How the Thunder manipulate space
They get out of their own way, and get in yours
When I was a young high school coach, a smart basketball guy asked me if I knew the most common reason NBA coaches called timeout.
The reason, he said, was “giving up straight line drives or cuts.”
Light bulb.
On MLK Monday, two of the NBA’s best teams met in Cleveland. The Cavaliers had the lead a minute in. Then these two plays happened.
First, it’s a simple backdoor cut by the MVP.
Only it’s not so simple.
What I want you to notice is how steadfast the Thunder are in creating the space that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander used to score.
As backup center Jaylin Williams has the ball above the 3-point line at the top, he’s “defended” by Jarrett Allen. Allen is 6-9 with a reported wingspan of 7-6–but all that wingspan means nothing with his arms hanging by his sides. Donovan Mitchell is marking Lu Dort as if he were Stephen Curry (though Dort had made just nine of his previous 32 3-point attempts). Jaylon Tyson is top-blocking SGA as Holmgren approaches to set Shai a screen.
With no ball pressure from Allen and no help coming from Mitchell, SGA gets as easy a basket in the halfcourt as he will ever earn. Five steps in a straight line and no dribbles turning into two points. The Thunder lead, and as soon as SGA scored I looked to see if this was the kind of straight-line drive that would get Kenny Atkinson to call timeout.
Instead the Cavaliers got their best player, the dynamic Donovan Mitchell, isolated on the right wing against the weakest on-ball defender of the Thunder starters, Aaron Wiggins. Mitchell attacks in a straight line drive to the rim. Holmgren, the Thunder’s best shot blocker, is between Mitchell and the wonderful Evan Mobley. We can deduce it wasn’t Holmgren’s job to stop Mitchell because he literally looks and points to Williams, as if to say “get in front of him!”
Mitchell is powerful and athletic and he appears to win the confrontation. But … a coach’s challenge reveals that he cheated a little with his off arm, warding off the bigger Williams, and his And1 is reversed. The Thunder never trailed again.
What happened in those two plays, seconds apart, is the best way to describe how OKC is killing the NBA. When they have the ball, they are the best at creating space and taking advantage of it. When the other team has the ball, they are the best at taking it away. Simply put, they get out of their own way on offense and they get in the way of their opponents better than anyone else on defense.
Spacing has been an NBA issue forever. Everyone wants more of it on offense, and to take it away on defense.
In the early 2000s I would attend Billy Donovan practices at the University of Florida. All kinds of NBA scouts came to see Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, Al Horford, David Lee, Matt Walsh and the like. What I only learned later is that NBA coaches, including Rick Carlisle, also snuck in to see how Donovan got his guys so much space to operate in a college game that is ordinarily so scrunched together. One executive told me “he’s the best at it in the college game.”
ON DEFENSE
People think of skying for blocks, or exciting steals, but when I think of defense, I mostly think of the term “mucking things up,” and I picture Marc Gasol. Marc Gasol didn’t run or jump so well, but boy did he get in the way. Driving or passing in a straight line from the perimeter to the rim is manna from heaven for an offense and Marc just didn’t permit it.
If you asked me to create an ideal NBA offense from scratch, I’d recommend Marc’s mentality with power, length, speed and a nasty disposition. Some of the components:
