OKLAHOMA CITY — Despite scoring just 92 points, his lowest score in nine playoff games, Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said he likes the team’s offensive process in Wednesday night’s Game 5 home loss to the Dallas Mavericks in a 104-92 final. puts them in a 3-2 series hole, on the brink of elimination as they head to Dallas on Saturday.
“I’m careful to say I loved a 92-point night,” Daigneault said. “But I felt like we were hitting some roadblocks on the offensive end of the floor the last three games. I felt like tonight we managed to find some cracks. We made them a little more uncomfortable. We had them on rotation a little more.
On Monday night, the Thunder escaped Dallas with a Game 4 victory to regain home-court advantage despite a generally brutal performance on the offensive end. They made 6 of 17 from the restricted area and 7 of 27 from 3 in the win, surviving thanks to a stingy defensive effort, a ton of midfields from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and 23 free throws.
But their inability to get their offensive engine running concerned Daigneault enough that he benched Josh Giddey for the first time in his career. After starting his previous 218 games, Giddey gave way to Isaiah Joe to open Game 5.
It worked from the first minutes. Joe ran a wide-open corner 3 and, with a defender attached to him two possessions later, a paint lane opened up for Gilgeous-Alexander to drive and dunk, scoring at the rim for the first time since Game 3 The Thunder went up 8-2.
But this was their high point. The Mavericks regained the lead in a few minutes and never trailed. The Thunder played catch-up from the 7:59 mark of the first quarter until the final buzzer, missing 30 of their 40 3s as they continually failed to gain momentum.
Joe, a 41.6 percent 3-point shooter this season, missed six of his next seven 3s after that first make. Most of these looks were either open or wide open, resulting from either pick-and-pop action (a Joe specialty) or drive-and-kick sprays.
Here is a deadly failure in the third quarter. The Thunder are down 11. Luguentz Dort opens the clip with a quick drive-and-kick to Gilgeous-Alexander from the corner. That leads to a swing to Jalen Williams, another drive into the heart of the paint, and a delivery to a wide-open Joe on the right wing for a 3 as clean as any you’ll create in the half court. It’s missing.
Cason Wallace, who appears as the fifth closer ahead of Giddey and Joe, missed four of his five 3s after making two big ones in Game 4. Chet Holmgren went 1 of 5 from deep. Dort made 2 of 8. Jalen Williams, a 42.7 percent 3-point shooter this season, missed all three of his 3s.
“This is probably going to sound crazy because we didn’t shoot well, but I thought our offense was really good,” Williams said. “We didn’t make any shots.”
Williams’ struggles are a big part of the problem. He is the team’s second-leading scorer, but hasn’t exploded in this series, scoring 18, 20, 16, 14, and 12 points in the five games, with the lowest of those totals coming in Game 5 . He made only 41 percent of his shots. and 31 percent of his 3s. He hasn’t made a 3 since Game 3.
“A lot of it comes from me,” Williams said. “I didn’t make the shots I usually make. I don’t have the whole series. It’s frustrating.”
Holmgren, their third-leading scorer, hasn’t scored 20 points in this series. He’s attempted just nine shots twice and 11 once in the last three games, struggling to make his shot against the Mavericks’ speed and length.
This possession at the end of the fourth quarter is an example. The Thunder are down 11 with 2:09 left. It’s time for despair. They generate good offensive action, which creates that snapshot in time. Dort just kicked the ball from the corner towards the wing to Holmgren. As the ball hits his hand, the closest defender, Derrick Jones Jr., is on the right block.
But this shot is blocked. Holmgren, adjusting to the speed of playoff basketball and the length of Dallas, slowly completes his 3 and tips it over, essentially ending any weak comeback attempts.
Gilgeous-Alexander was productive again. He scored 30 points on 12-of-22 shooting and found a few more cracks at the rim than before. But he doesn’t get enough help. None of his teammates have reached 21 points in five games of this series.
“Jalen and Chet are very good players,” Daigneault said. “It’s our first playoff series, their first playoff series. Everything is a learning experience. In the playoffs, because of the nature of the game – high stakes games, well scouted, same opponent, high level opponents – there is no player, no matter where he is in his career, who does not encounter difficulties at different points along the way. of a series.
The clip above is an example of the defense Gilgeous-Alexander watches regularly. He interrupts Jones off the dribble, but Derek Lively II and Luka Doncic immediately collapse, taking away his airspace. He makes the right read and generates an open 3, but it goes nowhere.
“It’s very crowded,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I seem to see this a lot. But it’s certainly a priority for them.
Daigneault said he wasn’t “overjoyed” about the 92 points, but reiterated several times during his postgame press conference that he felt the Thunder were on the “good lane” offensively. They can put that theoretical progress to the test in Game 6 in Dallas. This series is not over. But the Thunder are on the brink and, so far, struggling to score enough points to survive no matter how they change their lineup.
“I thought we looked similar again stylistically,” Daigneault said. “I actually thought we made pretty good progress offensively. There were times in Games 2, 3 and 4 where we felt like we were stuck in a bind offensively. I just got stuck against their defense. Tonight I thought there was a lot more fluidity, a lot more dynamism and kick. It took us a few games in this series to calibrate it.
(Top photo by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Alonzo Adams / USA Today)