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

Team must all share in wins and losses:

Clearly playing their fifth game since last Saturday (Phoenix) took a toll on the team’s energy.  Westbrook is only just back from injury and no doubt is still getting his legs under him. The wing depth is hampered by injury, but there are other players on this squad besides Westbrook who need to also step up on night’s when the team is fatigued.

To that end, it would be irresponsible to paint this loss entirely on Westbrook. Other than Grant (and I’ll leave out TLC simply because he hasn’t had time to blend in with this group) the starters plus Schroder weren’t exactly shooting lights out.

• Paul George shot 8 of 21 for 38 percent (although he shot well from deep)
• Steven Adams shot 6 of 15 for 40 percent, which is okay, but far from his usual 60.9 percent.
• Dennis Schroder shot 5 of 14 for 35 percent and like Westbrook got up too many 3-point shots (2 of 7 for 28 percent).

Dennis Schroder for me is the concerning part of the equation. Yes, I get that everyone is thrilled with his output lately. Sure he’s scoring well and appears to gel well in lineups featuring him with starters Westbrook and George.

But—and it’s a big “but” it’s important he doesn’t adopt the attitude of being a score first point guard when he’s running the reserve unit. That group can still be one of the best benches in the Association. However, for them to rise to their promise they’ll need Schroder to be a playmaker and ensure each of the players get shots.

Albeit, it’s a tricky role to navigate however for the Thunder reserve unit to live up to their potential Schroder will need to master it.