The OKC Thunder have a three-game winning streak against the Eastern Conference after they beat the Chicago Bulls on Saturday.
Before the season started it was said that the Western Conference would be loaded. That has been true and it has led to the Oklahoma City Thunder being winless against the West. Luckily, the OKC Thunder have been undefeated against the Eastern Conference.
The latest victims were the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls lost to the Thunder in a 101-69 blowout on Saturday. In fact all of the games against the East have been easily won. Oklahoma City beat the New York Knicks by 21, the Indiana Pacers by 18 and the aforementioned Bulls by 32.
Against the West, the Thunder have lost by nine to the Utah Jazz and two and three against the Minnesota Timberwolves. In the games against the West, the Thunder have given up more than 100 points each game. In the games against the East, their opponent has not gotten over 100.
In fact, on Saturday night the Thunder held the Bulls to an eight-point second quarter, which was two points shy of their franchise-worst record of six points.
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This gets us to the root of the problem. Defense. It all boils down to the Thunder rotating on defense. At the 5:52 mark of the first quarter, Robin Lopez was wide open for an easy layup. Carmelo Anthony tried to steal the ball from Lopez’s hands and missed. George was too late to rotate.
On the next defensive possession for the Thunder at the 5:16 mark, Lopez was in position just like the last time and was poised to score again. Adams’ was the one who missed the steal attempt this time but George was able to rotate in time and forced Lopez to take a tough shot and he missed. This is the kind of effort that the Thunder need to win against the West.
The two Western teams were successful because they pulled a Thunder on the Thunder. The Jazz and the Timberwolves were able to play in-your-face defense and force missed shots. Those misses led to high energy play on the offensive side. The Thunder will have to match the other team’s intensity during Western Conference games because those teams are going to put up more points since the players are just better.
There are some good things about the Thunder defense though. They are second in the league in steals a game with 11.3. That can lead to fast breaks and will help the Thunder get easy offense on the other side. Also, the Thunder are third in the league in defensive rating at 96.3.
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The way the Thunder should attack games is to let the defense turn into offense. They will need other players to step up from the bench also. The foursome of Steven Adams, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and Paul George all accounted for 20-plus points against the Timberwolves in their second matchup.
The Thunder need certain bench players to step up to provide offense when the Big Three is not on the floor. Alex Abrines is shooting 25 percent from 3-point range for 4.0 points a game. Patrick Patterson is shooting 14.3 percent from 3 while averaging 1.3 points a game. Both players are in the second rotation and will need to be more of a factor.
They will probably be able to get away with it against the bottom Eastern Conference teams, but if the effort is not a complete team effort against the West, that will spell doom for the Thunder this season. OKC has the Milwaukee Bucks up next, which is another Eastern team, albeit a tougher one.
Next: 2017-18 Week 2 NBA Power Rankings
The Thunder have shown their dominance against weaker competition, but they will have to get better defensively to help compete with the teams in the West.