Oklahoma City Thunder: Time to give Scott Brooks his props
For most teams, a 5-12 record through the first 17 games isn’t anything to fret about. That’s because, typically, teams in that situations don’t usually have many high aspirations for that particular season.
For the Oklahoma City Thunder, though, it’s time to hit the panic button, simply due to the fact this was widely viewed as a championship-or-bust season for the young squad.
Since making it all the way to the NBA Finals back in 2012, OKC has seemingly regressed rather than build on that run, having failed to get further than the Western Conference Finals in each of the past two seasons. A key reason for that has been injuries.
Russell Westbrook went down with a torn meniscus during the 2013 playoffs, meaning Kevin Durant was pretty much left by his lonesome against the Memphis Grizzlies’ stingy defense. Then last year, Serge Ibaka was nowhere near 100 percent after injuring his calf.
Nonetheless, he played through it and almost inspired Oklahoma City to an impressive win over the eventual champions, the San Antonio Spurs.
At the same time, a case could be made for coach Scott Brooks as the reason for the regression.
One of the primary knocks against the Thunder head coach is his lack of creativity when it comes to his offensive play calling. More often than not, OKC’s offense is basically handing either Westbrook or Durant the ball and saying, “Make something happen,” or your basic pick-and-roll. That’s about it.
On Scott Brooks' desk are two binders that contain his two offensive gameplans. They are labeled:
— Knickerbacker (@knickerbacker) May 22, 2014
1) ISO-HEAVY
2) FORFEIT
Although to be fair, you can’t really blame him for resorting to that method. After all, with playmakers like the aforementioned Durant and Westbrook, it’s probably best to just let them do as they wish, rather than corralling them with offensive sets. However, if his star players can’t get it going, then it’s usually curtains for Oklahoma City.
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Furthermore, that doesn’t always pan out well for the rest of the squad. Case in point: last year’s Conference Final series against San Antonio.
Without Serge Ibaka in the lineup, Nick Collison, Thabo Sefolosha and Kendrick Perkins tallied a grand total of nine points between them in Games 1 and 2 of the series.
Those sorts of performances resulted in Sefolosha being benched and the Thunder offense was more-or-less the Durant and Westbrook show as the rest of the starting lineup struggled and the Spurs asserted their dominance towards the back end of the series.
As such, there were calls to get a new man in charge of the talented, but underachieving squad. One SBnation article read:
"“The scary thought about Oklahoma City, given its talent, is that one could think that they succeed in spite of their coach and not because of him.”"
Another NewsOK article questioned whether the team were cooking up some sort of ploy to fire him, due to the regression.
Still, you have to give credit where credit is due. For all the criticism Brooks gets for his offensive acumen (or lack thereof), you still have to give him props for the works he has done to improve the team defensively.
Back in the 2011-12 season, the Thunder ranked 17th in points per game allowed. Since then, they have stepped it up a notch, and began flirting with top-10 status – even going so far as ninth in 2012-13.
This season, the Oklahoma City Thunder have taken yet another leap forward and currently rank fourth in points allowed, limiting teams to just 93.2 points per game. That has enabled the team to stay competitive in games while Westbrook and Durant recovered from their respective injuries.
And if they can maintain that sort of stinginess the rest of the season, on top of their already potent offense once both of their star players are back in full swing, then the sky truly is the limit as to what this team can do.
After all, they say “defense wins championships,” right? And Scott Brooks is the reason behind that surge.