OKC Thunder: Five Takeaways from Third Straight Home Loss
By Tony Heim
4. The bench play is getting better
As a unit, the bench is not good. There’s too many sporadic players to allow them all to play together. But when they are thrown in with the starters? These guys can play…
When Donovan rolls out the Christon-Abrines-Grant-Lauvergne-Kanter lineup the OKC Thunder become an absolute mess. Christon doesn’t do a great job getting the unit into a real offense and teams know that Enes is going to get the ball in the post virtually every possession.
So the answer is playing one or two guys at a time with other starters. Abrines paired with Russ frees up space for Westbrook to drive to the paint. Kanter paired up with Adams allows Enes to play power forward, a much better spot for Kanter’s offensive game. We’ve seen the impact Grant’s athleticism has with the Westbrook and the starters. Even Joffrey got it going late in the game tonight!
The solution to this “problem” is that Donovan needs to start staggering minutes more. Instead of running with the starting five for eight minutes he should sub Oladipo/Sabonis (or any pair) out earlier and bring in Abrines and Kanter (or any pair). Than (pick your favorite duo) can come back in and provide more offense with the rest of the bench.