Shai Gilgeous-Alexander brought the ball up the court on 23 possessions in Game 3. That’s an unusually low number.
Typically, the Oklahoma City Thunder put the ball in SGA’s hands as much as possible. In Games 1 and 2, the MVP brought the ball up the court on 42 and 40 possessions, respectively.
Most of the time SGA is the first Thunder player to touch the ball and oftentimes he’s the last. And for good reason. The Thunder have scored 1.26 points per possession when SGA has brought the ball up the court in the Finals.
So Indiana posed a simple question: what if we don’t let SGA bring the ball up the court?
In the clip above, Andrew Nembhard denies SGA the inbound pass. So SGA points to Cason Wallace and asks him bring the ball up instead. SGA jogs up the court, stands near the sideline, and barely moves for the rest of the possession.
That’s a win for Indiana’s defense.
In Game 3, there were 66 possessions where someone other than SGA initiated the offense. It was the most in any game during the regular season or the playoffs for the Thunder1. The net result was not pretty. The Thunder scored just 0.99 points per possession when someone other than SGA dribbled the ball the ball up the court.
The Pacers turned the Thunder’s most reliable source of offense into a spectator at times. It was a remarkably effective strategy and now Indiana is two wins away from the most improbable NBA championship of my lifetime.
Even when SGA did get his hands on the ball, the Pacers made his life hell. The chart below shows how far up the court, on average, SGA was picked up by a defender in each game in the playoffs. The logos represent OKC’s opponent and the numbers indicate the game number from that corresponding series. Last night, in Game 3, Indiana picked up SGA on average 68 feet from their own hoop.
In addition, Indiana blitzed SGA a total of 12 times in Game 3, according to tracking data from Genius Sports. For context, Indiana blitzed SGA only a combined five times in Games 1 and 2.
It seems as though Indiana took a page out of Bill Simmons’ coaching playbook and decided they weren’t going to let SGA beat them. They just weren’t!
It’s fair to ask how much “credit” we should give Indiana for limiting SGA’s touches versus how much “blame” we should give SGA for not asserting himself more.
On one hand, SGA is not accustomed to playing an off-ball role. It’s not reasonable to expect him to start running around, making offball cuts, and setting screens like he’s Steph Curry in Golden State. That’s not who SGA is and that’s not how the Thunder like to play.
On the other hand, the Thunder’s entire halfcourt offense revolves around SGA initiating the offense. So if he’s not running point, what’s the point?
Which is perhaps why Indiana wagered that if they could deny SGA in the backcourt, he wouldn’t fight to get the ball in the frontcourt. And they appear to have been right. By the end of the fourth quarter, as the game was slipping away, SGA stood on the opposite side of the court watching Jalen Williams dribble into a turnover.
For as dominant as the Thunder are, their offense can look ugly when they’re not generating an infinite amount of turnovers. The Denver Nuggets exposed this fact with the use of zone defense. It took away SGA’s driving lanes and forced the MVP to go outside his comfort zone by becoming more of a playmaker.
Now, the Pacers are exposing the Thunder’s lack of offensive diversity in a different way. Total ball denial and relentless fullcourt pressure have pushed SGA off the ball and even further outside of his comfort zone.
I’m only counting possessions when SGA is also on the court
It’s interesting and creative that Indiana threw this strategy out there.
Considering that some of SGA’s least productive games during the playoffs have come with lower pick-up points (once he had the ball in his hands already), which led to PnR actions happening closer to the basketball and thus, a more compressed shell.
^ Like your mention of Denver.
It’ll be interesting to see the OKC counter in Game 4. Anytime you guys have this level of defense off the ball, the first counter is to become a screener.
Great stuff as always. I wonder if we'll be hearing "Shai needs to be more aggressive" from the usual suspects after that was what we heard about Haliburton. I like him calling out Barkley in the postgame interview when he made that kind of reference about Siakam, saying it has a lot to do with how the Thunder are defending him, and now the same happens to Shai. Regardless of the defensive schemes disrupting the Thunder's offensive flow, I slightly wonder if throwing him so off rhythm makes Shai kinda retreat into his own shell a bit - not lose confidence, but kind of unintentionally drift away from the game. Like, I don't expect it to happen to someone so good (MVP, after all), but who knows, maybe there's that kind of effect going on too.