Why the Thunder are ignoring Dallas’ shooters (!)

The Thunder defense locked down Luka Doncic and the Mavs in Game 1 of their 2024 playoff matchup. This detailed film breakdown & scouting report explores how coach of the Year Mark Daigneault’s gameplan takes away Dallas bread and butter, the importance of Chet Holmgren, Lu Dort and more.

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[Music] the Thunder dominated Dallas in game one with an extreme game plan designed to take away Luca donic and disrupt the formidable Mavs offense donic was held to just six of 19 shooting committed five turnovers well Dallas mustered up a measle 102 points per 100 against Mark Dag’s athletic defense the game plan is simple the Thunder are basically ignoring Dallas’s role players and daring them to shoot open threes here’s the first play of the game Dallas sets up a pick and roll for Luca and look at Shay gilis Alexander he’s 20t away from his man to help on the roller Chad Homen recovers to bother Luca and that means the corner is wide open but Derrik Jones Jr isn’t a good shooter here’s another pick and roll a few minutes later Jaylen Williams is guarding Jones in the corner and as Luca comes off the pick jdub slides over right into the path of the Roll man ignoring Jones and clogging up the paint with bodies they did this to Josh green too Aaron Wiggins is ignoring him here to clog the lane and when the Mavs reset into pick and roll Shay is sagged way off Jones he tells Wiggins to clog up the strong side and so there’s an extra body helping on the roller and there’s an extra body helping on Luca’s drive and they concede the three in the corner to Green this time Kyrie is running the offense and PJ Washington’s in one corner so Shay is slid over to the block ready to help in the lane Josh Green’s in the other corner and watch Isaiah Joe leave him to sit in front of that roll man and with Jay duub hounding Kyrie he misfires trying to hit the pass so the Thunder are willing to help off that strong side corner Shay slides up to meet Kyrie leaving Washington for a second and on the back side of that pick and roll Josh giddy is pulled way over because again they don’t care about Jones so that resets the possession for the Mavs and it’s another pick and roll and again Shay leaves Washington all alone in the corner and Williams is staying near Kyrie instead of splitting the difference because they’re daring these shooters to beat them normal defenses are hugged out on Dallas his Shooters which gives Luca space to play Two on Two deep in the paint but OKC wants to take away the rle man and Luca’s incredible ability to get deep in the paint and use his size to score so they’re creating a traffic jam in the lane by leaving these mediocre Shooters and daring them to make a ton of open shots look how dialed in the Thunder are of this game plan Joe is ignoring his man in the corner to come over and muck up the pick roll but jdub doesn’t close out to the corner and leave the dangerous Irving and sometimes they’ll pay a small tax for that but they also avoid scrambling around in rotation Wiggins leaves the corner to load up on Luca they double from the top and sheay closes out to Green but Wiggins doesn’t care about joanes shooting and recovers to the much better Tim Hardaway Jr in the corner and yes they’re leaving the sharp shooting Hardway to do this because the priority is keeping Luca ball out of the paint while conceding the lowest quality three-point shot possible Dort is on Hardaway this time gives him the full Tony Allen treatment and there are five thunder in a phone booth here around donic and Dort actually sneak attacks for a foul sometimes you sneak attacking so good you not even know you sneak attacking this one’s even better though with Lou trailing the play and Dort leaves green to come over and save a total breakdown and they’re left with another three from up top and the thing is Luca doesn’t want to hit these threes every time they leave Hardaway junr in the corner and donic fakes pulling it back to try and open a driving window and it’s a reachin foul and this time hardaway’s on the wing Cas Wallace slides like 15 ft over right into Luca’s path and instead of passing it he tries to slip by Wallace but it’s a floater off the wrong leg from 10 ft and that leaves Luca and Gafford under the rim so the Thunder can break out and transition the other way with a four on three and big Chet can do that by the second quarter Luca is probably tired of seeing this defense so with wiggin sitting in the paint donic looks to the corner to fake him out only to snap it back to Gafford but Aaron isn’t going to sell out to Green like that and Shay ends up blocking this from behind and by the fourth quarter Hardaway needed a GPS signal for someone to find him Luca forces it to Gafford but Wiggins breaks it up and now the Mavs are all mismatch getting back on defense in transition so Luca ends up on Chad and you don’t want to leave him open for three the Thunder are at their best when they’re turning teams over and then turning that defense into offense in transition and their activity and speed started to take its toll during the game with Shay using those long arms to poke it away and then Williams just leaving donic in the dust as he streaked in for free throws and this is an out of bounds play designed for Gafford to slip back door on chat but the pass is a little short and Joe makes a heads up read to break it up and that releases the hounds again on the break and Shay can slither in for the Finish Dort was his usual pesky self throughout the night guarding the point of attack and this is a bit lazy from Irving with the dorer chamber denying the pass and nabbing the steel although Kyrie hustles back well to save the layup and as a reminder when the Thunder have to reset their offense Dallas is stretched out of the paint onto all their Shooters and that leaves room for their big man to roll downhill for a lob Chad also plays a big factor clogging up the paint on defense and taking away Dallas’s preferred attacking style so in the moments where there’s some space to work with in the lane Jet’s Rim protection shines there are a bunch of switches here so Shay doesn’t want to leave Gafford Williams doesn’t want to completely ignore Kyrie and Jones slips free but homr causes him to bail on the shot and then on this offensive rebound none of the Mavs want to shoot around him and it is another stop and this time Dante exum’s running pick and roll chat’s playing the ball and the rle man and then just inhales the layup we know Luca loves those lobs to his big men but hren is fantastic at playing the ball handler and then recovering to defend the lob and during the regular season he took that to a new level against donic turning and cleanly blocking gafford’s dunk on this pass Chet’s also versatile enough to switch out onto Luca when need be so he can’t really hunt him and if Dallas brings the pick way out High Chad can float out comfortably to meet Luca and then contest that step back three there’s one more subtle component to OKC’s strategy here donic doesn’t really pull up off the dribble moving downhill into a shooting pocket he will pull these occasionally but he rarely shoots it moving with a lot of speed like other prolific off thee dribble Shooters and so homr doesn’t have to panic to meet him way out high he can drop back and play the lob and if Luca wants to snake into a 17f footer well traffic accumulates in the paint OKC will live with that it will be interesting to see how Dallas tries to adjust to make things easier for donic because their role players are going to have to take take and make a ton of Threes right now to punish this coverage or they’re going to have to find offense outside of this traditional Luca spread pick and roll either way this was an excellent opening Salvo from coach of the year mark dagal and it has the young Oklahoma City Thunder one game closer to the Western Conference Finals to support this channel check out patreon.com basketball that is the best way to directly support us we also have our playoff leaderboard that updates throughout the postseason thanks as always for watching this one and of course I hope you are having a great day