Russell Westbrook is not a true point guard, we all know that. He's more of a two-guard or actually a scoring guard. Scoring guard should be able to score the ball and to be effective against any kind of defenses, especially against solid one if you're paying him max money. Thank You, Captain Obvious After departure of James Harden, he has much more freedom on Thunder offense, so some good coaches are trying to use it as their advantage. Imagine that good playoff caliber team is playing defensive minded basketball, with a lot of pressure on him, with good help defense and they are trying to not let Russ pass the ball to Durant, fronting Kev, doubling him and so on, forcing Westbrook to make decisions of his own. You've seen it a lot this year. What is Westbrook' production against that kind of teams, that were able to do what their coaches were asking from them? So, Westbrook against playoff caliber team that were playing defense first basketball against OKC this season Pts - points, Ast - assists, TO - turnovers, FGM - field goals made, FGA - field goals attempted It's not even an All-Star caliber performance and some guys on the board are saying, that he is the best PG in the NBA and a top-5 player in the game or he could be a top-5 player in the game in a few years Why you should pay max money for a high turnover prone scoring guard that can't score or be efficient against opponents, that are playing hard and smart on D?
I'm curious why are the Warriors, the Nets, the Knicks included in this "defense first" list while the Pacers (arguably the league's best defense) are excluded? Is it because OKC blew the Pacers out and Westbrook was solid in that game, so it would hurt the argument, or some other reason?
I've watched all the games I've mentioned, opponents were trying to held them under 100 pts and they were not trying to just go there and outscore them. Classic total under game Knicks were playing really good D, they were playing without Melo, Stat wasn't effective and the only guy that was lifting the team was JR Smith, so they've tried to eat OKC alive on Defense and hope that Smith will continue to make his shots Westbrook wasn't solid at all against Indy, he was 7/17 from the field and he has 7 ast to 6 TO. It doesn't matter in this case, even makes it worse in ast/to ration
Yeah, it is a good idea not to compare Chris Paul to WB's stats when they played against each other this year, OP. And holy ****, he went off against LA in 2 of the 3 games. Yet somehow you only have the one loss listed?
Because in other D'Antoni decided to outscore them and to play up-tempo, it's different style of play, the style that Thunder prefer The case is high intense defensive games, where opp. team wants to held them under 100 pts and not to outscore them which is nearly impossible for everyone not named Heat and Nuggets
My bad, I forgot the 4th game that just happened this month when Westbrook had a 37/5/1/15/29/14/122/105 using your stats. Lets look at pace in the games this year between LA and OKC? 95.5 101.6 91.4 90.8 Can you tell me which game LA won? The 3rd game. The 4th and slowest of the games was a blowout for OKC. Thanks for playing though.
LOL Who was guarding Westbrook in game 3 and who was guarding him in game 4? D'Antoni decided to play defense and put Kobe on Westbrook to slow him on fast break, to force TO and Kobe did well but than he realized that Kobe can't play both D and O with high intensity at this age and he quit with that. Go and some games
go and watch some games If you are trying to say that Westbrook is playing good under a ton of defensive pressure this year you haven't watch any Thunder games He is horrible in those games, a lot of bad drives, bad high midrange shots, worst in basketball, a lot of turnovers, too many jackups instead of feeding Martin and Durant who are 10 times more effective because of their shooting abilities and abilities to play off the ball
I'm sorry the LA game destroys what little credibility your argument possessed. Besides A3PO, I've watched more thunder games than anyone here. I'm willing to bet I've been to more thunder games than anyone here. Yes, he is not the best PG in the league. Yes, he is bad in the games he struggles in. The latter is all you've managed to show. You fail in your little excel experiment, because there are other games against the same teams and the same defensive pressure, that he is excellent. He also struggles in MANY high pace, no defense games, but that would take time and effort to grab those numbers, which you obviously do not have the desire to produce.
we can all help out then. so far against the spurs: nov.1: 6 for 21 and 6 turnovers Dec.17:6 for 18 and 1 turnover March 11: 11 for 27 and 4 turnovers against Memphis.. nov.14: 6/19 and 2 t.os jan 31. 9/17 and 5 t.os march 20: 7/25 and 2 t.0s ahhh yeah can't do this takes too much time. conclusion, he shoots a lot at an average %. Thankfully it's an era where they breathe on you and it's a foul.
Why did you feel the need to make a column with "shots missed", it's sort of redundant if you look at the previous 2 columns isn't it? Unless you think most folks on here can't do 2nd grade math?
Cherry picking to the max man. You can't honestly expect people to take your argument seriously when you picked games where YOU thought the other team tried to play "defense first."
