OKC Thunder fail to play to defensive identity losing to Denver – 5 key takeaways

Defense has to be Thunder focus:

Diving into the box score there aren’t any egregious areas where the Thunder failed. Although giving up 15 offensive rebounds seems like too many the Nuggets are a great rebounding team and the Thunder still grabbed 19 offensive rebounds of their own.

OKC only turned the ball over 10 times which feels like a win all on its own. Moreover, OKC held the Nuggets to 41.1 percent from the field and a well below league average 33.1 percent from the perimeter.

Putting that in perspective, the lowest field goal percentage by the 30 teams belongs to the Pistons who shoot 43.4 percent from the field. And, that 33.1 percent perimeter efficiency would land a team around 26th in the league. So, OKC didn’t exactly crumble on defense.

But, it’s not just about limiting the other team’s shooting. In the case of OKC, it’s how often they turn teams over, how many balls they deflect or steal. And, often, it’s the fast break opportunities they create from those efforts.

This more than any other category pointed to how tired the Thunder was. A category the Thunder generally dominate is fast break scoring where they average 15.5 points per game. On this evening OKC had just SEVEN fast break points and lost the category to the Nuggets who scored 10 on the break.

Therefore the Thunder produced about half as many points in the fast break as usual. And, as a result, those missing 8.5 fast break points were the difference between winning and losing.