Five Thunder Takeaways from the Christmas Day Dub
By Tony Heim
1. The OKC bench is becoming LEGIT
Maybe I’m getting to carried away with the whole “legit” thing, but this second unit deserves a ton of credit for the way they’ve played recently. As a whole, the bench has outscored their opponents while on the court for five straight games; that’s a far cry from what we saw at the beginning of the season.
The thing is this isn’t supposed to be happening. When Oladipo went out, an already decrepit second unit lost their best/only perimeter playmaker. So Billy Donovan took a different approach, and implemented more sets for the bench to employ.
Most of these revolve around Kanter-per usual-the difference is Kanter’s supporting cast is being put in better places. Take this play for example:
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Kanter and Semaj Christon are the only players on the left side of the court, giving Enes ample space to work. The only way to stop Kanter is to double down; when that happens Christon has a clear cut to the basket.
We saw the same idea tonight against the Timberwolves except this time with a shooter. Kanter would post up with Abrines waiting on the wing in case his man doubled. As soon as Abrines’ man left, Kanter kicked it out and Viola! Three points to the good guys.
These type of simple plays are something I’ve been clamoring for all season. The problem was Christon held the ball for too long at the top of the key. Now Billy is forcing him to get into a set more quickly, and it’s allowed the second unit to finally be worthy of being apart of a Russell Westbrook team.