Nerlens Noel slid his feet and planted himself in front of a driver, cutting off the angle for a transition layup. The whistle blew and a charge was called. Russell Westbrook hurtled into the second row to save a loose ball, and Terrance Ferguson dove on the floor, sacrificing his body to main possession as well.
There were a ton of hustle plays on defense for the Thunder on Sunday night, the spectacular ones that no scouting or scheming can create. They all hinge on energy and effort. Yet for Head Coach Billy Donovan, there’s an understanding that in today’s NBA, those plays alone aren’t enough. On Monday the team took a deep look on film at the fundamental defensive issues that allowed the Sacramento Kings to score 131 points in the Thunder’s home opening loss.
“Where we didn’t play as well was on the things that we have to do every single game,” Donovan said, mentioning transition defense, matching up and allowing back cuts. “I didn’t think our pick-and-roll coverage was where it needed to be. The communication between the bigs and the guards was not great.”
Sure, a look at the shot chart will show that from between 5 and 19 feet, the Kings shot 15-of-30 (50 percent), including 9-of-19 (47.3 percent) on shots between 10 and 19 feet. The high volume of shot attempts in those areas should be a good thing – meaning that about one-third of Sacramento’s shots did not come at the rim or from behind the three-point line. The shooting percentage, however was quite high – and that comes down to a combination of hot shot-making by the Kings and some lax defense by the Thunder.
“It’s important to keep it on the reality and the truth of what happened,” Donovan said. “There’s things that we have control over that we need to do a much, much better job in terms of executing what we’re doing on defense at a much, much higher level.”
On the other end of the floor, the Thunder focused on maintaining the faith. Yes, the team is 0-3 to start the season, but it just returned Russell Westbrook to the floor and has a week and a half at home before a road trip to end the month of October. Like a miniature training camp, the Thunder will be devoting practice time to getting shooters into a rhythm, now with the team’s engine at point guard back in place.
The crucial thing for the Thunder will be to hold onto the rope,and keep trusting in the offensive flow that helped generate 59 field goal attempts in the paint and 39 attempts from behind the three-point line against Sacramento, leaving just six non-paint two-point attempts for the game.
“The biggest thing is we moved the ball,” Donovan stated. “We got to the paint. We kicked it out. I thought we generated good shots. I didn’t think we got stagnant. We played really with good pace and tempo and speed coming down the floor.”
The big problem for the Thunder on offense was not the type of shots it got, but rather those shots actually going in. The team has shooters that are more than capable of hitting from distance, but the Thunder went just 9-of-39 (23.1 percent). Through the first three games, the Thunder is shooting just 23.9 percent from behind the arc and 39.0 percent overall. There is trust that those numbers will eventually return to form, but it will take a steel will and a persistent work ethic.
“We talk about adversity a lot,” Donovan divulged. “When you’re playing in the best league in the world in the game of basketball, to sit there and say that you’re not gonna go through any adversity would be crazy. They’re all gonna go through it. It’s all how you come out of it and how you handle it and how you deal with it.
“The guys with the resiliency and the perseverance and the drive and the mental toughness to work through adversity are the guys that really, really get better,” Donovan continued.
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News & Notes
- After sustaining a blow to the mouth area on Sunday night, Alex Abrines did not return to action. As of practice on Monday there was no further update. Abrines is, of course, one of the Thunder’s best perimeter shooters so it would be unfortunate for him to miss more time, but Donovan is confident in the Spaniard’s ability to pick right back up when he returns to action.
- “The one thing I would say about Alex is he’s usually pretty good when he gets back healthy, he can go into games and function pretty well,” Donovan said. “A lot of it is because he’s got a pretty high IQ, he understands how to play, he’s got a really good feel for the game.”
- If Abrines is unable to participate in the Thunder’s physically-oriented practices on Tuesday and Wednesday, there may be more opportunities for guys like Tim Luwawu-Cabarrot and Abdel Nader to get reps. Though neither has seen minutes yet during the regular season, the Thunder coaching staff is in constant communication with every player on the roster to make sure they’re prepared when their opportunity arises.
- “The engagement part doesn’t always mean engaged in terms of throwing them in the game,” Donovan explained. “Engagement part to me means their value and their importance to the team when their number is called.”