5 reasons the Thunder’s offense isn’t thriving like the Rockets’

At any given moment, the Oklahoma City Thunder offense can look like a stagnant back-and-forth between Russell Westbrook and either of his two co-stars. The Thunder have as much talent on their roster as most of the league’s top-tier teams, and they’re an above-.500 team thanks to their league-best defense.

But a team with Westbrook, Paul George, and Carmelo Anthony should run offense seamlessly. Instead, often times it devolves to possessions that look a bit like this:

A whole 19 seconds come off the clock before Westbrook settles for a pull-up mid-range jump shot. Even worse, only one player not named Westbrook touches the ball, and he immediately gives it right back.

The Houston Rockets, on the other hand, have hand-picked a team run by two of the league’s best playmakers, James Harden and Chris Paul. Their high-powered offense looks more like this.

Why the difference? A few reasons.

And there’s nothing wrong with that at all! Let Russ be Russ. He was the league MVP last season for a reason.

But the reason the Rockets’ offense is so efficient is because they turned James Harden — an all-world scorer and playmaker — into an all-world floor general. Then after one season as an experiment gone wildly right, they paired Harden with one of the best playmakers in NBA history.

Russ is a different type of playmaker. He goes right at his defender, either by him or through him, and will either get to the rim, shoot a midrange jump shot, or pass to a teammate. He is not the cerebral distributor that Paul or Harden is. Westbrook is a playmaker of necessity.

Or any uber-athletic big man who can put pressure on the defense defending the pick-and-roll.

Part of the reason Houston’s offense is so powerful is that opposing defenses have to respect Capela, who is averaging a career-best 14 points per game. Eighty-one percent of his made field goals are assisted, and for the most part, they all look something like this:

Yes, the Thunder have Steven Adams, and he’s no scrub. Adams is a bruiser, a glass cleaner, and an enforcer of sorts around the basket. He’s not deficient in screen-and-roll situations, either.

But Capela’s leaping ability makes him a lob pass threat virtually every trip up and down the floor. With so much attention on Westbrook, George, and Anthony, imagine if they had, say, DeAndre Jordan to receive lobs.

For this exercise, pay extra attention to the number of threes attempted per game.

Here are the three-point percentages for each of Houston’s shooters:

Here are the same thing for Oklahoma City’s.

The Rockets are taking and making way more threes than the Thunder can dream of, and doing it better. It might not seem like a big difference, but Houston shoots 37 percent from three versus Oklahoma City’s 34.8 percent clip.

Those points add up over the course of a 48-minute game. Just ask the growing number of teams the Rockets have defeated this season.

One reason James Harden and Chris Paul have so much room to operate is because Mike D’Antoni maximizes ever centimeter of the court’s 50-foot width. He does that in halfcourt sets by putting his sharpshooting forwards in the corners or well beyond the three-point line, every single time.

By the time Capela has the ball, the help should have been there already. For that to be possible, someone would have had to either cheat off of Trevor Ariza in the corner (never a good idea) or Ryan Anderson out by the hash mark (unfair, but also never a good idea).

Oklahoma City, however, has two gifted playmakers at their forward slots, and neither of them are best suited sitting in the corner waiting for the ball to come. That’s not to say Paul George and Carmelo Anthony aren’t gifted corner shooters like Trevor Ariza and Ryan Anderson. In fact, aside from Melo’s awful shooting from the right corner, they’re virtually equals.

But Anthony and George are all-world scorers whose skill sets would waste away planted in the corner waiting for their defender to sag off. Problem is, someone needs to accept being a floor spacer. Houston has role players who do. Oklahoma City has stars who don’t (and shouldn’t).

Here’s everything coming together for one three-point play:

Let’s break it down:

Ricky Rubio and Ekpe Udoh are trying to trap CP3 on the pick-and-roll, which is never a good idea when dealing with a world-class floor general. He eats traps for brunch.

That forces Thabo Sefolosha to show in the paint to take away the easy dump-down pass to Capela, who will finish this at the rim if Sefolosha doesn’t help:

But remember: CP3 is a world-class point guard, so he passes to the man Sefolosha cheated off — Eric Gordon. And before Thabo can get back, he eats a screen by P.J. Tucker.

That gives Gordon just enough space to knock down an open triple, just like coach D’Antoni drew it up.

Where there is a problem, there should always be a solution. Unfortunately, finding one for OKC means one of their starters has to go to the bench.

If Andre Roberson were a serviceable three-point shooter, the quick fix is to leave him in the corner to stretch the defense and allow Westbrook and George to share the backcourt as playmakers. Then Roberson could camp out, and when his man cheats, he would capitalize.

But Roberson is legit shooting zero percent from the right corner and 25 percent from the left. To make matters worse, opponents know it, so they don’t even bother defending him out there:

The Thunder can’t really afford to start Alex Abrines either. While he’s a much more capable three-point shooter than Roberson (38.2 percent from downtown), he’s not nearly as good of a defender. And it’s important not to have a defensive liability out on the wing.

For that reason, Oklahoma City needs to insert Patrick Patterson into the starting lineup in favor of Roberson and come out guns ablaze every game. Yes, it take valuable firepower off the bench, but it adds much-needed shooting to the starting lineup. It also might get Patterson going; the Thunder free agent signing has not matched his success with the Raptors this year in a bench role. His complementary game is a better fit with the starters.

Oklahoma City should have more than enough defense to compensate for losing Roberson. Let’s see if the Thunder make that fix going forward.