Film Room: 3 good and bad things from Game 4

The Oklahoma City Thunder head back to San Antonio with a 2-2 series tie. The Thunder played one of their most complete halves in the second half last night, closing an 8-point deficit to end up beating the San Antonio Spurs by 14 points, although the game was much closer than the final score indicates.

The Thunder have to win 2 out of the next 3 games in order to advance to the conference finals, and in order to do so, they will have to keep building on principles established in Sunday night’s victory. For however long the Thunder are in the playoffs, I will try to have an edition of Film Room for each game.

3 GOOD THINGS

1. Russ distributing. It was clear from the beginning that Russell Westbrook was going to look to be more of a distributor in Game 4, especially after his post game comments in Game 3. According to NBA.com’s player tracking data, Westbrook had 59 passes on his 89 touches Sunday night, which is a better ratio than his 59 passes on his 100 touches in Game 3 and 50 passes on 88 touches in Game 2 (I’ll exclude Game 1 for obvious reasons).

He didn’t just pass the ball, though, as his passes resulted in more open shots for the Thunder. Westbrook finished with 15 assists compared to only 3 turnovers Sunday night, including gems as shown below.

This might be due to poor pick-and-roll defense from San Antonio, but it counts all the same. Tim Duncan shows on a screen set by Steven Adams. The opening to get the ball to Adams while avoiding Danny Green and Duncan’s hands (both very good defenders) and avoiding the roaming Kawhi Leonard on the backside is very small. Russ finds it, however, and nobody in the black and silver is brave enough to stand in front of a flying Kiwi.

Throwing an alley-oop to an uber-athletic wing with a limitless wingspan isn’t the most difficult task, but throwing a pass from the opposite wing, across your body and putting it in the perfect position is impressive.

After closing the 10-point first quarter lead, the Thunder found themselves down 8 coming out of the locker room. The Thunder ran a play the Spurs had trouble stopping all night, a simple pick-and-roll.

One of the reasons this play works so well is Durant’s gravity in the backside corner. Green can’t help because helping would require leaving Durant open from 3. The other option would require LaMarcus Aldridge to help, but that also leaves an open shooter from the corner, Serge Ibaka. The only other player that could help is Tony Parker, who is no match for Adams with a head of steam.

2. Good pace. The Thunder have had troubles scoring on the Spurs at times, but pushing the pace has helped them get into their sets quicker and not allow the Spurs’ incredible defense to get set. To be clear, I don’t mean transition points, which obviously help, but just getting into their offense quicker.

You can see the shot clock in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Instead of waiting for the shot clock to wind down, Waiters attacks off the in-bound pass, kicks to Durant who immediate gets it back to Dion for a shot at the rim. The Spurs are forced to guard for the 6 seconds the Thunder have the ball, and it results in a one-on-one situation with the defense on their heels due to even a little bit of movement.

This play starts slower than preferred, but 4 of the 5 Thunder players are in constant motion, and the 5th is a decent shooter placed in the corner. Durant struggles to get open when he’s off the ball, but he runs off three separate screens in one possession and knocks down the 3.

3. KD’s D. The final positive note (that I’ll detail here, at least) is Durant’s late-game defense on Leonard. Leonard had been scoring well in the first three quarters, but Durant did a good job making life difficult for him, if nothing else.

Granted, this is a shot Leonard made early in the game against Roberson and Waiters, but Durant’s length makes this shot even more difficult. Durant doesn’t have strength Leonard does and can be susceptible to being backed down by bigger opponents, but Durant has decent quickness and arms that extend from one end of the court to the other.

Durant had an outstanding game on offense, but he helped put the Spurs away by guarding their most important player.

The Thunder had a very good night, but there still are things to work on.

Next: Things to improve