Friday Bolts: 10.11.19

The Thunder womped the New Zealand Breakers last night. Erik Horne (The Oklahoman) has some takeaways: “With (Darius) Bazley and (Terrance) Ferguson in the starting lineup, the Thunder was able to trot out length at four positions instead of three. (Chris) Paul was the only Thunder starter under 6-foot-6. The result was a defense which hounded the Breakers into 11 turnovers by halftime and 19 total.”

Dorian Craft (USA TODAY) documents the buzzworthy contributions from Steven Adams thus far: “If there were any lingering questions about whether or not Steven Adams would step into a larger role this season, if the first two preseason games are any indication, the answer is unequivocally yes.”

Who said OKC lost their point guard, anyway?

Jonathan Givony (ESPN) liked what he saw from R.J. Hampton, despite some underwhelming stats:

Brett Dawson (The Athletic) wonders whether Billy Donovan will get more, better ball movement out of his new roster: “Any change in the Thunder offense will start with Paul. He’ll have the ball more than anyone, and he’ll set the tone. Paul spent the past two seasons in an isolation-heavy offense in Houston, one where he and James Harden dominated the ball in one-on-one situations. The Rockets ranked 29th in the league in passes last season, with about four more per game than the Thunder. The Lakers, who ranked 28th, passed almost 32 times per game more than Houston. But that isolation-heavy system isn’t necessarily Paul’s preference.”

The Jump has another segment saying good things about SGA (H/T u/TheReplacer on reddit):

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