The OKC Thunder are finally starting to play the way Head Coach Billy Donovan wants them to, and it’s working.
It’s really wonderful to be in a position to look back on the bad times, and to feel happy at the same time. You get it, OKC Thunder fans. Remember when we were 0-4, and the sky was falling? Remember “Fire Billy!” and “Bench Ferguson!” and “I guess Melo wasn’t the problem!”
Those weren’t fun times, but man are they fun in retrospect. The Thunder started this season shooting historically poorly from the field, from the line, from basically everywhere. We could have panicked and blown the whole thing up, but luckily, we trusted the math, and here we are.
Upward slopes
Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Just look at all those upward sloping trend lines. It’s like, literally all of them. The funny thing is, most of the Thunder players, even during this hot, 11-2 run since that 0-4 start, have still not even shot their career averages.
And even so, the OKC Thunder are the sixth ranked offense since that start, with an offensive rating of 111.8 (All stats in this article per NBA.com). That’s surely impressive, especially with Russell Westbrook having missed eight of the 17 total games, and six of the 13 in the run, but it’s not unexpected. The Thunder were seventh last year, after all.
What is most surprising, though, is OKC’s performance on the defensive end. After having the 15th ranked defense last season following Andre Roberson‘s injury, they are currently in possession of the number one overall defensive rating during these 13 games at 101.0, leading to the number two net rating, behind only the Milwaukee Bucks.
In fact, the Thunder have moved up to the number one defense, overall, full stop, after last night’s drubbing of the Warriors.
If you’re wondering how that’s possible, Billy Donovan has some ideas.