Views from OKC: Two poor efforts in two consecutive nights

March 4th: Welcome to Views from OKC, Thunderous Intentions’ daily roundup of the best OKC Thunder content across the web.

New to Views? That’s a shame, because we’ve been rocking all season with daily hot OKC Thunder takes. It’s too bad you decided to be a first-timer after last night’s game.

Venting about last night’s debacle in Phoenix

“The Thunder, a team supposedly fighting for the fourth seed in the West, lost to the Suns, a 19 – now 20 – win team at the bottom of the Western conference. Even worse, they gave up 118 points tonight after giving up 114 points the night before. The defense was non-existent all game, allowing the Suns to shoot 49% from the field and giving up 54 points in the paint.”

Before my mini-rant begins let me say one thing: I am not panicking just yet. But I still wanna vent a little. Russell Westbrook needed help against the Suns but he didn’t do enough to involve his teammates. There were very few set plays ran, especially for Steven Adams. Of anyone/anything, Adams worries me the most because this is the second game in a row where he was manhandled down low. It had everything to do with effort, something we have never had to question with the Big Kiwi. Okay I’m done.

Must Read: Oklahoma City hedged their future on Victor Oladipo

An interesting facet of Westbrook’s game

“Normally a player would be forced to address an imbalance as extreme as Westbrook’s to keep opponents on their toes. Between intricate film breakdowns and advanced numbers, defenders in today’s NBA have more weapons at their disposal than ever before. But given how well Westbrook has fared in one-on-one situations this season, there may not be a reason for him to change much.”

The 21st century is wonderful solely because of advanced metrics. The fact that we can track the exact percentage of times Westbrook goes left in isolation plays is astounding to me. What’s even more incredible is seeing how he goes left more and more every season. It makes sense though. Since Westbrook is ambidextrous he has the ability to finish with either hand fairly equally. But since he shoots with his right hand defenders tend to shadow that side, giving him more space to go left. If the defense can’t stop it there is no sense of changing the way he plays.

Views from Twitter

This is exactly what can’t happen for the Thunder in the fourth quarter. A 68 usage rate means the rest of the offense is essentially frozen out. Anyone who plays basketball knows if you aren’t touching the rock you aren’t going to try as hard on defense. It’s what happened to Serge Ibaka at the tail-end of his OKC tenure. Russ has to do a better job of involving all of his teammates, especially when down by double-digits.

I have the utmost faith in Billy Donovan…except when it comes to play calling. Why was Jerami Grant on the court-let alone having a play ran for him-after Alex Abrines canned two straight threes? They used Abrines as a decoy in order to get a guy who was 0-5 from the field and 0-3 from deep an open look. This didn’t decide the game, but it’s moments like these that scare me come playoff time.