Broadcast Information
- Tip-off: 9:30 p.m. CT
- Television: Fox Sports Oklahoma
- Radio: WWLS the Sports Animal and the Thunder Radio Network
LOS ANGELES – The Thunder showed off their defensive chops in the first game of the regular season. Much too early for it to be a trend, but putting together another impressive 48 minutes against the LA Clippers would be a good sign and a healthy start for Head Coach Billy Donovan’s club.
NBA defense is complicated, and it requires knowing how and when to revert to specific coverages in an instant, on the fly. As a result, it will be a season-long process of sharpening, maintaining and updating the Thunder’s tactics on defense, and ensuring they’re executed at a high level. The next step on that trajectory comes against the Clippers, where the 0-1 Thunder hope to pick up its first win of the 2018-19 campaign.
“They have a team full of good players,” forward Paul George said. “A roster full of good, well-rounded players. They play hard. It’s a team that you definitely have to come in ready and not take lightly.”
“The way the game is going, the importance of trying to take away the three-point line and on top of that, figuring out ways that you’re gonna have help each other to get teams funneled into the middle of the floor before they get to the deep paint,” Donovan said.
With the skill level, speed and new point of emphasis amongst the officials about hand checking and holding, there are bound to be times where the defense breaks down. That’s even more certain with players of the quality of Avery Bradley, Tobias Harris and Danilo Gallinari along the perimeter for the Clippers. What the Thunder did well against the Warriors and must continue to do against the Clippers is to track back behind their assignment to block off passing lanes and swallow up as much space as possible, while coordinating with help defenders who are crashing over from the weakside.
“It’s either meet him at the rim, or depending on how fast he’s moving, don’t let him get a pass off or disrupt his movement,” forward Jerami Grant explained.
The Clippers lost their first game of the season, at Staples Center, to the Denver Nuggets, but showed why they’ll be a tough opponent for everyone in the Western Conference this season. In the loss, the Clippers bench racked up 49 points, including double-digit scoring efforts from 7-foot-3 Boban Marjanovic, electric scorer Lou Williams and rookie Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who played 28 minutes, the most of any reserve. Against the Clippers, the Thunder’s second unit will have to bring defensive focus and intensity from the second they step on the floor, just like the starters do at the opening tip.
Watch: 1-on-1 with Nerlens Noels
“Everyone has to be prepared,” said point guard Dennis Schröder. “When we get in there, we gotta play defense. We gotta play with pace on offense as well. Everybody knows who is getting in there, we gotta play defense and gotta play as a unit.”
“They’re an explosive team offensively with a lot of versatility,” Donovan said. “They have a veteran group with guys who have been really good scorers in the league for a really long time. They have a lot of interchangeable parts of how they can play people.”
Another factor that Doc Rivers’ bunch brings to the table is immense size inside. Marjanovic is a unique force to be deal with in the paint – he’s a player who can touch the rim from his tip toes, and his 290-pound frame makes him hard to handle. In the starting group is veteran Marcin Gortat, another 7-footer who must be moved away from the basket.
“(Marjanovic) is a really effective player,” Donovan noted. “They do a good job of using him in a way that he’s an impact rolling to the basket or posting up. You have to account for him because he can change the game with his size and his length and in particular his scoring.”
If there’s one man in the league that can handle that type of physicality and size up front it’s the Thunder’s Steven Adams, but he’ll need help from Nerlens Noel and the rest of their teammates on the glass. On offense, it’ll be up to guards like Dennis Schröder to go right at the bigs and force them to make a commitment to thee ball or their own assignment.
“We still gotta be aggressive,” Schröder said. “We still gotta play downhill, attack the rim and put pressure on the rim and then find open shots on the weakside.”
Shootaround Notes
- As of shootaround on Friday morning there is no further update on Russell Westbrook other than he continues to get better and do more and more in practice each day. Hamidou Diallo suffered a mild ankle injury in practice and sat out the remainder of Thursday's practice, but participated in shootaround on Friday. Everyone else, besides Andre Roberson, participated fully with the team.
- Watching film was a subject of conversation at shootaround on Friday, namely the way Andre Roberson has been utilized as a teacher for young players like Abdel Nader, Tim Luwawu-Cabbarot, Terrance Ferguson and Hamidou Diallo. The coaching staff has allowed Roberson, with the help of an assistant coach, to run film sessions for those newcomers along the perimeter to help them with personnel and coverages on defense.
- “We want to put him in a role where he can take his experiences and kind of give back to those guys in terms of helping expedite some things on their end that they can learn without going through the experience of actually playing,” Donovan said.
- “We’ve seen a lot of improvements on those guys,” added Paul George in reference to the Thunder’s young wings. “It’s moreso teaching them tricks that we’ve learned and stuff we’ve picked up on the fly and speed their process up of learning how to play defense at this level.”
News & Notes
- With two full days between games, the Thunder held a spirited, high-paced practice on Thursday at UCLA’s Mo Ostin Center, on Russell Westbrook court.
- “In practice, we’re competing. We talk a lot of crap as well, and just try to get better,” Schröder smiled. “Today was probably the most competitive practice. We try to get better as a unit and as individuals.”
- Those live reps in practice are crucial for a newcomer like Abdel Nader, who missed nearly all of the preseason due to a knee injury. He’s been with the team every step of the way, but there’s no teacher like actual hands on experience. For players and coaches alike, film study is important, but it can only do part of the job. The muscle memory created by being out there physically is the only way to get fully on the same page with the group.
- “You’re sitting there watching film as a coach and you’re stopping it and stuff is happening so fast, you have to look at it from a player’s perspective,” Donovan explained. “Do they have enough time to make that kind of decision? Looking at all this stuff makes a lot of sense, but you get out there and the game starts flying around it becomes a lot harder to respond and react to those things.”
Watch: Game Day Report