Date: Jan. 31, 2020Tip-Off Time: 8 p.m. CTTelevision: Fox Sports OklahomaRadio: 98.1 FM WWLS the Sports Animal and the Thunder Radio Network
Thunder Status The Thunder set the right tone to this final road trip that caps off a grueling 17-games in 31 days month of January. By holding Sacramento to just 16 first quarter points and only 100 for the entire game on their home court, OKC displayed its ability to get into the jerseys of high-level shooters and to rotate from help positions to tamp down dribble drives. It will have to do that all over again on Friday against Phoenix, whose lineup is littered with elite shooting and players who can make the right pass to free up an open teammate.
Opponent Breakdown Phoenix ranks 2nd in the NBA in assists per game at 27.3, getting playmaking from Ricky Rubio and Devin Booker primarily while also utilizing highly skilled big men like Dario Saric and DeAndre Ayton to distribute the ball to others within the offense. While Ayton scored a season-high 31 points in Phoenix’s 29-point victory over Dallas on Tuesday, the leading scorer for the Suns that night was Booker.
The fifth-year guard is averaging 27.1 points per game, the most for a Suns player since Tom Chambers in the 1989-90 season and at 23 years old, he ranks ninth in the entire league by scoring or assisting on 42.7 of his team’s points per game. The Kentucky product has also been hyper efficient, shooting 51.0 percent from the field, 36.8 percent from three and 91.7 percent from the free throw line.
It’ll be up to youngsters like Lu Dort, Hamidou Diallo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to provide initial coverage on Booker, while helpside defenders must be in place to prevent easy attacks to the rim. Don’t be surprised to see Dennis Schröder involved as a defender as well.
Matchup Focus
Guard play is paramount to the success of any NBA team’s chances in the modern NBA and both of these teams have point guards who thrive in different ways. Phoenix, who acquired Ricky Rubio this offseason as a free agent, relies on the Spanish point guard to generate offense through his 8.8 assists per game. At home though, his scoring numbers are dramatically increased as the 9th-year guard is averaging 14.5 points on 43.7 percent shooting in Phoenix.
Opposite Rubio will be Gilgeous-Alexander, who set a career-high with 32 points against Phoenix in the teams’ first meeting back in mid-December, which OKC won 126-108. From October through that game in December all the way until about three weeks ago, Gilgeous-Alexander had scored at a high rate and averaged 5.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 0.4 blocks per game. Since January 11th though, the second-year guard has surged in those extra categories, booming his averages to 9.1 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.4 blocks over the last 10 games.
Stat to Watch Dunks – Nerlens Noel has been a dunking machine over the past 10 games, registering at least 2 dunks in 9 of those contests for an average of 3.1 per game. He’s up to 50 alley-oop dunks on the season, putting himself in the top 4 in the league in that category. By getting out of screens quickly and rolling hard to the rim, Noel has put tons of pressure on opposing defenses.
“(Noel) is a big-time roller and opens up a lot of things,” said Schröder. “Offensively and defensively he’s doing his thing.”
The 25-year old center is getting it done on defense too though. He’s averaging 5.0 deflections, 2.1 steals and 2.9 blocks per-36 minutes, ranking in the top 11 of each category and first in steals-plus-blocks per-36 minutes with 5.02. That level of disruption is devastating to opposing offenses.
Thunder Trend After starting the season 0-6 on the road, the Thunder has completely flipped the script and gone 14-4 away from Chesapeake Energy Arena since then. OKC has the third-best road record in the entire NBA since November 25th, averaging 109.5 points on 46.4 percent shooting with just 13.0 turnovers. The offense has hummed, and its resulted in an 11-2 mark over the team’s last 13 road games, including a six-game road winning streak. That will all be put to the test in this final January matchup, before OKC turns the page to a stretch of 10 games that includes seven at home.
“We’ve kind of just stayed with it,” said Donovan. “To win on the road you have to be a together team. This group is together.”