Thursday night, despite all of the concern throughout the day, the Cleveland Cavaliers came to town and played all of their players. Despite the initial decision to rest their big 3, Lebron played 41 minutes. In the end it didn't really matter as the Thunder put together one of their most dominant wins against a Lebron team in years. Let's take a look at a few interesting plays.
Just prepare yourself because as usual, Andre Roberson's defense is going to show up in a lot of these clips. I always talk about how great Roberson is at staying down on pump fakes. He is amazing at keeping his feet on the ground and even if he lunges keeps his balance. In this clip Lebron hits him with a great step-back and pump fakes for a jumper. There is no reason for Andre to not expect a shot here, but he catches the fake early and holds his ground without a flinch when Lebron bodies him. This strong stance when Lebron shoved intio him is probably the reason for the bad pass that gets thrown.
Vic does a great job of reading the passing lane Lebron saw, and turned the steal into an immediate streaking fast break. Sabonis and Russ run hard with Vic and they create a 3-2 break. The threat of Russ definitely frees this fast break up for Sabonis. If you pause the video right as Vic tosses ahead to Sabonis you can see that Kyrie has turned his head completely towards Russ. The pass is low, but Domas does a great job of picking up the low pass and finishing.
Andre gets the gorgeous block here, but this defensive play is 100% thanks to Cameron Payne. Yes, its hard to believe, but Cam absolutely blows this play up and allows Roberson the chance to recover and make the highlight stop.
Lebron starts with the ball above the 3 line and Kay Felder comes out to set a screen for Lebron. This helps free Lebron from Robes, but also puts Cam Payne in a position to have to defend the ball. Felder grabs Andre and really just picks him out of the play entirely. Lebron accepts the screen and drives the middle of the floor. Cam momentarily steps to his right anticipating needing to stick with Felder but immediately realizes Andre has been hung up and sees that he needs to switch. He scrambles back very quickly, like for real its incredible how quickly he changes direction and gets back in front of Lebron. The second really smart play by Cam here, is that the moment he can he squares up to Lebron and plants his feet. Lebron obviously powers right through him, but to avoid the charge he opts for a floater from ~8 feet out. Meanwhile, Robes has freed himself and races to get back and help Cam. He gets there right in time to throw the shot out of bounds. Great great great defense by Cam. Speaking of Cam. He had himself a game last night.
This play highlights 2 fundamental keys to the Thunder's offence this season. First, Vic needs to be a creator. He needs to be able to take a pass and score, and he needs to be able to create scores for his teammates. I don't know that this is necessarily a role he likes, but he has the ability and it is important that he takes advantage of it.
The second fundamental is a big man making plays out of the paint. The second unit offense is dependent on a big that can score in the paint effectively, because they are striving to capitalize on a double team. Kanter was so efficient down low that he nearly always drew a double when catching in the paint. It took him a while to figure out how to identify the double and make the correct pass out of it. Joffrey, as you can see here has that ability. The problem for him is being a good enough scorer to force that double. Props to Cam for hitting the corner 3 of that great quick pass. If he can consistently make that shot, the second unit's offense becomes incrementally more effective. For the record, here is another great example of everything just mentioned.
Before we walk through this play, please re-look at this video and take in the lineup that is on the floor for the Thunder. Cam Payne, Alex Abrines, Andre Roberson, Joffrey Lauvergne, and Steven Adams. Not exactly a juggernaut offensively, but if you've watched the Thunder for any bit of time I bet you can imagine how this lineup sets up offensively and the type of actions they will run.
This particular play is an early years Scott Brooks special. Andre and Abrines are in opposite corners, Adams is on the baseline touching the paint, Joffrey if FT line left side, and Cam is at the top with the ball. Nick Collison taught James Harden the NBA game by getting the ball at the mid post and letting Harden cut baseline or curl around a DHO to either pull up or drive the paint. Here, Cam hits Joffrey who takes 1 dribble towards Abrines at the left corner. Abrines defender (Korver) has his back to the ball so he is forced to turn his head to locate it. The moment Korver turns his head, Abrines cuts to the rim. You can tell this is a designed play because the moment Joffrey starts to work left Adams slides across the paint to the right side. This has the dual purpose of either clearing the laine for an Abrines drive, or being in ideal rebounding position should Abrines end up taking the corner 3. As is, Abrines is able to catch and drive to the paint and draw the attention of Adam's defender. It ends with a simple dump off to Adams. This is a nice simple action that can create good player movement. It is essentially practice and film work directly translating into points for a unit that might otherwise struggle to score.
This play is an exact flip of the earlier Cam Payne defensive play that resulted in the Roberson block on Lebron. This time Cam is guarding Kyrie and Lebron comes up to screen Cam for Kyrie. The play starts with Lebron trying to shove Reobes off of him to create some freedom of movement but Robes stands strong. When Lebron screens Cam and Kyrie starts to drive Roberson is immediately in Kyrie's space. Irving commits to the drive and throws up a very difficult floater that was heavily contested. I'm not ready to call it a selfish play by Kyrie, but there is definitely no point in Lebron screening Cam out of the play and then not taking advantage of the switch. Suffice to say any time you opt to involve Roberson in the PnR defensively, you are putting the offensive set in danger.
Let's wrap this up with what ammounted to the official dagger of this game. As an aside, in a game that was relatively tight late in the fourth quarter Russell Westbrook scored his final points of the game with 3:43 remaining. Given the way the Thunder have played this year, you would expect the Thunder to be melting down during this stretch most likely resulting in a loss. Instead, Oladipo, Adams and Roberson came up big time after time with Vic nailing this massive 3 to ice it.
There are 2 important notes here. First, Russ draws all 5 Cavs into the paint when he drives. Second, Russ trusted a teammate with 1 minute remaining in a game his team was only up 7. This is important for Russ, and a real positive for the Thunder if he can act on that trust going forward.
Now come the Warriors. Let's all hope the next post is titled, "How to Crush a Cupcake". Peace out friends.
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