The Oklahoma City Thunder are good. And fun. Like, really fun. I’m a huge Russell Westbrook fan, so watching him go full John Wick (save for a kind of sad and disappointing game against the Golden State Warriors) has been a blast. That will be…less enjoyable if he pulls it off against the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday.
The hot 6-1 start for the Thunder has surprised some, but the Raptors aren’t going to be caught napping.
“People forgot about Steven Adams, they forgot about Kanter, who’s close to a max player. They’ve got a lot of – and they added Oladipo, who’s playing very well for them now – so I think people forgot about how good those additions that they made were,” head coach Dwane Casey said at practice Tuesday. “And everyone knows about Russell Westbrook and the year he’s having. He’s a one-man wrecking crew by himself.”
One-man wrecking crew is an apt description of the man averaging nearly a point per-minute and averaging nearly a triple-double. He’s a basketball maniac, and it’s going to take everything that Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, Terrence Ross, and Norman Powell can throw at him. Even if they slow Westbrook, he sets the tone in such a way that an opponent really can’t let off the gas at any point.
‘The thing what Westbrook brings to the table is is his intensity, and it’s contagious,” Casey said. “That entire team’s just beat-the-crap-out-of-you for 48 minutes. If you don’t come in ready for that type of intensity and how hard they play from one through 15, it’s a long night.”
That long night tips off at 8 p.m. on Sportsnet One and TSN 1050. Here’s the full game preview.
Raptors updates
The primary question facing the Raptors is at the center spot after Jonas Valanciunas was a surprise inactive on Sunday. The youngsters held their own against a tough matchup in that one, but the Thunder might be even tougher – they lead the league with 49.8 percent of their points coming in the paint. That puts a ton of pressure on the primary perimeter defenders and the help at the rim, no matter who is in at the five. Russell Westbrook, Steven Adams, and Enes Kanter are all terrors in close, and the Raptors are going to need a team-wide effort to slow them down, even if they only rank 23rd in offensive efficiency.
“It starts on the ball. We’ve gotta do a better job of containing the ball,” Casey said. “And then after that, our bigs have to do a good job of going vertical, blocking shots or taking the charge.”
That’s easier said than done, of course, and we’ll have a better idea of how the Raptors may approach things when Valanciunas’ status is cleared up. He didn’t practice Tuesday but is considered a game-time decision in this one. Should he sit, the Raptors will be using slightly more mobile bigs who might be able to help contain penetration a bit more, but they’ll be giving up strength inside and on the glass (the Thunder are sixth in offensive rebounding percentage) while limiting their options to punish Kanter at the other end.
Regardless of whether he plays, the team’s second unit is going to vital in this one. When Westbrook sits, the Thunder can’t score, like, at all – they’re 19.1 points per-100 possessions worse on offense and 31.1 overall when he sits – and the Raptors will have to use those opportunities to make up ground. There’s no choice but to win the non-Westbrook portion of the game, and it will be interesting to see if Casey sticks with his standard substitution pattern or looks to deploy Lowry during Westbrook’s rest periods.
UPDATE: Valanciunas is out, as I think most of us expected. No pressure, Jak & Siak.
UPDATE II: Terrence Ross is a late scratch with a sprained right index finger. He had his hand slapped in practice Tuesday, per the Raptors media relations team. This is a pretty big opportunity for Norman Powell, not only to guard Westbrook some, but also to try to swing some of the rotation momentum in his favor. It threatens to hurt the team’s spacing a lot, though.
PG: Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, Fred VanVleet
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell
SF: DeMarre Carroll, Bruno Caboclo
PF: Patrick Patterson, Pascal Siakam
C: Jakob Poeltl, Lucas Nogueira
OUT: Delon Wright, Jared Sullinger, Jonas Valanciunas, Terrence Ross
Thunder updates
The Thunder are mostly healthy, save for a minor thumb issue Steven Adams will play through and the continued absence of Cameron Payne. It’s worth noting to my earlier point that Westbrook is only averaging 33.1 minutes, but that’s in part due to three consecutive blowouts. He’ll play into the 40s if the game flow dictates.
PG: Russell Westbrook, Semaj Christon
SG: Victor Oladipo, Alex Abrines, Anthony Morrow
SF: Andre Roberson, Jerami Grant, Kyle Singler (the lesser Singler)
PF: Domantas Sabonis, Joffrey Lauvergne, Nick Collison, Josh Huestis
C: Steven Adams, Enes Kanter
OUT: Cam Payne (for my real friends)
Assorted
- Raptors 905 tip off their second and final preseason game at 7. You can check it out here. Rasheed Wallace was with the team earlier in the day (they’re in St. Catharines), and Keith Bogans was at training camp over the weekend.
- Not much else to report. It was confirmed today I have plantar fasciitis, which sucks. I also got a flu shot.
- Oh, there was also this, which made me laugh on a bleak day.
James Johnson not having Terrence Ross’ gym photos pic.twitter.com/f98yRf3dKA
— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) November 9, 2016
The line
The Raptors enter as 4-point underdogs. The line opened at Thunder -3.5 (and even Thunder -2 in one place, which seems crazy), and the majority of the action is on the home side. Cry disrespect, maybe, but the Thunder are playing extremely well right now, and they’ve got the benefit of home court. Still, I seem to remember a Raptors visit to OKC around this time last year where they were underdogs…
