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DALLAS – After all, they call it Luka’s magic.
And with what seemed like simple reads and the constant movement of his hands, Luka Doncic challenged a listless OKC team like the The Mavericks handed the Thunder a 146-111 loss, their biggest of the season..
He wasted no time in getting new companions, PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, to use. He found Gafford for lobs and short rolls. He found Washington with skip passes. He found every crease, every window and every difficult shot in his arsenal en route to 32 points, eight rebounds and nine assists.
There was no witchcraft on the part of the Thunder. No enchantment. OKC played Saturday’s game with a lifeless, not golden touch.
“Tonight they were a better team from start to finish,” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They played better, they played harder. “More sense of urgency.”
Further:OKC Thunder sign veteran center Bismack Biyombo to minimum contract, according to reports
The urgency was immediate. Doncic’s ice-breaking outburst, complete with nods, shrugs and winks to the bench in the middle, saw him hit three straight 3-pointers. OKC’s defensive crowds barely mattered.
Doncic looked through them as if they were glass bottles. He moved among them like a caterpillar. When the fight was called off, Doncic bypassed Gafford. When the Thunder tried to limit Dallas’ shooters, Doncic and his defensive partner Kyrie Irving jumped down the line so often that Rafer Alston probably smiled somewhere.
The defensive rotations were left impotent. He dropped 66 paint points by the end of the night and saw the Mavericks shoot 58.2% from the floor, which is not a formula for success.
For a time, OKC was on the brink of a nearly 30-point deficit. It’s almost impossible to come back from that. Almost.
But just when it looked like OKC’s reduction of a gigantic deficit could end its own lead, Dallas earned trips to the free throw line that plunged it into momentum it never quite lost.
“They were just more aggressive than us,” rookie Cason Wallace said. “That pretty much sums up this game.”
Further:OKC Thunder fill out roster by making Adam Flagler a two-way contract
The book about Giddey
Josh Giddey It wasn’t the only reason the Thunder lost on Saturday.
That teams defend him with an unpleasant lack of respect is no longer new. It’s law. It’s the way the Thunder, a team so good at so many things that teams must desperately find their loopholes, will continue to live life.
Dallas didn’t abandon that approach. If anything, he did it as aggressively as anyone.
“We’ve seen it all year, so it’s nothing new for us,” coach Mark Daigneault said. “We want to have a variety of attacks against him, including cutting him off and including using him as a filter depending on who the five are. We thought that was effective today. And then he has to shoot with confidence when he has open shots. (The game plan) was effective today for a number of reasons besides him… We’ve attacked it well in the past, so we have to continue to learn from it and grow.”
OKC tried to use Giddey in a few different ways. Just as he has done all season as he navigates new schemes against him. In the same stretch of the third quarter that the Mavericks gained momentum, the Thunder used him as a short playmaker and backside cutter. One ended up being a corner look, the other ended in a trip to the line for Giddey.
Giddey, who finished 3 of 14 for 11 points, wasn’t acting alone when he was targeted by Dallas’ layoff. Lu Dort also received similar freedom, as has been the case several times this season, shooting 2 of 7 from the field and 1 of 6 from 3. Giddey wasn’t the only problem Saturday, nor perhaps the most vital.
There was a lack of energy from the Thunder that magnified those Giddey possessions early in the third quarter to an unfathomable degree. Excessive fouling. A generally unusual level of defensive incompetence. The things that made every Doncic read, every Dallas transition opportunity, all the more painful.
Further:OKC Thunder sign Lindy Waters III to multi-year contract after NBA trade deadline moves
However, Giddey’s offensive deficiencies robbed the Thunder of time and possessions they likely could have used to counterattack. To cut into a lead he had shot beyond normal range long before.
While it all ends with Giddey open, not all teams defend him the same way. Many teams will put their four on Chet and let the center wander. Utah was at its most effective zoning. Toronto, perhaps Giddey’s best game of the season, took on Gilgeous-Alexander’s attacks as much as anyone.
There will almost always be adjustments in coverages, which means there are probably still defensive pictures that OKC and Giddey haven’t seen yet.
Assuming it’s possible, the Thunder’s best course of action in using it will come when all the footage has been seen.
Makes Giddey’s postseason plans interesting. OKC is still finding ways to maximize the point of attack as an off-ball player, a necessary reality with two on-ball wizards like SGA and Jalen Williams. Still trying to find the right dosage of it as a roller and cutter. Evoke his most redeeming qualities with this core.
The only thing that can depend is that there have been good days.
“I had some open looks,” Gilgeous Alexander said. “Some were lost, others were made. That’s the game of basketball. They come in, sometimes they don’t. “Josh was left open against Toronto, (he) played his balls.”
Further:When will Gordon Hayward play for the OKC Thunder? Not until after the NBA All-Star break
afternoon games
Chet Holmgren tried to remember the dates.
In Oklahoma City against the Nuggets during Week 1. A loss in Detroit a couple of weeks earlier. A total beating on Saturday in Dallas.
He wondered why he had been asked what effect the afternoon tips could have on a typically high-energy and vibrant Thunder team. Then he realized the results.
“I understand why you asked that,” said Holmgren, who had 13 points and 12 rebounds.
It’s a strange phenomenon, but the Thunder, who play the Kings at the same time on Sunday, have lost their three afternoon games by a combined total of 84 points.
Holmgren, despite his scientist label handed out by Mark Daigneault earlier in the season, didn’t want to dive into the science behind it. Gilgeous-Alexander, the artist nicknamed Daigneault, would not deny it.
“I try to tell myself ‘no,’ but it’s hard to deny the facts,” he said.
Lack of energy? Lack of urgency? Lack of feng shui? Holmgren declined to speculate on what he called a “wormhole.” However, he did point out the differences.
Changes in filming and shooting time. The change of routine for an entire day. One thing Holmgren didn’t follow through on: a cover-up.
“That’s no excuse,” Holmgren said. “We have to have the same preparation and mentality in every game, regardless of the time, place or factors that are happening. Whatever happens in the world, we must be prepared to face it.”
Further:How OKC Thunder rookie Cason Wallace was built in Hamilton Park, Texas. ‘That is what I am’
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