Welcome to “Basketball, Neat.” This is an intermittent column throughout the 2015-16 NBA season where DIME will discuss some basketball play or trend without extraneous information.
If you’re a fan of single-malt Scotch, you should be familiar with ordering a drink, neat. That’s what this is, but with basketball. So there will be none of the usual contextual or superficial noise you might hear on Twitter or even in our pieces at DIME. This isn’t some referendum on basketball coverage or anything quite so lofty; it’s just a tiny place to talk exclusively about hoops. We’d like to nerd out about basketball for a little bit before we go back to the overarching culture of basketball and the NBA we normally cover. We hope you like it, but it’s primarily just a selfish way to publish what we’re already talking about with each other.
After the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night, Steven Adams explained his team’s dramatic Game 2 turnaround in the simplest of terms.
“We came out and actually tried,” he said. “That’s pretty much it. We actually tried this time.”
Oklahoma City’s sweeping improvement, of course, didn’t quite come that easily. Billy Donovan altered his rotation, changed individual matchups, tweaked pick-and-roll coverage, and made so many more adjustments that accounted for the Thunder stealing a game in the Alamo City some 48 hours after it seemed they didn’t even deserve to be there.
But Adams’ overarching point stands nonetheless: Oklahoma City’s effort was far, far better in Game 2 than Game 1, a reality that allowed those sweeping schematic shifts to make the impact needed for this team to compete in a place the Spurs lost only once during the regular season.
Jack: Defense was the biggest difference for the Thunder between Games 1 and 2. San Antonio lit the scoreboard on fire Saturday night, setting records for points and assists in the first half and ringing up 124 points on 60.7 percent shooting despite its starters sitting the entire fourth quarter.
It was obvious from tipoff of Monday’s contest that the Spurs wouldn’t score with the ease and efficiency they did two days earlier. Oklahoma City still had no answer for LaMarcus Aldridge; he scored 41 points on 21 shots in Game 2. The Thunder didn’t always navigate off-ball screens seamlessly, sometimes got lost in transition, and occasionally scrambled ineffectively behind the initial point of attack.
But focusing on the wrong needlessly obscures the scope of the rights – which began first and foremost with how Oklahoma City handled ball screens. We just didn’t see this type of communicative, multiple-effort, synergistic pick-and-roll defense from Donovan’s team in Game 1.
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Look at how many calls and rotations San Antonio forces the defense to make here:
- Serge Ibaka telling Adams to take the ball after a double screen from Tim Duncan and Aldridge
- Adams cutting off the ball
- Andre Roberson recovering to Tony Parker after the initial pick only to get hit with another one
- Ibaka splitting the difference between a spotting-up Aldridge and potentially-rolling Duncan
- The second effort of Adams and Roberson to make Parker’s pocket pass to Duncan difficult
- Ibaka shuffling to Duncan’s roll and blocking an easy two
The Thunder didn’t consistently execute with such speed and precision on defense throughout the regular season, let alone in Game 1. That they did for the most part on Tuesday is extremely encouraging for their prospects of winning this series, but also a reminder of just how difficult it will be to beat the Spurs four times in seven games.
San Antonio shot 16-of-33 from the restricted area last night. Tim Duncan misfired on seven of his eight field goal attempts. Kawhi Leonard was just 7-of-18 from the floor. The Spurs missed 17 three-pointers and got seven total points from Boris Diaw and Patty Mills. And somehow, Gregg Popovich and company were one point away from heading to Oklahoma City with a commanding 2-0 lead.
The San Antonio machine is relentless, and the Thunder did yeoman’s work to slow it in Game 2. But that doesn’t mean they will going forward – as even this near-perfect defensive possession makes clear.
Spencer:
The Thunder played this perfectly, and — similar to those teams who go against the Warriors — they could’ve still gotten burned if Duncan were a couple years younger and still had the ability to make the catch and secondary pass to a wide-open Aldridge.
Draymond Green is the finest frontcourt example of this in today’s NBA, but back in the day Tim was just as good, and he still usually is. But he looked out of sorts on Monday night, as did most of the non-Aldridge Spurs. Except, this play is just another example of how impotent the Thunder really are against San Antonio’s pick and roll, and I write this even after they played well enough to beat the Spurs in San Antonio.
Once the Thunder forced Parker to the sideline, Ibaka is still forced to choose between dropping down to contest Duncan’s roll and guarding LaMarcus Aldridge. Maybe you forgot with all the late-game hijinks filled with referee blunders, but LMA had 41 points and he’s been playing Sherman’s army to the Thunder’s Georgian countryside since the series tipped off.
So Ibaka probably shouldn’t leave him here, except he did and thwarted Duncan’s attempt at the rim. You know who couldn’t leave their man? Kevin Durant. That’s him matched up against Kawhi in the far corner. Kawhi shot better than 48 percent from both corners this season, so what the hell do Ibaka and KD do once Duncan sweeps through the lane?
With Danny Green — he of the 5-for-6 from deep in Game 1 — in the near corner, Russ can’t leave to help on Parker, either.
The Thunder are in a bind. Yes, they were a lot more active on this early sequence, especially Roberson, who should get a lot of credit for fighting past more than one tough screen to stay in the play and make Parker’s pocket pass difficult. But at the end of the day, the Thunder still aren’t going to win this series — and you can see that in this complimentary breakdown of OKC’s defense on the pick and roll.
Even when they defend really well and “actually tried this time,” the Spurs are still a deeper, better team. An open Aldridge and the conundrum facing the weak-side defenders, Durant and Ibaka, just hammers that point home more.
Sorry Oklahoma City, but Monday night might be your only time to rejoice, so savor it while you can.
