Certainly, Rick Pitino, one of the great collegiate coaches of all time, has some familiarity with NBA defenses. He was, after all, an NBA coach for two forgettable stints, first with the Knicks for two years in the late 1980s, then with the Celtics in four mostly miserable seasons from 1997-2001.
Both of his Knicks defenses were rated in the top 10 in the league, but his Celtics defenses never got higher than 14th.
As he has once again ascended the coaching ranks in recent years, now running the program at St. John's for the past two seasons, he claims that he has never taken much from what he sees defensively in the NBA.
With one exception.
As Pitino wrote on Twitter/X: "It's interesting, in my 40+ years I've never shown clips to my teams of NBA defense. Offensive sets and individual moves, but never defense. Until this past season. We watched the Thunder at least 3x a week. Their switching, loading up to help, and rotations are awesome. And they are still so young!!!"
They are, indeed young. Kenrich Williams and Alex Caruso are the only players on the roster over 30. Isaiah Hartenstein is their oldest starter, and he only turned 27 this month. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the team's superstar, is 26.
The defense is also, no doubt, worthy of film sessions. Oklahoma City is blessed with some of the best individual defenders in the game, but also plays excellent team defense--which is where Pitino finds value in their film.
At 104.7, the Thunder have, by far, the best defensive rating of any team in the postseason (Boston was No. 2 at 108.1). That's in keeping with the regular season, in which OKC led the league with a 106.6 defensive rating, considerably better than the second-ranked Magic, at 109.1.