As promised, part two of a preview for tomorrow’s Game 3:
7. Potential Thunder Adjustments: Coming back to Memphis 1-1, the Thunder seem to have more adjustments to make. But how willing head coach Scott Brooks will be to alter the team’s gameplan is now, perhaps, the central question of the series.
Coming out of Games 1 and 2, the Thunder have three rotation players who not only didn’t give them much, but also don’t promise to give them much going forward.
This problem starts up front, where each of the Thunder’s centers — Kendrick Perkins and Hasheem Thabeet — have been huge negatives. Across two games, Perkins has played 58 miinutes and given the Thunder 2-10 shooting and has generally crippled their offense. Thabeet has been a disaster on both ends. He doesn’t need to play unless someone fouls out, but hopefully that Thunder won’t make that adjustment for Game 3 because Grizzlies fans deserve to see Thabeet on the floor in a playoff game.
Playing this dreadful center combo for 37 minutes a game was obviously a response to Marc Gasol and the well-founded belief that forwards Serge Ibaka and Nick Collison can’t handle him. The problem for the Thunder is that Perkins and Thabeet can’t guard Gasol either and having them on the floor kills their offense.
While Collison fouling out in Game 2 was obviously a problem, it’s still odd that Ibaka and Collison — by far the Thunder’s two best bigs — were only on the floor together for nine minutes in Games 1 and 2. Those happened to be very positive minutes for the Thunder.
On the wing, the odd man out looks to be Thabo Sefolosha — a defensive specialist at the two/three facing team without scorers at those positions that warrant the attention. Already, Sefolosha is playing fewer minutes in this series as a starter (20.5) than reserves Kevin Martin (30.5) and Derek Fisher (24.5).
And while the team’s performance while Sefolosha has been on the floor has probably been heavily impacted by coinciding so much with Grizzlies’ starters, there’s a case to be made that these minutes should be tilted even more in favor of Martin and Fisher. In Games 1 and 2, Martin only averaged about three more minutes a game than he did in a regular season in which Russell Westbrook played a full 82 games. With Westbrook out and Durant needing more help carrying the offensive load, the team’s second-best scorer probably needs more minutes, especially since the Grizzlies lack the wing scorers to fully exploit Martin’s defensive vulnerability.
