Despite the inherent edge the OKC Thunder may have over the Nuggets heading into Monday's Game 1, as they've been resting up for eight full days while Denver is less than 48 hours removed from a grueling seven-game series, based on their regular-season showdowns the top-seeds should by no means be expecting round two to be a cake walk.
In fact, there's a case to be made that Denver is Oklahoma City's worst-case scenario opponent, at least as far as their offensive game plan is concerned.
Throughout the 2024-25 campaign, the Thunder and Nuggets squared off against one another on four separate occasions, with the two clubs splitting the series 2-2 while OKC wrapped with an average point-differential of just 6.0, their sixth-worst on the year.
Throughout their historic season, few teams were able to throw Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and company out of their rhythm the way Denver did, and, during a recent edition of The Kevin O'Connor Show, the eponymous host shed light on exactly how they managed to accomplish such a feat.
Thunder proved to struggle severely against Nuggets' zone defense
During their May 5 episode of the podcast, O'Connor revealed findings that the Nuggets played more zone coverage against the Thunder than they did any other team during the regular season.
Now, though Oklahoma City regularly found themselves sustaining their elite level of play when going up against such a scheme, as they sported a 119 offensive rating against 28 other teams in the league, against Denver, this number found itself plummeting to a putrid rating of 93.
"Against Denver's zone, restricted area's only 10 percent of their shots, 17 percent in the paint, 15 percent from mid-range, and 58 percent from three... They become a three-point shooting team against the Nuggets' zone," O'Connor revealed.
Though the Thunder may be a rather efficient long-range shooting squad, as they finished with the sixth-best conversion rate in the league at 37.4 percent, a large reason for such success was due to their reliance on quality shots, not necessarily quantity.
On the season, OKC hoisted 38.8 shots from deep per game, with 59.4 percent of said looks coming when considered wide-open.
In four games played against the Nuggets, their attempts were increased to 40.3 per game though, unfortunately, their shooting percentage did not go up with it, as they converted on just 34.8 percent of these shots.
O'Connor predicts that this type of strategy is something "we're going to see Denver go to a lot in this series," which, considering the Thunder are rolling into the semifinals after having converted on a third-worst 31.3 percent of their long-range attempts against the Memphis Grizzlies in round one, could be cause for some concern.
Though podcast guest Dan Titus of Yahoo Sports noted that he still believes Oklahoma City is "going to win in five," unless they can find a way to find a solution to Denver's effective defensive strategy there's "a compelling case for them to make it more than that."