Thunder stop the Celtics just enough, 122-118
The Thunder have turned into a bad defensive team. There’s no sugarcoating it. We can label it as “inconsistency,” but over the last three weeks, there’s not much inconsistent about it. It’s just poor right now.
There are some good explanations.
1) As Scott Brooks said: “With every season, you’re going to have some peaks and valleys of different parts of your game, defensively and offensively.” You can get hot, both on the offensive end, and the defensive. Right now, the Thunder are playing offensive basketball at a ridiculously high level, scoring at least 100 points in 21 straight games. Defensively, they’re frustratingly poor.
2) Injuries. Serge Ibaka is the Thunder’s defensive anchor. He allows them to deploy the scheme they prefer — high ball pressure, attacking pick-and-rolls, closing out aggressively on shooters. Sure, a lot of the poor defense they’ve played has included Ibaka on the floor, but as we now know, he wasn’t entirely himself in those. With Ibaka playing in the first 64 games of the season, the Thunder allowed 101.4 points per 100. In the four games without, 106.6.
3) They miss Perk. Nah, just kidding. (Actually, that may have a little to do with it, but not to the degree it’s degenerated to this.)
4) Enes Kanter is not a good defensive player. They’re trying to cover for his deficiencies, and without Ibaka there to cover him, the Thunder are scrambling all over.
5) They’re playing a lot of young players. Mitch McGary is a rookie. Andre Roberson is a second year guy. Steven Adams is a second year guy. The Thunder personnel isn’t exactly inclined to play defense at a high level consistently throughout a 48 minute game.
All that said, it doesn’t change the fact the Thunder have stunk defensively as of late. They did straighten out some against Boston, going from allowing 57 points on 64 percent shooting in the first half to allowing 61 on 42 percent in the second. And 21 of those points came in the final three minutes where the Celtics hit five 3s. Again, a lapse in focus that nearly cost them.
They survived on the fact Russell Westbrook made all eight of his free throws in the final minute, and rode his incredible third quarter spark that got them there. It was kind of a meh game for Westbrook, or as much as a 36-5-10 game can be. That’s where things are right now with Westbrook — 36-5-10 doesn’t do much for us. He shot 8-26 and turned it over seven times, but he did what was necessary to win. Not always pretty, but effective enough.
And that’s the idea right now for the Thunder — by any means. The defense has sucked, but they did enough to win. It has to improve if the Thunder are going to get to where they need to be, but the good news is, defense has always been a correctable thing for them. They’ve had these valleys before, and always have straightened out. For now, they’ve just got to outscore people.
NOTES:
- Enes Kanter rolled his left ankle late in the fourth. It didn’t seem all that bad at first, but he subbed out and went to the locker room. Following the game he wasn’t putting any weight on it, and needed help to get to his locker. He said he’s not sure about playing, and will see how he feels tomorrow.
- Kanter did have his seventh double-double with the Thunder, and his fourth 20-10 game, finishing with 22 (on 10-13) and 10 rebounds.
- Steven Adams had his sixth double-double of the season, 14 points and 13 in 38 minutes.
- Steve Novak appears to have jumped ahead of Kyle Singler in the rotation. Or at least he did tonight.
- It’s funny, I saw some critical of Brooks for just “throwing stuff out there” going with Novak. But then when he sticks with someone, he’s obstinate.
- The Celtics hit 7-12 from 3 in the first half. At one point they’d hit only 1-14 in the second, but started drilling them in the final two minutes again, finishing 13-34 overall.
- Anthony Morrow was terrific off the bench: 20 points in 28 minutes on 7-11 shooting (4-7 from 3).
- Brooks said pregame Mitch McGary was going to get an extended chance, but only saw six minutes tonight. My guess as to the reason? He was toasted in the first half defensively.
- Something I don’t understand entirely: Brooks was committed to Perk because of the toughness and defense he supposedly added. So why doesn’t Nick Collison fall under the same provisions? He’s still an elite pick-and-roll defender, and is versatile enough to play alongside any big.
- Marcus Smart is going to be a good NBA player.
- Think about it: Last time the Thunder didn’t score at least 100 was Jan. 31.
- Westbrook was asked about the Thunder’s tough loss “last night in Dallas”: “Uh, last night in Dallas, let me think. Nah, we didn’t play last night, we didn’t play last night. Nah nah, we didn’t play last night.”
- Waiters has this knack where I think he’s played OK, then I look at the box score and he’s 3-10.
- Waiters finished with eight points on 4-14, five rebounds, three assists and 10 sighs.
- I love Brad Stevens. I think he’s fantastic. A great coach. But for whatever reason, a coach that has a team that’s 30-37 can get incredible amounts of credit because of the perception he only has average players. It’s a weird dynamic.
- Also: I had a bunch of people say to me tonight that Stevens was “outcoaching” Brooks. First, I don’t really even know what that means, and second, Brooks is 2-0 against Stevens this season, and if you’ll recall, the first one was the second of a back-to-back with no Westbrook or Durant, in which the Thunder blew out the Celtics in the second half.
Next up: Home against the Hawks on Friday
