The Drive and Dish | Jan. 4, 2024

By Nick Gallo | Broadcast Reporter and Digital Editor | okcthunder.com

OKC’s Boston-Atlanta Back-to-Back, Playing to the Whistle, Relocation on Offense and More!  

The Drive and Dish is here to answer the questions that might be going through your head during a Thunder game by providing experienced insight, highlighting aspects of the game you might have missed and pulling you behind the curtain with anecdotes, analysis and stats.   

Here’s what you need to know as the Thunder battles through a stretch of six games in 10 nights in five different cities. 

Thunder Head Coach Mark Daigneault made no excuses leading into the second night of a very challenging home-road back-to-back in Atlanta. Thunder players and coaches didn’t settle into their hotel until after 5 a.m. ET - only about 14 hours before tip-off - but Daigneault said, “the greatest aspiration we can have is to be fully present in the competition in front of us.”

Even though things didn’t go well for OKC in the first quarter and eventually the Hawks lead grew to 21, the Thunder stayed together and maintained its mental and physical presence long enough to keep hanging around. Eventually the Thunder clipped the Hawks lead down to single digits and ultimately to just 3 with 3.2 seconds to go. Daigneault drew up a slick sideline out of bounds play and the Thunder got a clean look from Isaiah Joe from the corner that would have sent the game to overtime, but the shot just barely missed.  

“Everybody thought that shot was going in,” said fellow reserve guard Aaron Wiggins who provided a 13-point jolt off the bench. “That's a shot we live with.”

After blowing past elite Boston defenders like Jrue Holiday, Derrick White and Jaylen Brown for most of the night to get driving layups or short jumpers, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just took what the defense gave him in the fourth quarter of OKC’s exhilarating 127-123 home victory over the Celtics.

With Boston’s help defense sagging in further to take away driving attacks, Shai pivoted course and set up Chet Holmgren for a pair of kickout 3s. Moments later, SGA made one of the most subtly important plays of the night - setting a screen for Jalen Williams out top to help generate a crucial stop-and-pop bucket over Jayson Tatum.  

Gilgeous-Alexander finished with a game-high 36 points on an efficient 14-of-22 shooting to go with seven assists, six rebounds and a steal, but it didn’t have to be the Shai show down the stretch. He just orchestrated to keep the Boston defense off guard long enough for his team to outlast the Celtics. 

When the Thunder says it wants a 48-minute effort of stacking quality possessions over and over, they really mean it. That definition of a quality possession extends to every second of the shot clock and over the last few games the Thunder players have proven that they will not relent while that clock is ticking. Against Minnesota Aaron Wiggins pressured after a missed shot to force Naz Reid to step out of bounds. Even in a Thunder blowout with 1:14 to go in the fourth quarter, rookie Cason Wallace chased down a Timberwolves player racing ahead in transition to make a poke-away steal. 

Against Brooklyn Lu Dort sprinted back to blow up a fast break, not only stopping a sure-thing layup by Cam Johnson but also knocking it off the forward’s leg to force a turnover. Late in the game it was Dort combining with Josh Giddey on a wild hustle play that blew the lid off of Paycom Center. Dort’s attempted dunk flew off the back iron, Giddey came crashing in to tap the loose rebound away from the Nets and the ball ended back up with Dort in the corner for a wide open 3 that splashed through, sealing a 16-point home win on New Year’s Eve. 

The Thunder’s offense is predicated on drives, kickouts, then secondary drives against closeouts to continue adding up advantages throughout a possession. That means with each successive attack and dish back out to the perimeter, the initial driver must clear out of the lane and find the empty spot on the floor to relocate. 

One player who is constantly in motion whether he has the ball or not is Isaiah Joe, whose precise understanding of angles and technique elicited Mark Daigneault to put him in the category of basketball “scientist” in comparison to some teammates who are “artists”. That technical understanding is the foundation, and it allowed him to mix in some innate chemistry with his former high school teammate Jaylin Williams. 

Against the Nets, Joe drove into the lane, kicked to the left corner for JWill, then emptied out into the right corner to ensure the lane stayed open. In a split second, JWill drove again and lofted the ball over the top of the defense right to Joe, who had just set up for a catch-and-shoot 3.

In the NBA, there are some players who must get used to not knowing whether their name is going to get called by the head coach and even if it does, when that will be. As the Thunder has invested in its program over the last few years, it has consciously incorporated the management of that uncertainty as a skill to develop within each player. 

As a big man Jaylin Williams recognizes that not every matchup will be the right one for him, but he’s made the most of the minutes he’s gotten when Daigneault has called his name. Against the Celtics, Williams didn’t play a single minute in the first half, then was dropped into the rotation for eight critical second-half minutes. The second-year center provided a different defensive look to Boston in coverage, brought some physicality on the glass and knocked down a critical 3 and another push shot in the lane. 

Last week in Denver his role was more significant, and his impact was just as critical if not more so. Daigneault attempted to match Williams’ minutes with two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić during stretches of both halves out in Denver, and Williams did a masterful job of simply encouraging Jokić to not look for his own shot, playing into OKC’s goal of forcing other Nuggets to try to beat them instead. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Williams’ calling card – taking a charge – was one of the standout plays from his 17 minutes against the Nuggets and Jokić. 

Having just completed the first of five back-to-back sets in the month of January, the Thunder still has a slog ahead of it with three more on the road during this East Coast swing. The Thunder will be tested with an Eastern Conference team it has played before (Brooklyn, just three games ago) and a pair of teams it hasn’t seen yet in Washington and Miami. All three squads are in different stages of their development arc, so the Thunder will need the competitive empathy that Daigneault tries to impart before every game to make sure they’re on the level with each opponent. 

Friday night’s game in Brooklyn starts at 6:30 p.m. CT, while Monday’s game at Washington is an early 6 p.m. CT tip-off. Be sure to tune in on Bally Sports Oklahoma, follow along on our @okcthunder social accounts and stay here on the Thunder App or okcthunder.com.