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The Oklahoma City Thunder were the NBA's best team this season for a number of reasons, and for all the same reasons, they were the heavy betting favorite to win the championship entering their conference finals matchup with the Minnesota Timberwolves. They have the almost certain MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. They're almost unfairly deep in an era where it has become somewhere between difficult and outright impossible to adequately fund an effective middle and bottom part of a playoff rotation. They genuinely love playing not with each other, but for each other. They are versatile, well-coached and, evolutionarily, stationed smack dab in the deadly intersection of being a dominant team that still has to prove its dominance.
These are the extremely strong bones of OKC's potential championship structure, but the foundation upon which the team with the best point differential in league history has actually been built? That's the defense.
And let's be clear about this: We're not talking about a really good or even great defense. We're talking about an all-time defense that, after having reduced the world's best player in Nikola Jokić to a Game 7 mortal, was once again on full display in Oklahoma City's 114-88 victory over the Wolves in Game 1 on Tuesday.
A few basic numbers: Minnesota committed 19 turnovers, 13 of which were outright steals, while shooting 34% overall and 29% from 3. None of this a surprise. Armed with the most disruptive group of perimeter defenders in the league, the Thunder were No. 1 in steals and turnovers forced this season, and importantly, in points scored off those turnovers.
On Tuesday, OKC -- now a -250 title favorite at FanDuel -- scored 31 points off Minnesota's 19 turnovers. The Wolves, by contrast, scored just 10 points off 15 OKC turnovers. That alone is a 21-point margin in a 26-point win.
Same goes for the Minnesota's paltry shooting percentages. During the regular season, OKC opponents shot a league-worst 43.6% overall and 34.2% from 3 in large part because the Thunder, when they aren't just straight up stealing the ball from you, close down the two most efficient scoring spots in today's game -- outside the 3-point line and inside the restricted area. Good luck making enough shots in between.
During the regular season, OKC forced opponents into a league-worst 60% restricted-area conversion rate, and that number has gone even lower in the playoffs. We knew this was going to be a problem for the Wolves in this series because their center, Rudy Gobert, can't shoot, meaning Oklahoma City's two big men, Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein, can stay parked near the rim to deter drivers -- notably Anthony Edwards, who frankly couldn't even get to the rim in the first place in Game 1.
Spending the majority of his night staring across the shark-infested moat OKC built around the paint, Edwards was only able to attempt five shots inside the arc. By extension, a Minnesota team that had been averaging 52 points in the paint through the first two rounds managed just 20 in Game 1, by far their playoff low.
This meant the only chance Minnesota had to score against Oklahoma City was to launch up a bunch of 3s, and they certainly did that with a season-high 51 attempts. At first glance, you might find it strange that the league's top 3-point defense allowed so many 3-point shots, but with the Thunder, it's not about the number they allow you to take. It's about the degree to which they contest them.
During the regular season, in fact, Oklahoma City allowed 39.3 30-point attempts per game; only seven teams allowed more. But those teams made those 3s at a 34.3% clip, the worst mark in the league. That percentage has sunk even lower to 31% in the playoffs, and the Wolves managed just 29% in Game 1.
In theory, every defense aims to close down on driving lanes while still recovering out to shooters fast enough to actually effect the shot. They just don't have the personnel to pull it off and end up compromising one to defend the other.
But from Alex Caruso to Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Jalen Williams and SGA, the Thunder are uniquely equipped to harass ball handlers and shooters with equal and connective tenacity. Minnesota had nowhere to go. The Wolves didn't jack up 51 3s by design. They did so out of desperation.
They went in for a while. Julius Randle hit five of them in the first half. OKC wasn't worried, Randle didn't make a single 3-pointer in the second half. In fact, he didn't even manage to attempt one.
Minnesota tried to go to its shooting big man, Naz Reid, in place of Gobert to stretch the floor and hopefully open up some driving space. But Reid, who missed all seven of his 3s, couldn't get an inch of space either, combining with Mike Conley, Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Donte DiVincenzo to shoot a miserable 7 for 36 from deep.
This is how OKC stayed attached as its own offense got off to an awful start. Gilgeous-Alexander went 2 for 13 in the first half and nobody was coming to his rescue ... except OKC's defense, which weathered the Minnesota start and kept the Thunder within four at halftime.
Once SGA got hot in the third and Jalen Williams got it going in the third quarter, it was over. Minnesota had no chance of keeping up as the python that is OKC's defense squeezed tighter and tighter.
This is the problem with trying to defeat the Thunder: Even when they're not on their offensive game, they have this world-class defense to rely on. Only the offense is awesome, too. It's like having prime Aaron Rodgers with the 2001 Ravens defense. Rodgers might have a few bad games, if you're lucky, but the defense is always there.
This is OKC's championship foundation. Minnesota saw it first-hand in Game 1. And if the Wolves don't figure out a way to crack the code in Game 2, perhaps by committing to the mid-range soft spots and lucking into an extremely hot night, this series might be over before it even really starts.