Some teams are best suited for grind it out, low-scoring affairs.
The Oklahoma City Thunder isn’t that team.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Thunder ranks 20th in the NBA in pace, a statistic determined by the number of possessions per game. Ahead of their game against the Trail Blazers, Oklahoma City is currently averaging 100.66 possessions a game.
It’s a significant drop from the speed at which OKC played during 2018-19. As noted by Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman, “the Russell Westbrook-led Thunder played at the sixth-fastest pace last season.”
Not surprisingly, Billy Donovan wants that to change.
“We’d like to play faster,” Donovan said Monday. “We need to play faster.”
But that doesn’t mean that Donovan wants his team running down the court and taking the first look they get.
“It’s not so much we need to come down and take a shot in the first six seconds,” Donovan said. “But what we need to do is initiate our offense in the first four or five seconds, so we have some time to work off each other and we have more time on the clock to do more things.”
Per Mussatto, OKC is in the bottom five in the league in transition points per game, averaging only 15.9 a contest. Only the Cavs, the Pacers, and the Magic are worse.
The good news for the Thunder on Wednesday – Portland isn’t averaging that many more. The Trail Blazers are only one spot above Oklahoma City, scoring only 16.2 points in transition per game.
The Thunder and the Trail Blazers tip-off at 9 p.m. CT Wednesday night in Portland.