Game #70: Oklahoma City Thunder 132 - Toronto Raptors 125

[slaw]

Yeah, the game plan was pretty garbage. Seemed like they were trying to play the PnR 2-on-2 like against HOU. That's a disaster against Westbrook-Adams. Especially when the effort from the guards was like half what it was in the HOU game.

Could probably still have made it work if they consistently went under screens and dared Westbrook to shoot. Even if he got hot, the expected return on those plays would still be well below what they gave up.

The game plan was fine but the execution was awful and the team definitely looked gassed at times. The pace was frenetic and our guys were not going 100%. One of the big things that benefits Toronto is that they can go at their opponents 100% for 48 minutes and few teams can withstand that attack but yesterday Raps weren't anywhere near 100%. When I see the Raps not taking care of the glass it's almost always cause they are lacking energy and that was certainly the case yesterday.

But, again, the officiating was inequitable and it tilted the game at certain junctures from the JV travel calls to some minor non-calls to the awful Marc Davis stuff. There was a key sequence in the second quarter where the Raps were in control and a bizarre travel call coupled with some cheapies and all Toronto's momentum was lost.

[Chr1s1anL]

God I hope not..... the only place Ibaka should be during crunch time is on the bench.

Your entitled to your opinion but, sure Casey doesn't agree. You should check the #s for that frontcourt.

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[Maury]

Your entitled to your opinion but, sure Casey doesn't agree. You should check the #s for that frontcourt.

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Christian, has Casey ever been wrong?

[Barolt]

Your entitled to your opinion but, sure Casey doesn't agree. You should check the #s for that frontcourt.

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There is a LOT of noise in the Serge-at-center numbers. The offensive numbers are almost entirely held up by the fact that a couple bench players basically have never missed a shot with Serge at center on a low number of attempts, while Serge and DeMar have struggled to score, as has Fred.(Kyle has been great in those minutes, though)

At the same time, the defensive numbers are almost certainly full of noise too. Opponents are grabbing 24% of offensive rebounds available in the 4th and OT against Serge at center, shooting 72% at the rim, and shooting 20% from three, which probably isn't sustainable.

I would take those numbers with a MASSIVE grain of salt.

[Chr1s1anL]

Absolutely, easy and obvious adjustment seems to be to not play Westbrook so tight out at the perimeter, duck under the screens.

JV did great against Capela, he should be able to handle Adams if the guards can recover to the ball handler.

Yeah, the game plan was pretty garbage. Seemed like they were trying to play the PnR 2-on-2 like against HOU. That's a disaster against Westbrook-Adams. Especially when the effort from the guards was like half what it was in the HOU game.

Could probably still have made it work if they consistently went under screens and dared Westbrook to shoot. Even if he got hot, the expected return on those plays would still be well below what they gave up.

Find me a guard that can keep Westbrook infront of them....

You make a game plan based on the players you have. The scheme they played put JV in the best position to succeed as he did the game against Houston. Your kind of limited in pnr schemes when JV is the C. Scheme was fine. JV was actually in the right position at times just better O and too many Off rebs.

Guys like Ibaka/Yak are able to play mutliple PnR schemes. They can trap, hard hedge/recover and switch. Raps still had a chance to win I'm not too upset about this loss.

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[Chr1s1anL]

There is a LOT of noise in the Serge-at-center numbers. The offensive numbers are almost entirely held up by the fact that a couple bench players basically have never missed a shot with Serge at center on a low number of attempts, while Serge and DeMar have struggled to score, as has Fred.(Kyle has been great in those minutes, though)

At the same time, the defensive numbers are almost certainly full of noise too. Opponents are grabbing 24% of offensive rebounds available in the 4th and OT against Serge at center, shooting 72% at the rim, and shooting 20% from three, which probably isn't sustainable.

I would take those numbers with a MASSIVE grain of salt.

So basically all the good stats are noice and all the bad ones are legit. Not like Ibaka/Siakam are our best defenders at those position or that Ibaka has history of having success at C or anything.

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[slaw]

There is a LOT of noise in the Serge-at-center numbers. The offensive numbers are almost entirely held up by the fact that a couple bench players basically have never missed a shot with Serge at center on a low number of attempts, while Serge and DeMar have struggled to score, as has Fred.(Kyle has been great in those minutes, though)

At the same time, the defensive numbers are almost certainly full of noise too. Opponents are grabbing 24% of offensive rebounds available in the 4th and OT against Serge at center, shooting 72% at the rim, and shooting 20% from three, which probably isn't sustainable.

I would take those numbers with a MASSIVE grain of salt.

I don't know if the numbers with Serge at centre are 'noisy' (as I'm not sure what we'd expect them to be), so much as they are too small a sample size to tell us anything meaningful.

I'm less interested in the numbers than the fact that I simply don't trust Ibaka. He has two decent games followed by a bad one. He loses his cool regularly and makes a lot of bad decisions for a vet. If he's playing well and is in control then throw him out there but I'm nervous about relying on him to close out games against top teams....

[S.R.]

Find me a guard that can keep Westbrook infront of them....

You make a game plan based on the players you have. The scheme they played put JV in the best position to succeed as he did the game against Houston. Your kind of limited in pnr schemes when JV is the C. Scheme was fine. JV was actually in the right position at times just better O and too many Off rebs.

Guys like Ibaka/Yak are able to play mutliple PnR schemes. They can trap, hard hedge/recover and switch. Raps still had a chance to win I'm not too upset about this loss.

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You weight the opponent more than your staff in making a game plan, but whatever. At some point you tell your guys they have to execute and if they can't, someone else on the roster will. Just ask JV about 4th quarter minutes any year before this one.

Westbrook is an absolute killer attacking the rim and is meh shooting from outside. They definitely should have sagged off him and dared him to shoot. Playing tight on guards on the perimeter made sense against Houston, who shoots a ton of 3's - they gave up paint scoring to the Rockets but that's what you want to do vs. that team, Houston's Plan A is the 3's and their Plan B is paint scoring. Westbrook's Plan A is attack the rim. Have to try to take that away.

[Chr1s1anL]

Christian, has Casey ever been wrong?

Everyone makes mistakes but, nothing backs up your point of Ibaka playing C. As it's been successful ever since he got here.

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[Chr1s1anL]

You weight the opponent more than your staff in making a game plan, but whatever. At some point you tell your guys they have to execute and if they can't, someone else on the roster will. Just ask JV about 4th quarter minutes any year before this one.

Westbrook is an absolute killer attacking the rim and is meh shooting from outside. They definitely should have sagged off him and dared him to shoot. Playing tight on guards on the perimeter made sense against Houston, who shoots a ton of 3's - they gave up paint scoring to the Rockets but that's what you want to do vs. that team, Houston's Plan A is the 3's and their Plan B is paint scoring. Westbrook's Plan A is attack the rim. Have to try to take that away.

What PnR schemes would of worked better? Raps went under pretty much every screen. Which led to open big 3 he hit in the 4th. You make it seems like we were guarding like Steph.

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[DanH]

Everyone makes mistakes but, nothing backs up your point of Ibaka playing C. As it's been successful ever since he got here.

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It's been successful when going up against opposing small ball looks since he got here, which thankfully is basically the only time Casey has used it, for the most part. Heck, I thought he would use it a lot more, good on him for not doing so, and restricting its use mostly to situations where it is likely to succeed. Last night was one of the few times where it was used against a big opponent, and it was predictably disastrous (though I'll concede the refs played a part in that).

[DanH]

What PnR schemes would of worked better? Raps went under pretty much every screen. Which led to open big 3 he hit in the 4th. You make it seems like we were guarding like Steph.

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What? The Raptors went under screens? No they didn't. The on-ball defender on Westbrook went over every screen, and frankly did a terrible job of it, trailing Westbrook every time and not getting back in front like they were able to with Harden a few games back.

[Barolt]

So basically all the good stats are noice and all the bad ones are legit. Not like Ibaka/Siakam are our best defenders at those position or that Ibaka has history of having success at C or anything.

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Context! We're talking Pascal Siakam, Delon Wright, and OG Anunoby shooting so well that they're accounting for a significant portion of the points during all "Ibaka-at-center" minutes while shooting well, well above any level they've shown they can shoot.

[Chr1s1anL]

It's been successful when going up against opposing small ball looks since he got here, which thankfully is basically the only time Casey has used it, for the most part. Heck, I thought he would use it a lot more, good on him for not doing so, and restricting its use mostly to situations where it is likely to succeed. Last night was one of the few times where it was used against a big opponent, and it was predictably disastrous (though I'll concede the refs played a part in that).

Adams hit one free throw in 4th after having 23 points in the 3 other quarters. Well I believe they wanted to save Ibaka mins there for playoffs. I guess only time will tell right? We will see how was right once playoffs start.

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[KHD]

What PnR schemes would of worked better? Raps went under pretty much every screen. Which led to open big 3 he hit in the 4th. You make it seems like we were guarding like Steph.

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lol they went under almost none of the screens.

are you gaslighting or do you just not pay attention?