Why The OKC Thunder Are UNFAIR

Why The OKC Thunder Are UNFAIR

It’s time to start wrapping our heads around just how good this OKC team is. After winning a title, they’ve returned to the court with a newfound sense of dominance. And despite having an easy time in a schedule so far, what they’re doing to fellow professional basketball players would make most people say this is all patently unfair. Why is all this so unfair? The defending champs found a second rounder who couldn’t make their full-time roster last year and turned him into their third best player. But before we get into details of AJ Mitchell’s game, and trust me, you’re going to want to discover more about him, we have to focus on the thing that’s embarrassed their opponents the most, defense. Currently, they lead the league in steals per 48 minutes. And it’s their stifling physical pressure they put on teams that has resulted in the lowest defensive rating we’ve seen in six years. The first thing you notice is that they routinely pick up in the back court to slow the offense down a little. The others will then push up and look how far from the basket the Lakers are forced to begin their offense. This catch would normally be at the three-point line, but instead they’re running it from the logo 9 ft farther on the pin down. Check how Caruso jumps towards the inside first to lure the screener in that direction, giving him more room to get around it as Luca cuts by. Since the play call is for Luca to get the ball, Vanderbilt tries to force it even though Luca is not open. All OKC defenders constantly try deflecting passes and their aggressive pursuit of the ball leads to tons of steals. Here’s another example of that constant swiping where no ball handler is safe. And I love the reaction here as OKC is a never-ending source of frustration for their opponents. A really interesting pattern I uncovered about their halfcourt defense is how they load up to the ball on wing drives towards the baseline. Watch how early Isaiah Joe ignores his man in the weak side corner to get into position to help. SGA also helps to the ball with Isaiah Hardenstein showing a complete wall to jaw, smothering him into a bad turnover when he tried a no look pass to the corner. First, watch how bouncy Caruso is on the weak side, ready to pounce in a split second. Then, as Russ uses the step-up screen to drive towards the baseline, three players converge on the pass to the roll man. And no team is as aggressive at ripping balls from the offense as OKC is. Their weak side rotations are always on point as Hartinstein rotates over with time to spare. And Joe is ready to X out to either the wing or the corner and then aggressively reads the inair pass is deflected and Wallace is all over it for another of his league leading steals. Here’s another wing drive towards the hoop that gets completely smothered with great pursuit from SGA. Help off the non-shooter in the corner. Help from the lowest weakside defender protecting the rim. And AJ Mitchell luring the steel by showing to the cutter before jumping to the passing lane to the corner. It’s almost like they want to lure the drive into the help of the block where SGA can protect the rim and Mitchell can get to the corner, but the angles have been taken away. Here’s another drive from the side that draws two defenders to the ball. The weak side help digs down to take away that pass, and there is simply too much length out there for offenses to handle. I feel like we need to address the biggest complaint that non- Thunder fans have had for a while, what they perceive as constant following by the defense. The problem is these guys play exactly the way a good defensive coach would teach their players to defend. They do a great job showing their chest to the ball handler and pressuring while retreating with their hands up. All of which helps to ensure they’re in legal guarding position. Remember, a lot of contact is legal if the defender is in this position. And no team gets their players to find it more often than the Thunder. This little edit from the Thunder account got people upset, saying it’s a perfect example of their following. But this just demonstrates a lack of understanding of the NBA rules. If the defender cleanly makes contact with the ball and knocks it loose, any subsequent contact can be deemed incidental, which is what happens here is Wallace sneaks in there cleanly to get the ball. And then in the fight for it as it’s loose, all this contact is permissible. Zack Lavine gets sworn like the defense does so well. And any contact with the wrist happens simultaneously to contact with the ball as it’s being thrown. A good steal that no team will get whistled for. And AJ Mitchell swipes cleanly down on the ball, only contacting the hand after the ball has been dislodged. Just another example of where the crowd would scream buddy murder, but a properly trained referee realizes that Caruso dislodges the ball cleanly a fraction of a second before the contact with a body, making this clean before Mitchell demonstrates again how good they are at just ripping the ball away from their opponents. Do they get away with stuff? Sure. Someone like Loot Dort pushes the limits and sneaks in plenty of little holds and bumps, which takes a toll over the course of the game, both physically and mentally. They definitely lead the league in the amount of times their opponents throw up their arms after taking a shot at not getting a whistle. But I recommend other teams play like this. There’s no reason I can see why the other 29 teams wouldn’t get a similar whistle on what is clearly good, hard-nosed defense that doesn’t typically get played like this in the regular season. They put the offense in a constant state of fear that they’ll turn it over using the reacharound steel attempt to their advantage, knowing if they don’t get it, they’ve got teammates covering for them. Then watch how excellent the rotations are on the drives to the baseline. The lowest man rotates over, the farthest man slides down, and there’s another reachound for a steel. And now it’s time to show you why it’s really unfair for the OKC Thunder. And that’s due to the play of AJ Mitchell. He looked good in his limited minutes last year. So, real Thunder fans already knew about what he was capable of. First off, OKC plays really good five out offense like this set that starts with get action into keep, then zoom action with a pin down into handoff flowing into a pin down for Chad. And if all that is contained, then they’ve been turning to Mitchell to be the man at the end of the shot clock to create something off the dribble. The delay dribble gets him into the lane, and driving to the right means his left hip and elbow are already aligned to the hoop for this nice pull-up midi. They’re not shy about letting him run the show at the end of the third when SGA is taking a rest and he can string together some nasty individual moves like this tween cross behind cross quick pull for an and one that looks an awful lot like a certain someone that might be his teammate. I just can’t get over how aggressive and unintimidated he looks out there making decisions like he’s a grizzled 10-year vet. And you can make the same kind of decisions for opportunities to win money with prize picks where all you have to do is pick more or less in a variety of categories for a ton of different sports. It’s the only app that offers stacks where you can pick the same player up to three times in the same lineup. I went a little crazy with my picks for tonight sports fans as I’ve got a flex Friday and that could boost the payout by 40%. I’m thinking Matarin might struggle against the Cavs defense while Shenon will be inspired by this great matchup of the Rockets versus Nuggets. Let’s throw in big games from Jaylen Brown and Steph Curry against some bad defenses and let’s have some fun. Follow me on the app so you can just copy my lineups, something you’ll benefit from during basketball season. Best of all, download the Prize Picks app today and use code CLNS to get 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code CLNS to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It’s good to be right. He’s always looking for advantages. And while this play calls for him to wait for the pin down on the right side to materialize, he just throws a high push cross that gets him right by his man for the tough finish. Same idea here. And his man turns his head, thinking Mitchell is just a passer in the set. And that’s all Mitchell needs to take advantage in the crossover. He’s strong and muscles his man out of the way for the easy layup. Speaking of finishing, he’s got a variety of clever feet work to catch his defenders off guard, like this off-foot lefty one-handed scoop, soft with touch and the kind bounce. They like running horns with a double high post and both corners filled. And putting AJ in the right corner is smart since he can attack with his strong left hand into the middle of the floor where he’s good at knifing between defenders for the lay. And here he is again lifting out of that right corner on the handoff. And if his defender disrespects him by going underneath, he can hit these open ones easily. I think teams are going to have to respect his three-point shot a little bit more as he’s seen several instances where his defender is willing to go underneath the ball screen and dare him to shoot these off the bounce. His rhythm and mechanics look good. So, I’d expect him to shoot at least league average from behind the arc. And if it wasn’t enough that he’s replaced just about all the scoring they were getting from the injured Jaylen Williams, he’s also got great feel for passing the ball. Hardenstein is a favorite target and on this ghost double ball screen he patiently brings the big to him and then wraps this pass around to the roller to exploit the atrocious defense by the Kings. He likes that wraparound to Hartinstein as teams cannot lean on that left hand since he drives equally well to his right. A quick stride stop pulls the help defender to the right side of the lane and uses his body to make sure the defense can’t deflect the pass for the patented Hartenstein floater. AJ scans the floor well, not looking to do too much and doesn’t need more than a split second to make the decision as he puts this one on time and on target for the flush. And he’s been the igniter on a number of plays that get me out of my chair as the ball has been humming around the court slightly better than last year’s team. His knack for getting to the middle becomes the most optimal way to break down the defense and the Thunder are ruthless hunting for the best shot possible. If most of your experience with the Thunder last year was centered around the playoffs, you might have gotten the impression that Isaiah Hartenstein was just a bit player who didn’t get much to do on offense. While his limited minutes were more about matchups, it did deprive us of the potential for great offensive plays from him. And this season, he’s back to his old tricks in a big way. To know Hartinstein is to know that slightly awkward two-foot floater he loves to shoot and is extremely accurate with, ranking third amongst centers in this type of shot. on drives to the hoop. It helps that he doesn’t need to get right to the rim for the catch as he’s got some range on this and some really soft touch as well. Watch how the twoman game flows with a handoff into a flipped pick and roll where he and Caruso can connect on a sweet little play that does not require Hartinstein to get all the way to the rim to score. Another concept I like in the OKC offense is how they play Hartinstein and Homegrren opposite each other in a high low alignment. Jet can set the UCLA screen for the post up. Get his own back screen which pulls two defenders to the rim opening up the easy pass to Wallace. You get the high low entry to Chad here who instantly finds Hartinstein at the rim. Here’s the high low alignment again that serves to stretch the defense to its limits as Chad tries to pin a guard behind him. While Homegrren may be frustrated they miss this chance to get it to him. Using Hartenstein as a short roller means Chet need only cut from out of the corner for easy buckets when his man feels compelled to rotate to the nail. Speaking of short rolls, let’s examine how this works against the defense here. The defense drops and chases Mitchell as Hartinstein slips the screen into his roll. Once he gets below the drop, the lowest weakside defender has to rotate over. Chad just needs to take a step and a half towards the rim and patiently wait for a not easy pass to be precisely where he needs it to cram it through the iron. If the defense is going to let the ball handler get towards the middle on these slit ball screens, it’ll be over before it starts. If Dort’s man help stops the roll, then it’s a wideopen corner three to a decent shooter. And if Chad’s man rotates over, then it’s the easiest shot in the game. When Hardenstein sees Chad setting the step up screen early, he quickly gets down to the block to properly balance out the floor. They’re still utilizing high low principles as they feed the low post and Chad starts at the nail before heading to the front of the rim, catching Steven Adams trying to guard two very tall players at once. But that isn’t even what I like best about his game. It’s his passing from the high post that takes it to another level. They could run their entire offense through his elbow touches and get high quality shots from the split cuts where the defense gets so concerned with the cutter they forget it’s the screener who’s most dangerous. The wraparound cut leads to all sorts of beautiful basketball as the defender thinks his job is over if the handoff isn’t executed at the three-point line. And they rip a page out of the triangle offense with the keep on the pinch post action to the wing and then the perfect back door cut back door bounce pass that leads to the layup. This doesn’t even have to be the primary action in their offense as he starts by screening away and then flashes to take advantage of the denial defense. The fake handoff opens up the drive in the middle and the patience to know that someone is going to find an opening is impressive as he throws a lead pass for another backdoor layup. And it’s not just the high post where he can operate as a facilitator. Here’s the Warriors low post split run with SGA as a screener with Isaiah and AJ completely on the same page for a fourth quarter bucket. So, there you have it, sports fans. The Thunder are combining impeccable defensive pressure, rotations, and yes, physicality to create an all-time situation where we’ve never seen a bigger distance between number one and number two in defensive rating as they hang their hat on shutting modern offenses down. Of course, we haven’t really seen them just yet against the elite offenses like the Nuggets and the Knicks and the Timberwolves. And while we’ll see Minnesota very soon, we’re going to have to wait a long while for the other teams to really gauge where this team stands. But if they continue to plug in play unheralded and undrafted players into legitimate starters and high production role players, we’ll have to start calling this a dynasty.

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It is time to understand just how good this Thunder team is. After winning a championship, OKC has come back looking even sharper, overwhelming teams with historic defense and discovering a second rounder who suddenly looks like their third best player.
In this BBALLBREAKDOWN, Coach Nick shows why their defense is causing a meltdown across the league. OKC’s backcourt pressure, nonstop swiping at the ball, perfect weakside rotations, and elite walling at the rim have produced the lowest defensive rating we have seen in six years.
Then we highlight Ajay Mitchell, the rookie-turned-weapon who is shredding defenses with fearless drives, elite footwork, improved shooting, and perfect reads out of five out and HORNS spacing. Add in Hartenstein’s passing and Chet’s emerging dominance and it becomes clear why this team looks even more dangerous than last season.
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