Oklahoma City Thunder Offensive Notes Part 2: Halfcourt Offense

As promised, I broke down some of my favorite parts of the Thunder’s Early Offense/Transition Attack. Today I will be picking apart some of my favorite elements of the Thunders Halfcourt Offense. If you have not read part 1 go read it now as it will flow better & explain some potential questions you may pose early on in the breakdown.

Positioning, Positioning, Positioning!

The Thunder’s willingness to go small has a lot of advantages in their early offensive attack. However, you may wonder how this transitions into the halfcourt. A majority of NBA (and almost all basketball programs regardless of level) play a large amount of their possessions working within ball screens when in the halfcourt.

With these shooting 5’s or perimeter oriented small ball 5’s many would think that this would be axed from the Thunder’s offensive repertoire as increased switches tend to limit defensive rotations which in turn make it harder to generate high quality shots as an offense.

So the question becomes what’s the answer for the Thunder? Especially when their 2 best players Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Josh Giddey are at their best getting downhill and playing inside the 3 point line.

Rather than shifting to 5 out like most teams with perimeter oriented 5’s the Thunder do something vastly different. They will often play out of a traditional 4 out NBA spacing, but they will take either a shooter or a smaller wing that can finish around the rim and place him in the dunker spot with the 5 on the perimeter.

What are the advantages of manipulating the personnel within their dunker spot? Check out the first video clip below where you can see it perfectly.

Dunker Positioning

• Here you can see Jalen Williams lined up in the dunker spot. Williams being guarded by Jordan Poole a fellow perimeter player. While Golden State’s Big Kevon Looney is out on the perimeter playing Saric.
• SGA demands a lot of attention on his drives because he is such an effective finisher and in between scorer. This forces the early gap help which opens up Aaron Wiggins to cut the gap. Even with a phenomenal defensive play by Draymond to switch on the fly and contest, the Thunder still score.
• Chances are if Looney is guarding the dunker the degree of difficulty on this shot becomes significantly harder as he can aide Draymond in protecting the rim rather than Jordan Poole.
• I like to use a hockey/soccer term that perfectly describes this positioning as the Thunder are simply “Pulling the Goalie”. Now their dynamic downhill drivers SGA & Giddey can drive to the lane and the Thunder can put pressure on the rim as a team without a major defensive anchor to protect the rim.
• Side Note Again: Aaron Wiggins = Best Cutter off penetration in the NBA

Dunker Positioning + Clear

• We will get into the actions later, just want to focus on the positioning right now. In both clips you can see Isaiah Joe (40 3PT%) in the dunker. The players rotating at the rim from the Suns off of both drives are perimeter players (Damion Lee & Devin Booker).
• Off the rim rotation we see the Dunker spot immediately space out to the same side corner which can generate a ton of shots for your best shooter.
• You can get creative within this action as you can see on the first clip where the Thunder leverage Dieng’s below average shooting (26 3PT%) and turn him into a screener to ensure the Thunder obtain a high quality shot for their best shooter off the numerical advantage on the backside.

Dunker Vertical Clear EOQ

• The versatility within the Thunder’s lineup also makes this spacing effective. The Thunder use their traditional 5 here in the dunker as the clear to open up a driving line for the ball handler.
• This usually will create a 2 on the ball advantage as many bigs are inclined to protect the rim and follow the drive rather than staying with the shooting big.

Dunker Flare

• The final tweak/wrinkle to this spacing that I will cover is this flare from the dunker spot. This could also be reversed in it’s role where the same side corner as the dunker pins in for him (Can’t wait for some comment on YouTube on this one “Nice turnover”)
• With these wrinkles and positions I think that there’s a lot of fun and creative ways you can continue to play with this spacing dynamic.
• Also you can see a common theme with these. The Thunder are constantly putting their opponents defensive personnel in unfamiliar and uncomfortable scenarios, but even better they are doing so in order to benefit the focal points of their offense and maximize their strengths.

Middle Guard to Guard

• Now breaking down the action you have seen repeatedly already. The Thunder like to shift a perimeter player into the dunker by utilizing the 45 cut. This time using Tre Mann. This pulls Damian Jones away from the hoop and allows Williams to attack 1 on 1 and create downhill.
• You can see on this clip that the screener comes from the opposite side of the floor which will come into play here on the next clip.

Middle Guard to Guard Dictating Angle

• Here you can see rather than coming from the opposite side of the floor the screener is completely vertical and almost on a parallel with the ball handler.
• This is tough to defend as the ball handlers defender does not know which way the screener will set the screen. This gives options for the screen to be set the for the ball handler to go to the opposite side of the dunker and attack space or for screen to be set to roll/pop away from the dunker opening up space for the screener. Here the screen is set away from space which opens up the angle to reject.

Middle Guard to Guard Attacking Mismatch

• Obviously one of the most common ways you can utilize this action is to attack a mismatch and pick on the opposing teams worst perimeter defender.
• Here you can see the Thunder do that. Important point on the first clip, the Thunder have a matchup that they already like (Fontecchio on Giddey) so you see this early slip in order to keep the matchup.

Middle Guard to Guard Early Advantage = Early Ghost

• The Thunder like to ghost their shooters a lot out of these actions as well in particularly Waters & Joe. Felt that was pretty self explanatory but here’s an important teaching point.
• Within our ball screen principles we should be teaching that early advantage = early slip. This is the same concept here but with a shooter early advantage = early ghost.

Middle Guard to Guard Late Angle Flip

• Trying to make these breakdowns a little easier on the attention spans and eyes so this will be my last clip. Will most likely have to be a part 3 coming soon….
• This set was referenced earlier but now we are flipping the angle from the opposite side ball screener early. I just really like the versatility within this set.
• First it sets up a great floor balance to attack off the reject. Second it also sets up a great floor balance for a pop if the team is not willing to switch or you set the screen with your big to obtain a desired ball screen coverage.