Russell Westbrook and Thunder keep blowing leads. Here’s why

On Friday night the Thunder had a lead that ballooned to as many as 15 points in the middle of the third quarter against the Pistons. According to Inpredictable, the Thunder had as much as an 82 percent chance of winning the game. And, like clockwork, the Thunder squandered that lead and lost 99-98 to the Pistons after they couldn’t find a good look down the stretch.

Oklahoma City has quickly gone from preseason darling to regular season enigma. Their three stars seem to put things together for stretches, but just haven’t been able to close the deal this season on multiple occasions.

What happened last night has become a common theme for Russell Westbrook and the Thunder. They seem to have all the right pieces, so where do things go wrong? Let’s explore.

With as much shooting as there is in the NBA today, there isn’t a team in the league who isn’t capable of coming back from a slight double digit lead at any point. 15 point leads are what eight point leads used to be ten years ago. Teams have to keep the pressure on.

So far this season, the Thunder have failed to keep that pressure on more often than not. They’ve blown leads left and right and are one of the worst clutch teams in the league this season. Clutch is defined as the last five minutes of a game with two teams within five points of one another. In 37 total minutes of clutch time this season, the Thunder have a -42.2 net rating. Only the Clippers have a worse net rating.

That’s in stark contrast from the Thunder last year where they had the second best net rating in the clutch throughout the season. The same games they won last season, they’re losing this year. The same games they came from behind to win last season, they’re losing this year.

The hierarchy in Oklahoma City has shifted. Russell Westbrook is still on top, but he’s on a team with two All-Stars now. Shots and opportunities are distributed between the three of them and that makes things a bit different.

Last season everyone knew where the ball was going in the clutch. Russell Westbrook had a usage rate of 62.3 percent in 3.7 minutes in the clutch last season. He was the start and finish of the Thunder’s offense.

That has dipped this season with his usage going down to 39.5 percent in the clutch this season with Paul George and Carmelo Anthony using 21 percent and 26.8 percent of the possessions, respectively. Things were simple for the Thunder last season, but now they’ve grown more complicated with three stars trying to find their balance.

None of them have been able to hit much of anything in the clutch. Westbrook has an effective field goal percentage of 45 percent. George’s is 41.7 percent and Anthony’s is an abysmal 23.7 percent. Things completely fall apart for the Thunder’s trio when the game is tight.

The Thunder’s offense has always been pretty simple, and that’s coming back to bite them this season. Last year, a lack of creativity was fine because Westbrook was a world-beater. This season, just handing Westbrook the ball and asking him to create isn’t getting it done.

In the last five minutes of the Pistons game, Westbrook took five three point shots and didn’t make one. That included this stretch here.

The Thunder’s offense just doesn’t make room for much creativity. Most of their actions lead to Westbrook pick and rolls or isolations for Anthony and George. They try to set Anthony up at his sweet spots, but that’s still fairly easy to defend.

This lack of creativity can lead to predictable shots that are easy to defend from the same players. We saw that last night for the Thunder against Detroit.

Westbrook and Anthony combined to take 20 shots throughout the fourth quarter last night and only made five of them and most of them were from outside of the paint. George went two of six and had a couple of looks inside that were well defended and didn’t fall.

But an offense doesn’t have to be complex in order to be effective in the clutch. With their best players not making the shots they have before, it’s difficult to withstand late game runs from their opponents. The players are still getting used to each other, but by now there should be some established actions or principles Westbrook, Anthony and George can go to to get some easy buckets. It’s a bit of a concern that there isn’t.

There’s still time, though. We’re only 18 games into their season and the Thunder still have improvements they can make. With more chemistry and an emphasis on finding better shots for each other, the Thunder can still improve. But until then, they’ll continue to struggle to close teams out.