How The Thunder Rediscovered Their Offensive Groove To Win Game 4

Key Highlights

• After scoring 60 points over the first 35 minutes of the game, the Oklahoma City Thunder scored 40 points during the final 13 minutes to win Game 4, 100-96
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dropped 34 points, eight rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocks, including 22 points and five assists in the second half
• Cason Wallace closed the game over Josh Giddey and provided crucial two-way impact

For much of the season, the Oklahoma City Thunder established a dynamic five-out offense predicated on high-level spacing, driving and kicking for quality looks. During the regular season, they led the NBA in drives and three-point percentage, which enabled Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to pilot the attack with ample room and release valves around him. Most defenses struggled to corral Oklahoma City as it cruised to the league’s third-ranked offense (118.3 offensive rating), constantly passing, slashing, moving and scoring against every opponent.

The playoffs, though, haven’t replicated that same potency. In the first round, the New Orleans Pelicans limited the Thunder to a 109.6 offensive rating, but a Zion Williamson-less offense in which Brandon Ingram could never wiggle free from Lu Dort‘s pestering sunk them (93.5 offensive rating). This round, the Dallas Mavericks have proven a more formidable foe, balancing stingy defense (111.2 defensive rating) with an offense that, while not really flourishing, is far better than anemic (108.1 offensive rating).

What Are The Mavericks Doing Well Defensively?

Since the second half of Game 1, Dallas has elected to deploy their sprightly, domineering big men, Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively III, in a rover role. It began with Gafford on Josh Giddey and has extended to other rotation players such as Dort, Cason Wallace and Aaron Wiggins. Letting Gafford and Lively roam washes away the spacing benefits of a five-out offense, squeezes driving lanes, places Oklahoma City’s on-ball passing under a microscope, and exploits its lack of aerial threats in the frontcourt.

The Thunder — namely their lead ball-handlers, Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams — are not adept skip passers capable of seamlessly flipping the court, reorienting the focal point of the offense, and thrusting the defense into rotation after tilting toward one side. That’s ground their fluid, elegant driving into a choppy, staccato ethos full of second-guessing and cramped paint touches.

As a counter to the team’s passing constraints and the Mavericks’ defensive gambit, Oklahoma City’s decided to stash someone in the dunker spot, deviating from its five-out principles. Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams are good interior passers, and laydown reads are typically easier for most players than kickouts or skips while working off the catch.

The issue: Gafford and Lively are stationed on guards and wings. The Thunder are supremely undersized at the 4. There’s no pogo-stick partner to finish inside when Gafford and Lively rotate to the ball; they’re so much bigger than everyone that they can erase the possibility of shots for both the driver and his passing outlet. That static dunker spot option hasn’t been a haven so much as it’s merely further complicated struggles.

Never did those struggles feel more pronounced than the first half of Monday’s Game 4. Oklahoma City scored 43 points — good for a 91.5 offensive rating, its lowest mark in any half this series — and trailed by 11 going into halftime.

Fortunes didn’t immediately turn out of the break. Dallas’ lead stretched to as many as 14 at 57-43. Through 35 minutes, Thunder had 60 points on the scoreboard; a nine-point lead was more akin to 16-17 with this game’s conversion rate. Gafford and Lively lorded over the paint. Unable to find many seamless buckets, everything looked like a chore for the Thunder. When they did carve out a lane, rotations from the dunker spot were simple and authoritatively loud.

Yet over the next 13 minutes, they rediscovered their No. 1 seed mojo. They scored 40 points, stymied Dallas to 27, and notched a 140.0 offensive rating in the fourth quarter. Once staring down a 3-1 deficit and three straight losses, they charged past Dallas to knot this series at 2-2.

The MVP salutatorian, Gilgeous-Alexander was sensational, tallying 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting, four helpers, three boards, one steal and one block during that 13-minute stretch. While the Canadian’s shot-making and facilitating keyed Oklahoma City’s comeback, schematic tweaks fueled his ascension. They granted him more space, an easier time reaching his spots and buoyed the entire offense along the way.

What Did The Thunder Change Offensively In Game 4?

Throughout the fourth quarter, the Thunder embraced their roots. They spammed guard-guard screens that have been a hallmark all year, implemented more five-out alignments and configured spacing to best neutralize rim protectors. They varied their looks, too, preventing Dallas from honing in on a specific approach, calling timeout and devising a counter.

They put the dunker spot man in motion to ease passing windows and avoid stagnant spacing. They slotted Luka Doncic or Kyrie Irving‘s man in the dunker spot rather than whoever the big was guarding to decongest the paint. They ditched the dunker spot strategy altogether and reverted to the tenets of five-out.

For Gilgeous-Alexander, these guard-guard screens, whether he set or received them, gave him the ball around the elbow or nail going left, where he’s most comfortable pulling up. As the series has progressed, he’s grown sharper in curtailing his drives outside of Gafford and Lively’s vicinity to maximize his chances off the bounce. So, he repeatedly operated on the left against favorable matchups and strained the rotations for Dallas’ bigs, which had trouble impeding his airspace.

By requiring strangely timed or atypically angled rotations, providing help was murky because the offensive decision-making from Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder rarely warranted it. When it was warranted, they had workarounds.

It wasn’t just Gilgeous-Alexander’s isolation scoring that reaped the rewards of Oklahoma City’s adjustments either.

Early in the fourth, Dort drew a foul after cutting on the backside of a five-out ball-screen and knocked both down free throws. Williams sprung free for a vital and-1 when a decoy action involving Gilgeous-Alexander relegated Gafford to the weakside corner and left P.J. Washington to bother his floater; he’s a very good defender, but a much less daunting presence in help!

All period, the Thunder adapted the game-plan to maintain their offensive pillars and still mitigate Dallas’ incessant roaming.

As the coaching staff shifted its priorities around Gilgeous-Alexander, the superstar guard amended his own process. Despite the gaudy assist totals (28 in four games), he’s not been a particularly proficient playmaker this series. He’s missed plenty of kickouts and skip passes in favor of crowded midrange jumpers, often hamstrung by a methodical slant.

But that methodical slant morphed into flexible, snappy vision during Monday’s second half. All five of his dimes occurred after the break. He was vastly more decisive in traffic, ready to set the table elsewhere when he reached a certain depth in the paint.

By my estimation, the dotted semi-circle appears to be Dallas’ no-fly zone for drivers. That’s where the help darts into duty. Gilgeous-Alexander recognized this and refined his timing to take advantage (note Giddey’s movement along the baseline in the first clip and where Lively is standing in the third clip as further proof of schematic alterations).

To open the second half, Isaiah Joe supplanted Giddey in the starting lineup. To end the second half, Wallace supplanted Giddey in the starting lineup. Through four games, the Thunder are being outscored by 22 points in Giddey’s 53 minutes, while outscoring Dallas by 35 in the 193 minutes he’s sat. He’s playing just five minutes per game in the second half. His creaky outside shooting, rigid inside game and slow-footed defense are bogging down the Thunder on both ends, outweighing the appeal his passing gusto might instill.

Any of Joe, Wiggins and Wallace are superior choices, and Wallace’s Game 4 might’ve showcased why he’s the leading candidate to continue stealing the most minutes from Giddey. The rookie knocked down two triples — now at 41.8 percent between the playoffs and regular season — and flustered the Mavericks’ star duo a few times. He also closed Game 1 before starters were pulled, hounding Irving and burying two more long balls. He’s a confident, reliable spot-up shooter and budding star at the point of attack, skills that neither of which Giddey touts.

Given how Oklahoma City is defending Irving (big at the level in screens, shading help on isolation touches), assigning Wallace as his primary defender — knowing he’s flanked by help — and scaling up his minutes could be integral to this team’s chances moving forward. Not only is Wallace already a good on-ball stopper, sliding him onto Irving would grant Williams less strenuous defensive responsibilities off the ball.

A viable interior defender and weakside low man, he could probably use a reprieve from dancing with Irving all the time. He went 5-of-19 in Game 4 with plenty of wonky misses and a handful of mental blunders off the ball defensively. Letting an ancillary cog assume that defensive assignment could help Williams return to form offensively and ensure Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t a one-man ensemble on the creation front. Williams has enjoyed a fairly successful playoff debut thus far, but Game 4 was tremendously tough sledding aside from a brief fourth quarter surge.

Although the Thunder lost themselves for far too long in Dallas, they’re coming back to Paycom Center with homecourt advantage and an identity restored. These are the top-seeded Thunder with success belying their youthful nature. That is the MVP runner-up and midrange maestro. This is the reigning Coach of the Year whose schematic creativity amplifies his plentiful rotation.

Twenty-nine minutes of justified handwringing and the impending reality of a 3-1 hole preceded it. But those qualities all resurfaced to render this Southwest soirée a best of three entering Wednesday’s pivotal Game 5.