As the calendar flipped over to March on Friday, the NBA regular season has about a month and a half remaining until the postseason begins on April 13.
From now until then, teams positioned for the playoffs will be tightening some things up as players prepare themselves for a run toward the NBA championship.
For the Thunder, the season has mostly been a success to this point. They have hit a bit of a slump recently, losing four out of their last six games since the All-Star break.
The club is third in the Western Conference at 39-24 and is in fairly good shape at the moment but there are some things that can be corrected ahead of the postseason.
During the recent slump, there have been a few key weaknesses that have flared up that the team should look to fix over the final 19 games of the regular season.
With that being said, we decided to take a look at three areas in which the Thunder should look to improve upon over the final stretch of the regular season.
The Bench Scoring
Without Paul George on Thursday night against the Philadelphia 76ers, the bench scoring was a glaring weakness for the team.
Of course, missing a starter in George is a tough task to overcome but the second unit was essentially non-existent. Dennis Schroder led the efforts off of the bench with 14 points while Abdel Nader and Nerlens Noel combined for nine total points.
Without George, Thunder head coach Billy Donovan opted to go with Markieff Morris in the starting lineup so the bench was a bit shorter on Thursday night. Morris recorded his best game in a Thunder uniform against the 76ers with 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting.
Once George can return, Morris figures to be a huge component of the second unit, especially now that it appears he is beginning to find his way on the floor.
In the two games that George missed since the 76ers game, Donovan went with Schroder in the starting lineup. The bench production in those two games was a bit better than Thursday night but it will still be something that will need to improve.
The Thunder rank 28th in the league in bench scoring with 30.6 points per game. With George and Russell Westbrook often handling the bulk of the scoring for the team, they haven’t had to rely too often on the bench but there will be nights in which those two don’t have it and will need to rely on others to step up.
The team still has two open roster spots available so it is possible a player or two is signed for the duration of the season but the front office is likely holding off in order to save on luxury taxes. More depth will eventually be on the way so we’ll see if the team can have solid contributions moving forward.
What has happened to Dennis Schroder?
Backup point guard Dennis Schroder has struggled a bit recently.
In six games since the All-Star break, Schroder is averaging 13.8 points, 5.3 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game while he is shooting 29.9 percent from the field, including 21.2 percent from 3-point range.
Schroder turned in a solid scoring night Sunday against the Memphis Grizzlies but was inefficient in doing so. He recorded 17 points, 12 rebounds and six assists but shot just 6-of-22 from the field.
While it is certainly a small sample size, the Thunder will need Schroder back to his level of play prior to the break for the postseason. In 54 games, he averaged 15.7 points on 42.6 percent shooting from the field and 36 percent from 3-point range.
On Saturday night, Schroder addressed his recent slump.
“I just gotta play,” Schroder said. “That’s it. People just gotta give me confidence and tell me to play. That’s it.”
Players all go through various slumps throughout the season so there is still plenty of time for Schroder to find his groove again before the postseason. The team has obviously played recently without Paul George so Schroder’s struggles have only been magnified.
Schroder said recently that the team is not concerned with their recent skid since returning from the break and it likely that he isn’t too concerned with his own struggles, too.
The Thunder need to have better starts to games
Oklahoma City has really struggled in the early going of games since returning from the All-Star break. As a result, the team hasn’t played well as a whole in that span.
In six games, the Thunder have trailed in five of those matchups at halftime. In fact, the team has been outscored by 7.3 points in the first halves of games in that span, which ranks fourth-worst in the NBA.
Conversely, the club is eighth in point differential during the second halves of those games. But, as the team has shown, the deficit has proven to be too large to overcome and they fall just short in the closing minutes.
Oklahoma City held an advantage at halftime against only the Utah Jazz and would eventually go on to win in double-overtime on a go-ahead shot by Paul George.
The other win since the All-Star break came Sunday night against the Memphis Grizzlies. The Thunder trailed 52-46 at the half and needed a strong effort by Russell Westbrook in the fourth quarter to win that game.
Despite the recent slippage to begin games, the Thunder are still ninth in the NBA in overall point differential during the first halves of games so the recent sample may not be indicative of things to come. It is clear, though, that something is going on at the start of games and the team just doesn’t show the urgency needed until it’s too late.
Westbrook recently offered a solution to the early woes.
“Just be ready to go from the start,” Westbrook said. “It’s a 48-minute game, sometimes you may not start the way you want.”
Since Westbrook gave that answer, the team has really yet to be ready from the beginning tip but there is still time to figure it out before the playoffs begin.
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The good part for the Thunder is most of the issues the team faces are easily correctable. The group is still integrating Markieff Morris into the mix and the veteran has shown signs that he is beginning to get the hang of things.
Of the 19 games remaining for the Thunder, 11 of them are against teams above .500 and they still have nine more road games to go. The team begins a four-game road trip Tuesday against the Minnesota Timberwolves, which figures to be an important stretch.
