other….
Williams had hit two jumpers from almost that exact spot on the short left wing — his most accurate shot location this season — just moments before. And he is shooting 69.2% in clutch moments this season, leading NBA guards in clutch field goal percentage among players with at least 25 attempts.
But that aside, the Thunder offense is equipped to break defenses, no matter who touches the ball last on a given play. That’s both because of their chaotically selfless style of play and their historically accurate jump-shooting, which right now stands as the best in NBA history. And they’re doing it using a playbook that fueled Stephen Curry and the 73-win Golden State Warriors.
“They do a good job of creating confusion,” said Celtics guard Derrick White, a member of last season’s All-NBA defense team, after the Thunder beat Boston back in January. “They’re a tough team to guard, and I think the whole league is trying to figure [their scheme] out.”
DURING GOLDEN STATE’S decade-long dynasty, it became routine to see the team, spearheaded by its superstar point guard, finish with the league’s best three-point percentage and the NBA’s best effective field goal rate.
Yet there was always more to the Warriors’ offense than met the eye. Aside from simply having Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green (and Kevin Durant, depending on the years), the Warriors also had a fascinating gameplan that fundamentally inverted key offensive concepts.
For starters, they utilized the pick-and-roll — which forces defenses to make split-second decisions, and are the bread and butter of most NBA offenses — less frequently than any other team. (This was the case even though the Dubs were the NBA’s most efficient pick-and-roll unit.) What they did far more often than any other team was run their stable of perimeter shooters off screens away from the ball to create looks.
The twist? Golden State had their guards — Curry included — be the ones to set the off-ball screens. Countless times, it would result in two defenders chasing the world’s best shooter, only to find the teammate Curry screened for breaking wide-open for a layup at the rim. Cheat-code level stuff.
As the second-youngest team in the league, Oklahoma City isn’t quite at that level yet. Still, the similarities should be terrifying to the rest of the league. At 39.6%, the Thunder shoot the three better than any other team. And with a 56.7% effective field goal rate on jumpers, they recently pulled ahead of the 73-win 2015-16 Warriors, who had held the best mark in the shot-tracking era, according to ESPN’s Stats & Info. Much like Golden State, they rarely run pick-and-roll sets, despite being the most efficient team in the league when they do. Instead, they have their guards do the dirty work — similar to the Dubs.
