Arguably the biggest storyline in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s loss to the Houston Rockets is the non-defense defense they played on Josh Giddey.
Each time Giddey possessed the ball, it was evident that the Rockets invited him to shoot it as often as he’d like by sagging off of him. It resulted in OKC playing essentially several half-court possessions with a man disadvantage.
Amid his worst career stretch, Giddey is averaging career-lows in points, minutes, true-shooting percentage, effective field-goal percentage, rebounding percentage and assist percentage this season. The on-off numbers are also gruesome: He is a negative 15.1 per 100 possessions.
When asked about Giddey’s struggles, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault noted that they’ll both need to make the proper adjustments to combat this new defensive style they’ll likely continue to face until proven otherwise to be inefficient.
“We need to develop solutions, but I look at the fact that three out of our last four opponents have gone to something that’s totally unconventional for them as a compliment to our offense, our base offense,” Daigneault said. “And just a challenge for us now that we have to evolve.”
Mark Daigneault on how Josh Giddey is getting defended pic.twitter.com/ognlEzQWse
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) December 7, 2023
Before the Thunder’s game against the Golden State Warriors, Jalen Williams was asked about adjustments they can make to combat the defensive strategy of leaving Giddey open.
The 22-year-old talked about the advantages of playing with Giddey and how making adjustments to adjustments is part of a typical regular season.
“We trust Josh to make the right play. I don’t really think he’s hindering anything as far as offense,” Williams said. “Mark kinda hit it on the head — we have so many options on the team and he can be effective in so many other ways. It’s just more about figuring out different ways to kinda get to spots he likes to get to and sets.
“We’re a transition team as well — that’s not really a secret — trying to find different ways to go out and kinda keep the defense on their teams. Just figuring out the lay of the land. It’s 82 games so people are games where people do a good job at game planning for us.”
Jalen Williams: “We trust Josh (Giddey) to make the right play. I don’t really think he’s hindering anything as far as offense. Mark kinda hit it on the head — we have so many options on the team and he can be effective in so many other ways.” pic.twitter.com/Po2xSqK5VZ
— Clemente Almanza (@CAlmanza1007) December 8, 2023
It appears the Thunder will turn every stone for a solution before they make a drastic decision with Giddey. As a former No. 6 pick, OKC will look to see if it can help the 21-year-old salvage a poor start to his third season.
