Tramel's ScissorTales: Why OKC Thunder's centerless lineup has been 'a net positive'
Berry TramelKenrich Williams jumped center against Clint Capela, not because Williams leaps tall buildings in a single bound but because he was the Thunder’s de facto postman.
Santa Clara Williams, a 6-foot-6 rookie wing, was the Thunder power forward, matched against Atlanta’s John Collins.
Oklahoma City’s tallest starter was 6-foot-8 Josh Giddey, who shares the point guard duties with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Yep, the Thunder is up to its old tricks of just trying stuff.
The Hawks beat the Thunder 137-132 Wednesday night in a wild game at Paycom Center, but don’t blame the non-traditional lineup. The Thunder got beat, but it didn’t get bullied.
Sure, Capela and Collins had big games. Ten rebounds each, 18 and 19 points, respectively, with a combined five missed shots. They benefitted from the Thunder’s laboratory-experiment of a season.
But Capela and Collins got torched, too.
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The Thunder’s centerless lineup makes up for its defensive deficiencies with high-speed, high-scoring offense.
OKC shot 52% from the field. The Thunder got wide-open 3-pointers and cashed in, making 15 of 34. And drawing the likes of Capela and Collins out of the lane to contest those deep balls opens driving lanes.
Get this, the Thunder outscored the Hawks 72-64 in the paint.
The Thunder strategy is in part made of necessity. Jeremiah Robinson-Earl has made 18 starts, mostly at center, but hasn’t played since early December due to an ankle sprain. Aleksej Pokusevski has made 25 starts, many of them at center, but hasn’t played since late December, due to a leg fracture. Chet Holmgren, the 7-foot-1 rookie phenom, has missed the entire season with a foot injury.
So Mark Daigneault has been mixing and matching Mike Muscala, Darius Bazley and Arkansas Williams in the post. And often none of them as the Thunder goes with five perimeter players. Muscala and Bazley played a combined 26 minutes vs. Atlanta.
“We’re obviously making the choice to do that right now,” Daigneault said of going centerless. “We think it’s positive. It’s been a net positive. I even think tonight was a positive, when we really downsized. We just need to be better in the margins of the game.”
The Thunder lost to Atlanta mostly because of slack defense. The Hawks made 39 of 55 2-point shots. Take away Capela and Collins, and the Hawks still made 25 of 38 from inside the arc. That will get you beat.
“I just thought to guard a team that that’s dynamic, we had to be a lot tighter than we were tonight,” Daigneault said. “It was death by papercut. It was kind of everything.
It was transition. It was fouling. There was a little bit of the glass. Then the lack of discipline in our help. We were a step late tonight.”
Both Gilgeous-Alexander and Giddey blamed rebounding.
SGA: “Rebounding hurt us tonight. That’s an emphasis of ours, we’re trying to get better at.”
Giddey: “Offensive rebounds killed us.”
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But that’s not true. The Hawks outscored OKC 21-16 in second-chance points, but the Thunder had 12 offensive rebounds to Atlanta’s 11. So sure, the Hawks had an advantage. But not a large advantage, and the Thunder made up for it in pace.
OKC outscored the Hawks 20-10 in fast-break points.
“We actually have been playing a little slower lately,” Daigneault said before the game. “We’ve had a little erosion with our pace. If we could play faster tonight and have a few more turnovers, we’d probably accept that tradeoff to crank that back up.
“We don’t want to play slow. We do play slow at times.”
Not Wednesday night. The Thunder played fast, Atlanta tried to keep up and often did, and the result was a 137-132 game.
This Thunder season is not about grinding out victory any way possible, despite OKC finding it smack dab in the middle of a playoff race. This season is about player development and team discovery.
In the same way that Daigneault has been playing mad scientist with rotations, seeing what sticks, he’s doing the same with the super-small lineup.
Not that it’s that small. The Thunder actually has a big team, just not at center. Giddey is a huge guard. SGA is a big guard. Santa Clara is a big guard. Luguentz Dort is only 6-foot-3 but is built like a locomotive and no less powerful.
So while centers and big power forwards can make the Thunder pay, the Thunder has a counter.
That’s one thing Daigneault said he’s learned about his squad during its 8-4 January run.
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“This particular stretch, we’ve had injuries to our frontcourt, which has created constraints, and it’s forced us to look differently at the guys that are available,” Daigneault said.
“We’re obviously playing a lot of small lineups. It’s put a lot of pressure on the physicality and rebounding of our guards and wings, and I’ve learned about their effectiveness in that.
You can’t put those lineups on the floor if Josh Giddey’s not playing with physicality Kenrich William is not able to guard Aaron Gordon or John Collins or whoever.”
That’s the Thunder mission this season. Not winning at all cost. Not tanking at all cost. Develop players and see what works and what doesn’t.
And even though putbacks or muscle shots by Capela or Collins can be discouraging and momentum-killers, so can fast-break dunks and 3-pointers, both of which came in abundance for the Thunder against Atlanta.
“We’ve dealt with this problem on a number of occasions where the opposing team’s (center) is really good at the rim, and we want to get there.”
So the Thunder runs motion offense and moves the ball and tries to get the defense out of the lane. But making Capela guard Kenrich Williams 25 feet from the basket is a shortcut to open lanes.
“Putting lineups on the floor or putting spacings on the floor that are putting a guy like Capela in a dilemma,” Daigneault called it. “Where he has to choose between the rim and the perimeter, and we’ve done that for awhile now and have found some success.”
It’s a bummer that Holmgren isn’t part of the equation, but that doesn’t mean the Thunder young’ns can’t learn a ton about the NBA, and Daigneault and Co. can't learn a ton about the young’ns.
“We’ve learned a lot in this stretch,” Daigneault said. “I like to think we’ve learned a lot in all these stretches. That’s part of why even when we had health, we kept things so fluid, is to really jut learn as much as we could about the team and uncover everything we could.”
Playing with a super-small center, or in reality no center at all, is not ideal. Hopefully OKC’s version of a small-ball center for the next decade will be Holmgren, a renowned perimeter threat.
But with Kenrich Williams starting at center, OKC is 3-1, with victories over Boston(!), Dallas and Indiana.
If the Thunder needs to go small sometime in the future, early signs are that it can.
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Follow the Thunder Buddies podcast
The Thunder Buddies podcast is back for another season but this time with a twist. The format will switch from a postgame podcast to a twice-a-week broadcast. Check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Omny.fm.
NFL predictions: Joe Mixon to break record
Joe Mixon never had played in an NFL playoff game until 375 days ago. But Sunday, the Cincinnati Bengals tailback can break the record for most playoff rushing yards by a former Sooner.
Mixon’s Bengals play at Kansas City on Sunday night, in a rematch of the 2021 AFC Championship Game. Cincinnati won that game 27-24 in overtime, sparking a memorable four-game ride that culminated in a 23-20 Super Bowl loss to the Rams.
Now the Bengals are at it again, having won two straight playoff games, with Mixon a main component of a potent Cincinnati offense. Mixon ran for 105 yards on 20 carries in a 27-10 rout of Buffalo last Sunday.
In six career playoff games, Mixon has 406 yards on 98 carries.
The former-Sooner record is held by Adrian Peterson, who in five playoff games with the Minnesota Vikings rushed for 412 yards on 116 carries.
The unheralded Damien Williams is next on the list, with 369 yards on 84 carries in six games with the Dolphins (2014) and Chiefs (2018-19).
The list of OU running backs making a mark in the NFL playoffs is short. The only other former Sooners with at least 100 postseason rushing yards are Kenny King (66-213 in 11 games with the 1980s Raiders), DeMarco Murray (44-198 with the 2014 Cowboys), Billy Sims (26-133 with the 1982 and 1983 Lions) and Mike Thomas (28-115 with the 1976 Redskins and the 1980 Chargers), though Thomas played sparingly at OU, then transferred to Nevada-Las Vegas.
Mixon, in his sixth NFL season, has rushed for 5,378 yards in the regular season and caught 231 passes for 1,763 yards. He’s scored 50 NFL touchdowns in the regular season.
But Mixon has shined these last two postseasons. He’s averaged 4.1 yards per carry and 67.7 yards per game. That’s winning football in January.
Let’s get to the predictions:
49ers at Eagles: Philadelphia 23-20. Likely the two best teams in the NFL. Hurts is better and more experienced than Purdy, giving the Eagles the edge.
Bengals at Chiefs: Cincinnati 26-21. In the last 53 weeks, the Bengals have won playoff games in Nashville, Kansas City and Buffalo, all against higher-seeded teams. And Cincinnati looks in high gear.
Last week: 3-1. Season: 161-105-2.
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The List: Rare baseball feats
Box scores and distinct account of Major League Baseball games go back to 1876. That’s almost 150 years of data. Which makes for fun lists.
Here are the rarest feats in baseball:
1: Players who have hit two Grand slams in an inning. The Cardinals’ Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams in the third inning against the Dodgers – both off Chan Ho Park – on April 23, 1999.
2: Players who have grounded into four double plays in a game.
The Tigers’ Goose Goslin did it on April 28, 1934, and the Mets’ Joe Torre did it on July 21, 1975.
5: Players with a grand slam in their first major-league at-bat. None of them did it in the 1900s. The Phillies’ Bill Duggleby did it on April 21, 1898; the Marlins’ Jeremy Hermida on August 31, 2005; Cleveland’s Kevin Kouzmanoff on September 2, 2006; Boston’s Daniel Nava on June 12, 2010; and the Giants’ Daniel Crawford on May 27, 2011.
5: Players who have recorded three hits in an inning. Boston’s Gene Stephens went single-double-single in the seventh inning against Detroit on June 18, 1953. Boston’s Johnny Damon went double-triple-single in the first inning against the Marlins on June 27, 2003. And on September 6, 1883, three Chicago White Stockings recorded three hits each in the seventh inning of an eventual 26-6 rout of the Detroit Wolverines -- Tom Burns (double-double-homer), Fred Pfeffer (double-single-single) and Ned Williamson (double-single-single).
5: Pitchers with 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. Actually, just four pitchers, since Roger Clemens did it twice, for the Red Sox, on April 29, 1986, vs. Seattle and September 18, 1996, vs. Detroit. The Cubs’ Kerry Wood did it on May 6, 1998, vs. Houston. Arizona’s Randy Johnson did it on May 8, 2001, vs. Cincinnati. Washington’s Max Scherzer did it May 11, 2016, vs. Detroit.
Here are other rare feats.
6: Caught stealing thrice in a game.
11: Three sacrifice flies in a game.
13: Two grand slams in a game.
14: Perfect game lost on the 27th batter.
15: Unassisted triple plays.
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Mailbag: OU in the SEC
Consternation is mounting over OU’s move to the Southeastern Conference, comparing it to Nebraska’s struggles in the Big Ten.
Joel: “I fear much the same could be true for Oklahoma, though not to such a drastic degree. In the Big Eight, it was largely the Oklahoma/Nebraska Show. In the Big 12, it’s Oklahoma/Texas. In the SEC, over time, I suspect it will be the Alabama/Georgia/LSU/Oklahoma/Texas/Florida/Auburn conference, with others coming and going as well. Thus, like Nebraska, Oklahoma may lose some of its prestige. Since 2000, Oklahoma has won a remarkable 14 Big 12 championships. Meanwhile, there have been 31 SEC championship games, of which Alabama has won 10, Florida seven and no one else more than five. So what would you set as the over/under for how many SEC titles Oklahoma wins in its first 23 years in that league? Mine is 4.5.
Tramel: Let’s see. That’s basically one SEC title every five years for the Sooners. I’d take that. I’d take that now and toss in my chips.
I think it will be rough on the Sooners in the SEC, not because they can’t beat A&M or Ole Miss, but because beating Alabama and Georgia is going to be a bear.
I figured the average OU schedule in the SEC, and it came out to be about 1½ games tougher than OU’s average Big 12 schedule. The Sooners didn’t win all those games, so I called it one win per year fewer. So 10-2 becomes 9-3.
But who knows? The truth is, OU is in far better shape entering the SEC than Nebraska was entering the Big Ten. The Cornhuskers entering the Big Ten were 10 years removed from their last season of more than 10 victories and 12 years removed from their last conference title. OU right now is one year removed from more than 10 wins and two years removed from a conference title.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.