I call playoff experience the "Rudy Gobert Corollary" (which may need a new name after his most recent dominant game). Essentially, playoff offense and defense is a different beast. Teams have time to prepare a game plan for you, so any weaknesses are magnified.
Rudy Gobert is an example of this. A DPOY that can be played off the floor at times because what he struggles with (defending in space/on the perimeter) can be exploited with the right gameplan.
Point being that you can make solid assumptions about what your weaknesses are, but you don't know how bad they'll be until you get to the playoffs. You also don't know how well players will adjust when their strengths are taken away and their favorite spots on the floor are harder to get to.
None of this means that the Thunder *can't* do these things. They have the personnel to mitigate most matchup problems. It just means that the uncertainty is a lot higher until they prove they can do those things. It's the reason that playoff experience is a relevant factor in most advanced NBA stats.
All true — I think I failed to adequately make the caveat that experience *does* matter and we can see that empirically.
What I find interesting about this is the notion of certainty, which in sports can only ever be a matter of degrees. You can’t know. Even with experienced teams, what’s that boilerplate financial disclosure? Past performance is not a guarantee of future success. You can have a fairly well-founded idea that such and such player will show up when it counts, but never quite the same way twice. That’s why we watch, right?
At a high level, the Thunder’s weakness is probably the lack of a bankable second scorer. Jalen Williams had some clunkers against Dallas last year, a series in which they were also undersized. I think both of those problems are significantly less so this year, and I think they might just bulldoze their way to the finish line here. But I’m always ready to be surprised. The Wolves at their best could give them some issues.
I call playoff experience the "Rudy Gobert Corollary" (which may need a new name after his most recent dominant game). Essentially, playoff offense and defense is a different beast. Teams have time to prepare a game plan for you, so any weaknesses are magnified.
Rudy Gobert is an example of this. A DPOY that can be played off the floor at times because what he struggles with (defending in space/on the perimeter) can be exploited with the right gameplan.
Point being that you can make solid assumptions about what your weaknesses are, but you don't know how bad they'll be until you get to the playoffs. You also don't know how well players will adjust when their strengths are taken away and their favorite spots on the floor are harder to get to.
None of this means that the Thunder *can't* do these things. They have the personnel to mitigate most matchup problems. It just means that the uncertainty is a lot higher until they prove they can do those things. It's the reason that playoff experience is a relevant factor in most advanced NBA stats.
All true — I think I failed to adequately make the caveat that experience *does* matter and we can see that empirically.
What I find interesting about this is the notion of certainty, which in sports can only ever be a matter of degrees. You can’t know. Even with experienced teams, what’s that boilerplate financial disclosure? Past performance is not a guarantee of future success. You can have a fairly well-founded idea that such and such player will show up when it counts, but never quite the same way twice. That’s why we watch, right?
At a high level, the Thunder’s weakness is probably the lack of a bankable second scorer. Jalen Williams had some clunkers against Dallas last year, a series in which they were also undersized. I think both of those problems are significantly less so this year, and I think they might just bulldoze their way to the finish line here. But I’m always ready to be surprised. The Wolves at their best could give them some issues.
Thanks for reading and commenting Sam!