In Tuesday's round two opener between the OKC Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers, Ajay Mitchell balled out.Â
He finished with 18 points and four assists on 43.8 percent shooting from the field. In Jalen Williams’ absence, the Santa Clara product clearly stepped up big... outside of one somewhat expected area: three-point shooting.Â
For the third game of these playoffs, Mitchell shot 1-for-5 on his looks from deep. Most importantly, though, he missed both of his catch-and-shoot chances off passes from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
While he has made 45.0 percent of his triples in the postseason and 34.7 percent in the regular season, Mitchell is only connecting on 34.1 percent of his catch-and-shoot treys this year (regular season and postseason), which ranks him in the 19th percentile among players with at least 138 attempts.
While Mitchell certainly has the savvy paint penetration skills of Gilgeous-Alexander, his inability to consistently knock down these shots generated by his star teammate could make him an incompatible running mate in the long run and limit the Thunder’s offensive ceiling.Â
Thunder guard can learn from past second-side creators
Before 41-year-old LeBron James was trying to will his team to victory against one of the best teams in NBA history, his 31-year-old self was running the Eastern Conference with a rising 23-year-old phenom in Kyrie Irving.
Countless times, James would draw the defensive attention of overeager defenders before spraying out to Irving. Kyrie could then either let it fly from downtown or attack the closeout for one of his marquee finishes.
What made this such a deadly combo for the Cavs was that Irving was and still is a premier threat from deep.
Over the three years the Irving-James duo resided in Cleveland, the former shot 43.4 percent on his catch-and-shoot three-pointers. Defenses had no choice but to close out hard and hope that the rotations on the back end would stop him from doling out further punishment.Â
Key to Ajay Mitchell becoming a great second-side creator for Thunder
Mitchell, much like Irving, is masterful at taking and owning driving angles. The difference between the two is that if defenses realize they don’t have to close out as hard on Mitchell, his opportunities to capitalize on the attention Gilgeous-Alexander creates will begin to dwindle.Â
Too often has Mitchell, and really the Thunder, failed to make good on clean looks from deep due to SGA’s gravity.
OKC’s offense is centered around this drive-and-kick game. Once Gilgeous-Alexander does the heavy lifting, his teammates keep the defense rotating, attacking driving lanes, and kicking out for deep triples.
If Mitchell can’t find his stroke from deep, not only will it nullify his greatest strength in downhill pressure, but it will also clog and disrupt Gilgeous-Alexander’s and Oklahoma City’s offensive flow.Â
In the playoffs, when the margin for error is razor-thin, redundancy is a weakness teams can exploit.
The truth is, in no situation would OKC trade Gilgeous-Alexander’s all-time guard-paint-scoring for Mitchell’s slightly better-than-average ability.
However, if Mitchell can improve his catch-and-shoot skills, he will be twice as valuable to OKC’s process.
And if that’s the case, the Thunder will not only be the best defense of this century, but it could also be one of the best offenses as well, just like those LeBron-Kyrie Cavaliers teams, which, by the way, put up three of the top-75 offenses, relative to league average, we’ve seen in the Play-by-Play era.
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