National Basketball Association

What the four-day layoff means for the Oklahoma City Thunder

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 3:52 p.m. ET

Fansided, Tony Heim/FanSided via Thunderous Intentions

November 3, 2016; Oakland, CA, USA; Oklahoma City Thunder forward Domantas Sabonis (3) talks to head coach Billy Donovan (right) during the third quarter against the Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena. The Warriors defeated the Thunder 122-96. Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

The OKC Thunder are in the middle of the most difficult schedule stretch of their season. With four days off they had ample time to make a few adjustments.

This week is going to be interesting. The Thunder play four games-three on the road, two against contenders (Utah and Cleveland) and one quick home visit to play the Mavericks. Oklahoma City should be able to win at least two of these games, but a couple games without Steven Adams may temper expectations.

If anything, that should be Billy Donovan’s biggest focus over these four days. Without the Big Kiwi the Thunder gave up 120+ points to both the Clippers and the Warriors. Domantas Sabonis and Enes Kanter aren’t strong rim protectors, so Donovan has to find another method to keep players out of the paint.

That’s one thing that the coaching staff needs to put a priority on. But I have a couple more for you.

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Refocus the offensive priority to attacking the basket

The Thunder-an atrocious shooting team-has fallen in love with shooting. In this day and age it’s easy to jack up threes and explain it with analytics; the problem is those analytics are based on average shooting teams. At 32.5%, OKC finds themselves 29th in three-point shooting this season.

The last four games, in which the Thunder are 1-3, they’ve shot 106 threes. Only 30 have gone in for a whopping 28.3% during that span. To make matters worse, Alex Abrines and Russell Westbrook hit a combined 7 shots on 9 attempts against the Kings. Without that anomaly OKC is only 23-97 in the last four games.

What is OKC’s biggest advantage? Size and speed. Nobody can handle the Stache Brothers down low. Nobody can guard Russ when he’s driving full speed at the rim. But they can “guard” an Andre Roberson three.

Revisiting rim protecting

I touched on this in a post yesterday, but the switch-everything style of defense fits the Thunder well. When they don’t have Adams on the court (and even when they do) OKC has the athletes to switch everything on defense. Watching Sabonis defend the perimeter may be ugly now, but in two-three years? He’ll be a pro at it.

Switching everything is the route Donovan should take going forward, ESPECIALLY if Adams is out. When everybody is switching, it makes communicating through screens, cuts, etc. much easier. In turn it would ensure that there would always be someone around the rim. Jerami Grant is the only Thunder defender that strikes fear in opponents hearts around the rim, but he is too skinny to truly play that role right now.

Russell Westbrook needs to find his shot

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Russ has shot under 37% in four of the last five games. The one time he was in the 50’s? The dub in Sacramento. We all know Russ is a one-man wrecking crew this season. It doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be that way, but it is. And we are seeing the consequences of that style right now.

Westbrook started the season shooting at a rate that was unsustainable for a whole season. Teams have adjusted to his game, forcing him to shoot more jump shots or pass the ball to a teammate. It’s obvious that Russ doesn’t have complete trust in his squad yet, so he tends to force the shot instead of reset the offense. When he’s on fire that’s okay. But not when the stroke is a little off.

I have resigned in believing that OKC will run a true offense this season. It just can’t happen with the mentality that Russ is playing with. So we just have to hope that the shots start falling again.