Let RW take the threes or midrange but defender stay under the screens. He's a weak shooter and is prevented from doing that PnR where he screens the defender behind him (creating that 2-on-1 situation within 20 of the basket). Guard Victor in the opposite manner, hindering his three pt attempts. Double Kanter whenever Andre Roberson is on the same side of the court. If RW is making his threes, liberally apply Bev pressure D. Try and force them to go down low with Adams or Roberson ISO.
Honestly, I want Bev to use every little trick to get under WB's skin (without injuring him ofcourse). Bev needs to get in WB's head and make him think it's a one on one game. The more WB makes it personal the more OKC chances decrease. Plus if Bev shuts WB down, I want to see what the media's narrative is now that's their hero came up short
....when Russ wasn't on the floor. Then he comes back in for crunch time and it's Chuck city & Thunder loss. But- trip dub? Amirite?
Can't have those scrubs in the spotlight instead of him. Maybe he'll play 48/min game and average a historical triple-double, to which the media will wank off to even after they're eliminated. ESPN: “Look brehs, the Rockets just advanced to the second round, but we'll now focus on Westbrook's heroics in our 2-hour King Russ special.“
Adams was our kryptonite because of Dwight Howard. Adams used to frustrate Howard and in turn frustrate us. Now we dont have a crippled big as our focal point for offense, so his stock against us drops. Kanter will score a bunch of points. He is a talented post player on offense. However, he is just as bad on defense. 1) If Kanter is in the game and Adams is not, keep driving to he basket. No interior defense. 2) If Adams is in the game and Kanter is not, they become a perimeter oriented team. Guard their shooters. 3) If Adams and Kanter both are in the game, bomb away from outside. They wont be able to rotate to our shooters. I am just glad they dont have Ibaka anymore.
OKC's defensive rebound is to have Westbrook position himself to rebound. The before Kobe generation, all the biggies get the rebounds. Nowadays, triple-doubles are like HRs hit by Sosa and McGwire. ESPN (it was at work) showed that OKC players let Westbrook get rebounds to pad his stats and the same time they say he will win MVP. If we just box out Westbrook from rebounding, it will get off his game and importantly their players will mess up their game plan. OKC will lose mightily because if Westbrook does not get his points and TDs, he will throw a fit and throw his team into the fire.
Let WB chuck, dont let the bigs get high percentage shot down low. On the other hand.. I just hope we dont chuck 3s ourselves!
I think Harden should guard Westbrook and we shouldn't care how much Westbrook scores. Use our good defenders to shut everyone else down.
Question, are the technical fouls going to be reset for the playoffs? Cause Westbrook sits at 15 now i think, every tech he gets from now on means he miss the game after. Other than that i agree with most of you here, go under the picks, force them to shoot from outside (even better if it's a long 2) and don't let Westbrook attack the paint free, use Roberson man to make some quick doubles when needed (James needs to do a good job here). Overall the only thing i fear about them is their superior lenght and physicality, but if we play hard for most of the games we should be good to go.
I am sure it does. It would be stupid for it not to. I enjoy watching crazy talented knuckleheads in the playoffs. They add to entertainment. Who wants them rotting at home?
Yeah but it's Harden. He wouldn't collect fouls. Westbrook would just average 40 and that's fine. If it's safer, fine, let someone else guard Westbrook in the 1st q.
If you are advocating he not do anything so that the refs are not even in position to call anything, then might as well not put anyone on him. Its the same as playing 4 on 5 defense. Its much better to use Harden as an easier defender on the weakside and play 5 on 5 rather than outright play 4-5 defense. Once Westbrook passes that faux Harden defense, which according to your scheme he will 100% of the time, the second held defender will always collapse our team defense. Essentially we will be left with 3 out of position defenders. It is actually important to put your best defender on Westbrook to slow him down and offer a first line of resistance for two reasons: 1) So much of their offense relies on WB. So if you can disrupt him, the rest of OKC suffers 2) The earlier you pressure him, the more likely he is to make dumb decisions.
That's a bad idea. Harden is not quick enough to stay in front of him. Harden would tire out quickly trying to guard him, or he'd try to conserve energy on defense and turn into a turnstile by letting Westbrook into the lane with little resistance which would collapse our defense and force our other defenders to be in constant help mode. We need Harden to be a monster offensively in the playoffs. Let him rest on defense by guarding a non-threat like Roberson.
There's a middle ground. He can neither get into foul trouble or get burned 100% of the time. Just has to play defense the way he always plays defense. I don't like how we hide Harden on Roberson. Roberson knows how to take advantage of Harden's ADD. Westbrook uses picks very well. When we put Beverley on Russ, we'll have Clint guarding Westbrook all game and Beverley guarding Adams or Kanter. Meanwhile Harden can't stop watching the ball and lets his man float around for backdoor cuts or crazy open 3's - which even Roberson will make at 35-36%. Harden needs to guard players who have the ball a lot and aren't great 3pt shooters, that's the only time he's decent at defense. You get Beverley on Oladipo and Ariza on Roberson those guys are out, done. Ariza is far more capable of helping on Westbrook and recovering to disturb Roberson. Meanwhile Westbrook is embarrassing Harden. I like that, I think it will help Harden and the team too. This is all fun hypothetical though. We beat them 3-1 nicely, so I would stick with what was working. I think this would be an interesting wrench to throw in though if we found ourselves needing some temporary creativity.
I'd say it would be a pretty safe bet, but then again, I would be nervous too. It's not like we easily beat everyone we play. We have lost a lot of games we should have won, and barely won a lot of games that should have been blowouts. We have a lot of streaky shooters, so it's really important in the playoffs that we stay focused and not get lackadaisical, don't take forced shots when we don't need to, pay attention to the clock and not pass the ball at the last second, and don't give them back the ball with unforced turnovers. As long as we minimize those types of mistakes we won't be handing them the win.
