OKC Thunder season review: Analyzing Russell Westbrook’s complicated season

Pace principle:

More than just generating open shots, though, he was also the fulcrum for they schematic change they were drifting more and more towards as the season went along.

Half-way through the year, it was clear the OKC Thunder offense needed some kind of boost. Their offense had begun to stagnate in the half-court as teams keyed on George and they didn’t have enough creators outside of their top two guys to make defenses pay. So they did what most younger teams who can’t score in the half-court do: they started running.

They were one of the fastest teams in the league thanks in no small part to Westbrook. It’s not like pushing it on the break was new to him, but starting in mid-December, he started to push more than he ever had before and it was working wonders for OKC’s offense. For a moment, it looked like they had a cohesive identity on both sides of the ball that might actually work in the playoffs.

Defensively, they’d use their length and athleticism to engulf offenses and either force turnovers or force bricks, at which point they’d be able to catch the defense sleeping in transition and set themselves up for easy buckets.

It was a legitimate, proven solution to the problems they had scoring in the half-court which had plagued them since they moved to OKC. And it arguably wouldn’t have happened without Russ.