Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 52 points in a defeat of 116-109 against the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday. You will find below a statistical ventilation from the offense of Thunder for which he was responsible.
Jalen Williams carried his share of the offensive charge against the Warriors, marking 26 on defeat. But the rest of the team? Not so much. The other Thunder’s three starters scored 10 points out of 5-23. Isaiah Joe scored 17 points on the bench, but largely came to the 3 points created by Gilgeous-Alexander. Oklahoma City’s reserves made two gunshots inside the arc all night. Joe, Williams and Gilgeous-Alexander were the only Thunder players to make triplets. The rest of the team fired 0 for 17.
In other words, obviously, a night of abnormal shooting. Thunders are built on the idea that Gilgeous-Alexander generates so much on-board pressure that his teammates will be able to do their share offensively by draining the 3 points he creates. Last year, they were the most precise 3 -point shooting team of the NBA operating on this theory. They fell to the average this season, but that says less about the shooting on their list than the variance inherent in a 3 -point shot on a year -round and even from match to match. Sometimes the 3 enter and sometimes not.
What matters to thunder here is what happens when they don’t do it. They did not do it in the playoffs a year ago, because the Thunder lost its second round series against the Dallas Mavericks pulling 33.5% in depth. They did not do it against the Warriors on Wednesday either. And if thunder will reach his ceiling this season, he will have to find a way to generate points when they are not if they hope to go to four playoffs.
Receiving Chet Holmgren will help you in this regard, but the loss of Wednesday has shown how the Thunder can be deposited on their two best players. Gilgeous-Alexander was spectacular against the Warriors. Williams was his typically stellar self. And the Thunder could still not generate any offense in addition to the 3S they were missing because no one else on the list creates advantages on the dribble in a coherent manner.
This is a solved problem for the Thunder. Frankly, no list problem is not resolved For a Thunder team with a historic cache of future first round choices, a significant flexibility of the ceiling and the youngest list of the NBA. If they want to exchange for a shooting designer, they can almost certainly.
It is simply not an excellent market for these players with the deadline now in a week. The high -end options like Zach Lavine, De’Aaron Fox and Jimmy Butler earn too much money. The Thunder should break his team to get someone like that. There are cheaper options like Collin Sexton and Coby White potentially on the table, but none would be clean adjustments to the best defense of the Oklahoma City League. The Thunder can afford to introduce a lower defender into the mixture given their depth at this end of the soil, but this unit is what makes them special. They will be careful to play with it. If Fox landed with the San Antonio Spurs as he prefers, keep an eye on Chris Paul. He has a story with the Thunder, and if it is included in the agreement for ceiling purposes and subsequently bought a meeting makes sense for both parties.
Oklahoma City has a week to scrink these options or, using this huge stock of choices, try to coax new reluctant sellers. Filming evenings like this can be rare in the regular season, but as we saw in the Dallas series a year ago, they will be more common in the playoffs. When they come, they cannot expect to win when Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams carry as much offensive burden. Whether through internal improvement or an external addition, someone else must generate points in a coherent way if the Thunder will win the championship.
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