Friday, November 19
7 p.m. Eastern
ESPN
Last meeting: Boston 92, @Oklahoma City 83 (11/7/2010)
The Thunder have started to rumble a bit since the Celtics last saw them. The loss to Boston on the 7th was their third defeat in the season's first six games; they're 4-1 since (including a win in Utah), their lone loss in that period coming at the hands of the 9-1 San Antonio Spurs.
It's not clear to me what, if anything, is substantively different about the Thunder now and the Thunder two weeks ago. Kevin Durant is still a magnificent scorer. Russell Westbrook is breaking out -- his stats compare favorably with LeBron James' thus far this season -- but he still settles for jumpers too often and turns the ball over too much. They still don't have Jeff Green back from an ankle injury, which means that Serge Ibaka's 22-point outing on Monday against the Jazz is the only time this season that someone (other than Durant and Westbrook) in uniform for the Thunder on Friday has broken the 20-point barrier.
Twenty is an arbitrary number, but I think that last item is key. Last time these two teams met, Boston was pretty comfortable letting Durant and especially Westbrook take a bunch of jumpers, confident they'd miss enough. They missed a bunch early as Boston took a big lead, made a bunch in the third quarter as they launched a third-quarter comeback, then ran out of gas against the Celtics' second string. The Thunder have a deep bench with a bunch of guys who can put the ball in the basket on occasion, but the lack of a true third scoring option hurts them.
Or at least it did against Boston. The Thunder are actually the seventh-highest scoring team in the league, having breached the century mark in all but three games thus far. So it's probably not fair to say that it unilaterally hurts them.
What's the explanation, then, for OKC's struggles in the last couple meetings with Boston? One possibility is sample size. If I must go beyond that, I'll say that every time I watch the Thunder -- which mostly comes against Boston, but also in person against the Clippers and a few other random times on TV -- they spend an awful lot of time standing around and throwing up jump shots. Durant and Westbrook will go one-on-one plenty, but that's the only way they get stuff going to the basket. And Boston has been particularly good at guarding this sort of thing, especially against teams without good three-point shooters. Oklahoma City is currently the worst in the league from behind the arc.
They're tops in the NBA in FT% at nearly 88 percent, far ahead of the Lakers, who are number two. Durant takes more than nine per game and hits them at 95%; Westbrook takes eight and makes 90%. If those guys are settling for jumpers, they aren't going to the line -- and the team's offense is therefore far less potent. Boston limited the Thunder to something like 17 free throw attempts in the first meeting, and they'll look to do something similar.
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