves the Thunder is blossoming into a good team. This 6-5 start is no fluke. Oklahoma City has a better road record than it does at home (2-3). Granted, Miami is far from the toughest place to win in the league. Heat officials were so desperate for fans that two entire sections in the upper deck were allowed to move down to the lower bowl. But the Thunder has also gone into Detroit, San Antonio and Los Angeles and won, holding off talented Pistons, Spurs and Clippers teams in the fourth quarter with solid late-game execution and exceptional defense.
Road wins are vital for any team looking to land in the postseason when the regular season music stops in mid-April. Seven of last season’s 16 playoff teams finished above .500 on the road. Another two, Portland and Houston, were one game under .500 away from their home buildings. The Thunder could be on that same track, especially when you consider OKC’s two road losses, at Houston and at Sacramento, both came down to the fourth quarter, the Kings loss ending with a last-second shot that could have forced overtime.
Since that letdown in Sacramento, the Thunder has now won three straight road games. Oklahoma City’s 4-2 road record now trails only Phoenix (6-2), Portland and Dallas (both 5-2) in the Western Conference.
The best sign is that the Thunder is succeeding because of a commitment to defense. The Thunder held Miami to 43.1 percent shooing and limited a hot-handed Heat team to 5-for-18 shooting from behind the 3-point line. OKC now ranks fourth in opponent scoring, allowing just 90.1 points per game. The Heat’s point total was the seventh time in 11 games that the Thunder has held an opponent to less than 100 points. On one of the four occasions that a team did score in triple digits on the Thunder, it took the Los Angeles Lakers overtime to notch its 101-98 win.
One thing that has been proven early this season, though, is the Thunder, because of its youth, is as erratic as it is stingy. The Thunder followed up big wins against San Antonio and Orlando with heart-breakers against Sacramento and the Clippers. Oklahoma City very well could travel to Orlando for Wednesday’s game against the Magic and get run out of Amway Arena.
But the Thunder is now conscious of how to win and confident it can clinch victory on anyone’s court. And at this rate, would anyone really be surprised if the Thunder beat the Magic in Orlando on Wednesday, even if Oklahoma City didn’t see road win No. 5 until March 10?
Thunder 83, Clippers 79
While you were cozily tucked in late Wednesday, perhaps uninterested in staying up past midnight to watch the Thunder take on the Blake Griffin-less Los Angeles Clippers, Kevin Durant was busy delivering his breakthrough performance in Game No. 8 of what many consider the season that will be his coming out party.
Durant dominated the Clippers in every respect before the final buzzer sounded on the Thunder’s 83-79 win, undoubtedly assembling his best and most complete outing of his two-plus years.
On this night, Durant arrived, his coronation unfortunately coming courtesy of L.A.’s forgotten team, which had only a generously-announced 14,248 spectators sprinkled throughout Staples Center as witnesses.
Statistically, Durant has had more impressive showings. His line Wednesday — 30 points, 10 rebounds and four assists — won’t wow you because it’s what we’ve come to expect of Durant. On numbers alone, this wasn’t even Durant’s best night in Staples Center. He poured in career-highs of 46 points and 15 rebounds against the Clippers last January, getting to the foul line 26 times and swishing 24 freebies. Both the attempts and the makes from the stripe stand as franchise records.
But this game wasn’t about numbers. It was about winning, which the Thunder failed to do against a short-handed Clippers team last winter despite Durant’s career night. It was about the mega-talented Durant, maybe for the first time, coming to the realization that he is capable of doing whatever he needs to do on the court to lead his teammates to victory.
Durant hunkered down on defense, playing the passing lanes and pestering his man to come up with steals and deflections. Durant played point forward offensively, controlling the ball and the pace of the Thunder’s offense throughout much of his 36 minutes, 22 seconds. He created for himself and others, refusing to settle but rather weaving his way into the lane for easy baskets or showing off an improved mid-range game with pull-up jumpers. Durant’s first 3-point attempt didn’t come until the opening seconds of the second quarter.
And this time, on a play that illustrated everything he did right offensively, Durant netted the big shot.
The Thunder took a 78-71 lead with 5:43 left to play but scored just one point over the next five minutes as the Clippers crept back to tie the score at 79-all. Thunder coach Scott Brooks then ran an isolation for Durant on the left wing. With Al Thornton defending closely, Durant drove left with two dribbles before reaching the baseline. He stopped and hit a step-back jumper over Thornton with 38.9 seconds remaining.
“That’s what I do,” Durant said. “That’s what I’m here for is to make big plays, miss or make.”
It wasn’t the make that stood out. It was the decision-making.
Equally impressive, although it will be overshadowed, was the play in which Durant didn’t take the shot. It came on a sequence that saw the Thunder aiming to milk the final 27.3 seconds off the game clock with the shot clock showing a 4.3-second differential. With all eyes on Durant as he stood near halfcourt, much like he did against the Lakers before settling for a 28-footer, Durant jabbed right took one dribble left and passed to a wide open Jeff Green after Marcus Camby helped. Green swung it to Kevin Ollie in the left corner. Ollie missed a 3-point attempt but retrieved the rebound and iced the game with a pair of free throws with 1.8 seconds remaining.
“We’ve definitely made some strides,” said Nick Collison. “I think we’re just starting to learn how to play. What I like is we have a lot of guys just concerned with winning and making winning plays.”
Durant did both Wednesday and assumed his rightful place at the front of the line on a night that you might have viewed simply as Game No. 8 of his third season.
Kings 101, Thunder 98
A viewer asked the Fox Sports Oklahoma crew the most compelling question of the night via text message.
“Why does the Thunder play to the level of its competition at times?”
I’m wondering the same thing following Tuesday night’s 101-98 loss at Sacramento. I’ve posed a variation of the question to Kevin Durant and Co. on more than one occasion this season, inquiring whether the team gets more juiced when playing against the league’s best teams.
I was met with company line after company line, from everyone except wily veteran Kevin Ollie, who before playing the Los Angeles Lakers said, “I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t get any extra motivation.”
Said Durant, “I get up for every game no matter who we’re playing. I get up for the Lakers the same way I do for Portland or Sacramento.”
The problem with taking that stance publicly comes when you run into nights like Tuesday that clearly prove otherwise. Not singling out Durant. He actually played well and gave good effort on both ends. But what’s been identified is the issue of inconsistency throughout the entire team. Granted, on Monday I wrote that the Thunder is now beating teams its supposed to beat. But in that same space I also pointed out that OKC is far from out of the woods and has work left to be done.
The latest defeat was a prime example of the labor that lies ahead but is to be expected from a team filled with 25-year-old-and-younger talent.
But explanations for effort are harder to articulate when, two nights after manhandling the defending Eastern Conference champions, you get outplayed from start to finish by a Kings team missing its best player, guard Kevin Martin. Had the Thunder got up for the Kings like it did for Orlando on Sunday or the Lakers last week this game would have easily been a blowout. Instead, the Thunder is 3-4. Instead, the Thunder never led by more than four. Instead, the Thunder shot 39.7 percent against a Kings team without any interior resistance and reverted to haphazard defense.
“We just have to play better,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks.
The worst of it was that the Kings outrebounded the Thunder 51-36, including 15-8 on the offensive end and scored 20 points in transition. Jason Thompson had 21 points and 14 rebounds. Numbers like those make it easy to challenge the Thunder’s claim that it treats every opponent the same. Easy because the rebounding numbers against a much better Magic team two nights earlier read 45-30 in favor of the Thunder. Easy because a much more talented post player, Dwight Howard, was held to 20 points and seven boards when the Thunder’s players had it set in their minds that he wouldn’t be the one who beat them.
“We didn’t rebound the ball well. That’s the bottom line,” Brooks said. “We gave them 15 offensive rebounds. Jason Thompson was really a force down there. He had a lot of easy buckets around the basket. He was physical and it was just too many second-chance points.”
The good news is that the Thunder still only lost by three and Durant short-armed a 3-pointer in the final seconds that could have sent it to overtime despite the team’s effort on both ends ranking as arguably the second worst showing of the season behind the Houston debacle. A lot of shots that ordinarily go in rimmed out tonight. Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Thabo Sefolosha went a combined 7-for-27.
Some of the shooting woes could be attributed to a lack of ball movement. And some of the lack of ball movement probably could be attributed to shooting woes. The Thunder tallied just 15 assists one game after recording a season-high 27. The 16 turnovers marked the second time this season the Thunder finished with more giveaways than assists.
But again, despite it all, the Thunder had a last-second shot for a chance to play five extra minutes. Eliminate some inconsistency and we’re talking about the Thunder’s continued improvement right now.
“We didn’t play as good as we wanted to but we still hung in there on the road,” said Harden. “But there are some good teams that are going to stick in there until the fourth quarter and you hopefully pull it out. It was one of those games where we tried to (win it) in the fourth quarter. It just didn’t go our way.”
Thunder 102, Orlando 74
The stat of the night?
Three Thunder players with at least five assists.
Russell Westbrook had a game-high 10. Kevin Durant and James Harden had five apiece.
Ball movement was the name of the game Sunday against Orlando and the key to the Thunder’s 102-74 victory inside the Ford Center. Oklahoma City had 27 assists on 40 made baskets and 14 assists on their first 17 made field goals.
This, just three games after the Thunder recorded only six assists in a nine-point loss to Portland.
“We played as good as we could possibly play,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks. “We did a good job of playing 48 minutes of team basketball. It was probably our best ball-moving game.”
Through spacing the floor and sharing the basketball, the team’s most critical offensive principles, the Thunder got high-percentage looks and broke out of an early season scoring slump.
Sunday’s point total tied the Thunder’s season-high, set on opening night against Sacramento. The Thunder’s 57.1 percent shooting from the field and 56.3 percent shooting from the 3-point line were season-highs. So were the 27 total assists.
“We were making our shots, but we were making our shots because we were passing the basketball,” Brooks said. “We had 27 assists. That’s great basketball. We had some bad offensive basketball when we had six assists the other night and 15 a couple of games later. We have to move the ball. We have to keep everybody involved. Five guys need to feel a part of it because that’s what it’s going to take on both ends of the floor.”
At halftime, Brooks showed his team film of the exceptional ball movement. Through the first 24 minutes the Thunder had 15 assists on 21 made baskets. OKC had just four turnovers. It led to a 53-44 advantage at the break.
“It’s a lot easier,” said Harden about the offense when the ball moves. “It’s a lot of us who can score, who can put the ball in the basket and make plays for other people. Everyone did it tonight.”
Blazers 83, Thunder 74
This is what it looks like when you’re a team filled with jump shooters. When there isn’t a low-post scoring option in sight and the shots that usually go down do everything but drop through the net.
You knew the problem would rear its ugly head at some point. You just didn’t expect it to be game three. Especially not after the Thunder’s performances in games one and two.
The Thunder shot 34.3 percent in its 83-74 loss to Portland on Sunday night. Oklahoma City missed 11 of 14 3-pointers and couldn’t even hit the freebies, going 23 of 32 from the line.
The shooting woes led to just six assists.
“Offensively, it was probably as bad as we could possibly play,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks.
Kevin Durant was 3-for-21 and is now 21-for-64 through three games. That’s 32.8 percent.
Sunday’s shot selection was particularly alarming. Alarming because Durant continued to settle for jumpers. Good looks, no doubt, but not as good as layups. Alarming because this, his third season, is the one he was supposed to come back with an even more refined game. But he looked like strictly a jump shooter Sunday. There were occasions when he manufactured points and attempted to take it to the rack. His 14 free throw attempts were a good indicator that it wasn’t all long-range heaves.
But he could have done better, should have done better.
“Great players have their off shooting nights, and I guess tonight was his,” said Jeff Green. “He will bounce back next game and have a terrific game.”
Thunder 91, Pistons 83
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Last year, the Thunder took two steps back in games like this.
On the road. Bait for a team’s home opener. After a blowout home win.
It used to be the perfect storm. Friday night it was a piece of cake.
For a moment, though, it appeared as though not much had changed. The Thunder scored just 38 first-half points on 39.5 percent shooting. A talented Pistons squad that’s loaded with offensive weapons wasn’t having much trouble putting the ball in the basket in the first 24 minutes. And what we thought was a new and improved Russell Westbrook was regressing by the second, reverting to playing faster and turning over the ball at an alarming rate.
Even when the Thunder took a 10-point lead on two occasions in the fourth quarter, the outcome seemed in doubt. You might have reached ‘Here-we-go-again’ mode when the Pistons clawed within four with 4:27 remaining after surging to an 8-0 run.
But then it happened. The Thunder showed us this year would be different. Westbrook turned the tide when he hustled back instead of hanging his head after Ben Wallace blocked his layup. The Thunder’s point guard returned the rejection on Ben Gordon and helped the Thunder salvage it’s four-point lead. He made two free throws to push the lead to six. After Gordon netted one of two free throws, Westbrook found Nenad Krstic under the rim to bump the lead to seven.
And when Gordon split two more free throws, fundamental ball movement found Thabo Sefolosha in the corner for a 3-pointer that gave the Thunder a 84-75 lead with 2:03 remaining. The crowd filed up the Palace’s steps. The Pistons never got closer than five.
“This was one of our better wins since I’ve been here in terms of holding a team off and being able to get stops when we needed to in the fourth quarter,” said Nick Collison. “We never gave up that bad spurt where a team made a run on us. That’s something we struggled with in the past…It’s good to see in a tough game on the road that guys are still trying to do the right thing. A less experienced team like we were last year, those are the times guys kind of break away from the game plan and don’t make good decisions. But tonight, everybody played well.”
And the Thunder is 2-0.
Kings 104, Thunder 89
Don’t think this game didn’t matter. Not for a second.
If for some reason you’re still under the impression that Thursday night’s 104-89 loss to the starless Kings was simply a throw-away game, the last of this exhibition season, carefully chew on Kevin Durant’s words.
“It always means something when we step on this floor,” he said. “We’re a young team. We want to get better every time we step on the floor. Tonight was a tough one. We took some steps back.”
Steps.
Plural.
This was the third straight loss by at least 15 points. The third straight time a team has drained at least 10 3-pointers. The third straight game the wanna-be-defensive-minded Thunder allowed 104 points or more. The third straight game in which the opponent has shot better than 50 percent from the field.
In no way is it time to panic. It’s certainly way too early for that. But while the outcome doesn’t matter in these tune-ups, the performances and the trends certainly serve as warning signs.
After seven preseason games, the Thunder has demonstrated an inability to put together 48 minutes of quality basketball. It’s the same flaw that plagued this bunch last season. Some of this preseason’s blunders can be attributed to odd lineups and funky rotations, to subs closing out games and philosophy taking precedence over the outcome. But mostly, the Thunder showed the same imperfections during times its main unit was on the floor and times when the team tried to successfully close out a game with a win.
Have we forgotten Phoenix’s 26-9 fourth quarter on Oct. 12 that erased a 20-point lead before the Thunder prevailed by five in overtime? Lose that game and this exhibition season goes from 2-5 to 1-6, from decent to disappointing.
“It’s definitely a concern in our minds because we want to change it,” said Shaun Livingston. “That’s not how we want to come out and start the season. I know that we are going to come out better opening night. We know we are better than that.”
The Scene At Shootaround
I’ve been MIA lately, I know. Had to focus my attention on this little nifty thing we do before every season called a special section. I got a little bogged down with that on top of the regular load. But it gives me great pleasure to say that weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and our Thunder special section will hit newsstands and your front porch or driveway this Sunday. So let’s get back into the swing of things here shall we?
TINKERING WITH THE ROTATION
Thunder coach Scott Brooks at this morning’s shootaround sounded like he is done throwing out funky lineups and wacky rotations. I expect Brooks to play what mostly will be his main rotation in tonight’s preseason finale against Sacramento. But Brooks said he and the coaching staff are still trying to figure out who fits best with each other while giving different players an opportunity to adjust to playing with different teammates.
“It’s good for our team,” Brooks said. “It’s good to build chemistry on the floor. You’re going to be put in a position where you have to play with different guys…You try to figure out what a guy does with different guys. The game is impacted by who you’re playing with.”
DEJA VU
Rarely in the NBA will a team open the regular season against the same team it ended the preseason against. But that’s the position the Thunder and Kings are in this year. Cleveland and Boston have also managed to pull the scheduling quirk.
Brooks, however, said tonight’s game shouldn’t have any bearing on Wednesday’s season opener. Because of exhaustive scouting departments, he said, NBA teams, don’t have anything left to hide.
“We know what they’re going to run and they know what we’re going to run,” Brooks said. “We have to do a great job of executing it and using effort in our execution.”
Brooks did say Wednesday’s packages will be different than tonight’s because he plans to implement more wrinkles in the final few days of practice before the two teams meet again. He called the next five days of practice “pretty important for us.”
A FRIEND TURNED FOE
Perhaps a more significant advantage than the Kings’ ability to pick up on the Thunder’s strategy early is the presence of former Thunder forward Desmond Mason on Sacramento’s roster. Brooks expects Mason to share secrets with his new teammates. All players do once they change teams. Mike Harris informed Jeff Green of Houston players’ tendencies at the scorer’s table just before tip-off Monday.
“One of the things our coaches do when we have guys that play with other teams is (go over) their personnel’s tendencies,” Brooks admitted. “I think it’s important to listen to the players. They know, they feel it, they see it on the court. They experience it. So you always tap into their knowledge. And I’m sure Sacramento is going to be no different. Desmond knows what Kevin Durant does and how he does it. The bottom line is it takes five guys to make an offense work and it takes the same five guys to make a defense work.”
Grizzlies 99, Thunder 91
MEMPHIS — I’ve got good news and bad news from Memphis. Which one do you want first?
Let’s start with the bad.
The Thunder lost 99-91 to the Grizzlies on Wednesday night the same way it dropped a good majority of its games last season — late-game turnovers, poor decision-making, porous defense and deer-in-the-headlights looks from players on offense down the stretch.
The good news is this was Game 1 of the preseason, and this time the unit that fell prey to the same mistakes we saw so many nights last season won’t all be on the floor when the games matter three weeks from tonight.
The Grizzlies outscored the Thunder 19-9 in the final 7 1/2 minutes. OKC had as many turnovers (four) as field goals in those final minutes. Memphis rookie Sam Young took over like he was still a man among boys at Pitt, scoring 15 of his game-high 22 points in the final period. He attempted 16 free throws, 10 in the fourth quarter.
But the result is secondary since two rookies (Byron Mullens and James Harden), two sophomores (Kyle Weaver and D.J. White) and three role players (Shaun Livingston, Etan Thomas and Ryan Bowen) were the only ones that played the fourth quarter.
The main guys looked good.
Russell Westbrook orchestrated the offense almost perfectly. He finished with a game-high 10 assists and could have had more had his buddies made more shots. Westbrook didn’t force anything all game and, as a result, turned the ball over only twice. And one was an illegal screen. Because he looked for his teammates all night, he only took four shots, missing them all and scoring just five points. But his development was on display. His leadership, too. He jumped off the bench in the first half after the Grizzlies had two consecutive run outs and yelled, “Somebody’s gotta get back!” In addition to that, he helped hold Mike Conley in check and didn’t let the speedy point guard cause problems by weaving his way into the lane all night. Westbrook’s overall performance was hands down the most encouraging thing about the opener. He’s answering the question of whether he’s ready to lead this team each time he steps on the floor in a competitive environment. It’s way too early to declare that he is. But the better question might soon become is he ready to be consistent as the leader?
