Oklahoma City Thunder: Unselfish Basketball Key To Win
It’s OK, Oklahoma City Thunder fans, the stressful times are over … for now.
Granted it wasn’t the most convincing of victories against the Utah Jazz on Friday night, but at least the team is now back to winning ways after the horrific road trip through California.
First was the Golden State Warriors who thumped the Thunder 117-91. But as bad that loss was, it was nothing compared to the 104-83 defeat against the Sacramento Kings. As talented as OKC is, it’s still understandable when they get blown out by the league’s best team. However, there was no way to justify the 20-point difference against the fourth-worst team in the conference.
The one thing that stood out from both losses was the woeful shooting as the Thunder collectively shot 31 percent from the field and 18 percent from 3-point range against the Warriors, then followed that up with 33 percent and 30 percent in Sacramento.
Russell Westbrook, who has been shooting 43 percent this season, managed to score just eight baskets in 40 attempts from open play, and for some reason he was enamored with the 3-pointer, attempting 10 shots from beyond the arc despite making just 26 percent of his tries this season.
After the loss to the Kings, he was asked what went wrong and he simply said: “missing shots.” But as you would expect from the Thunder, the team wasn’t about to make excuses.
They acknowledged that they were playing below par as Durant added: “We moved the basketball, found good shots, just couldn’t hit them tonight. And once you get down 25-7, you start playing catch up and you rush and start turning the ball over. We just gotta move on from it.
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“We can’t panic, man. After you leave here, you can’t just go and get a bunch of shots up because you missed a few here. Just forget about it.”
Durant even went so far as to joke about the whole situation, saying: “We’ve got to get out of California as well because we can’t make a shot out here.” And as it turns out, that was just what was needed.
Upon returning to the Chesapeake Energy Arena, OKC outlasted the Utah Jazz 99-94. Though it has to be said, it wasn’t the most convincing of performances. Still, a win is a win no matter how it comes and there were some obvious improvements. Westbrook managed to tweak the sights on his jumper and went 9-for-17; and he wasn’t the only one.
The rest of the team also seemingly found its mojo, converting 46 percent of its field goal attempts and 33 percent from 3-point land.
The key: unselfish basketball (and hitting shots, of course) as Oklahoma City’s ball movement was visibly better against Utah.
Typically they resort to isolation basketball as illustrated by the percentage of unassisted field goals (46.4 percent – third highest in the NBA) and the 19.8 assists per game, which is the third worst. That night, though, they shared the sugar and equaled their second highest assists total of the season with 25 in the game, led by Westbrook’s 12 assists.
Moreover, nearly 60 percent of their field goals came off assists. They were making extra passes; give up good looks for even better ones; as well as trusting each other and no play demonstrated that than the back-breaking 3-pointer Dion Waiters hit to seal the win in the dying embers of the game.
After the win, Kevin Durant praised his team’s unselfish play, saying: “We trust in all our guys. If he [Waiters] would have missed that one, so what? We made the right basketball play. But I’m glad he made it. It was a huge shot.”
Now, the Oklahoma City Thunder will get the luxury of enjoying a mini mid-season break since they don’t play again until they visit James Harden and the Houston Rockets at the Toyota Center on Thursday, Jan. 15 – giving them a five days to recharge their batteries.
However, coach Scott Brooks has made it clear that his team is nowhere near being a finished article so he will be keeping the players busy.
“I thought tonight was a good night,” he said. “[Although] it’s not like we’re going to be satisfied and call it a day. We’re going to get up in the morning and we’re going to figure out ways to work and get better the next day.”