When Chet Holmgren suffered his hip injury on Sunday, Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault was immediately tasked with his toughest job as an NBA head coach. At the helm of the favorite to win the Western Conference and boasting an 8-2 record, how would he respond, especially with prized free agent signing Isaiah Hartenstein still yet to make his season debut due to an injury of his own?
The answer: small ball. In fact, at 6’6”, point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the tallest Thunder player in the starting lineup and nobody over that height played double-digit minutes in a 134-128 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. (Ousmane Dieng was the only guy over 6’6” to play at all, as he logged nine minutes at 6’9”.)
In that contest, the Thunder offense dominated, posting a 131.4 Offensive Rating. They also were essentially a turnstile defensively, allowing a 125.5 Defensive Rating, which is very notable since OKC has been the best defensive team in the entire NBA with Holmgren healthy as their Association-best 102.6 Defensive Rating on the season shows.
With 2.6 blocks per game, Holmgren was the anchor of the best defensive unit in the league and made strides as a rebounder this year. Until Hartenstein makes his debut (likely in a couple weeks), hammering the over in OKC’s games make a lot of sense. The Clippers scored 21 second-chance points in that first game without Holmgren (above 15.7 for the full season) and OKC had a horrendous 56.4% defensive rebounding rate. For context, the worst team in the NBA in that regard over the full season has been the Wizards at 65.1%!
Next up for OKC is a matchup against the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday. The Pels will essentially be trotting out a G-League roster since Zion Williamson, Dejounte Murray, CJ McCollum, Herb Jones, Jose Alvarado and Jordan Hawkins are all injured. Brandon Ingram will be doing most of the offensive heavy lifting along with Brandon Boston and Trey Murphy. Yves Missi and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl should dominate the glass down low. The total opened at 223, which is too low, even in a blowout situation favoring OKC.
Better back-and-forth matchups will be scheduled for Friday, when OKC hosts the Phoenix Suns in NBA Cup action before they host the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday. I’ll be taking the over in all of those games and recommend you do the same!
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