Oklahoma City – The Numbers*

• Pace: 95.0 (12th)
• Offensive Efficiency: 108.6 (4th)
• True Shooting Percentage: 56.1% (7th)
• Assist Rate: 18.95 (25th)
• Turnover Rate: 13.10 (12th)
• Offensive Rebound Rate: 27.38 (11th)
• Free Throw Rate: 36.3 (3rd)
• Three Point Rate: 25.8 (7th)

Oklahoma City – Strengths

Working Off Screens Away From The Ball

When looking at the Thunder’s offense, their ability to come off of screens away from the basketball and score really sticks out.  The Thunder have the highest points per possession in this category, scoring a little over a point per possession (1.01 to be exact).  Obviously, part of the reason is Kevin Durant.

Durant is a terrific shooter and that seems to translate well when he is coming off of screens (He also gets a large chunk of the Thunder’s off screens possessions – 63.9%).  Right now, he is at his best when he is coming off of screens to his right side.  Despite not doing it as much (179 times on his right, 239 times on his left), Durant shoots slightly better and that leads to him being a little more efficient going that way.  With Durant’s height, he doesn’t really need to do anything special setting up these screens, because all he needs is that sliver of space to get his shot off.  This means that he comes straight off the screen more times than not (57.3% of the time when coming off of screens on his right side):

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Los Angeles – The Numbers*

• Pace: 93.3 (18th)
• Offensive Efficiency: 107.9 (7th)
• True Shooting Percentage: 54.5% (11th)
• Assist Rate: 20.70 (10th)
• Turnover Rate: 12.33 (3rd)
• Offensive Rebound Rate: 29.19 (5th)
• Free Throw Rate: 29.3 (16th)
• Three Point Rate: 22.0 (16th)

Los Angeles – Strengths

Posting Out Of The Triangle

The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the best teams in the NBA in terms of posting up their opponents.  As a team, the Lakers are 4th in the league in PPP and are shooting 46.8% on post up opportunities.  One of the reasons why they are able to be so successful is because they are able to use their Triangle Offense to get post up opportunities.  The first set the Lakers run (and they seem to run this the most out of their post plays) is a basic set designed to give the man posting up room to work with:

On both of the above plays, the design is to get the basketball into the paint and then clear out for their big with the basketball.  This gives the big a whole half of the court to work with, and with everyone clearing out, there isn’t a worry about a double team.  This allows the Lakers’ bigs to take their time, make their move, and finish.

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At the end of each day, I am just going to put a recap thread up where you can find all of the day’s posts to make it a bit easier.

Here is what we looked at for the upcoming Heat-Sixers series:

• Offensive Breakdown
• Defensive Breakdown

Check in tomorrow when we start looking at the Western Conference.

At the end of each day, I am just going to put a recap thread up where you can find all of the day’s posts to make it a bit easier.

Here is what we looked at for the upcoming Celtics-Knicks series:

• Offensive Breakdown
• Defensive Breakdown

Check in tomorrow when we start looking at the Western Conference.

Miami Heat – The Numbers*

• Defensive Efficiency: 100.9 (5th)
• Opp. TS%: 51.8% (4th)
• Opp. Assist Rate: 19.33 (10th)
• Opp. Turnover Rate: 12.50 (28th)
• Defensive Rebound Rate: 75.50 (5th)
• Block Rate: 5.7 (8th)
• Opp. Free Throw Rate: 30.0 (13th)
• Opp. Three Point Rate: 24.3 (5th)

Miami Heat – Strengths

Pick And Roll Defense

Much like the Celtics and the Bulls, the Miami Heat are very good when it comes to stopping the pick and roll.  In terms of stopping the ball handler, the Heat allow a PPP of 0.764 (4th lowest in the NBA) on 38% shooting.  It doesn’t get much easier for the offense when they try to hit the roll man, with the offense posting a PPP of 0.967 (7th lowest in the NBA).  While the Celtics and Bulls have the exact same strategy, the Heat do things slightly different.  They still rely heavily on help defense, but Heat like to put heavy pressure on the ball handler, having their bigs show hard and stick with the ball handler until he gives up the basketball:

As Nash comes off of a Robin Lopez screen, Big Z shows really hard.  Lopez is going to roll to the basket, and because Big Z is showing on the screen, the help man rotates over to the paint to prevent Lopez from getting an easy look.

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