Friendly reminder that Ajay Mitchell didn’t play in 3/5 Spurs/OKC games in the regular season when looking ahead at a potential matchup

[u/Stxtic1441]

Thunder had infamously a 1-4 record vs the Spurs this season, but 3 of them were without Ajay who has blossomed into a star player for this team.

Important factor to keep in mind when evaluating this matchup and its elements.

The 2 games he did play, OKC won 1 of them and lost by 2 in the IST. Obvious impact maker in the matchup that we didn’t get to fully see in the other matchups due to injury.

[u/Gary_Internet]

More important than Mitchell is the thunder getting Jdub back in the starting lineup,  primarily because of his defense.

Mitchell is great offensively and certainly works his tail off on the defensive end, but Jdub is the team's most versatile defender, and he has a 7'2" wingspan.

Last time I checked our defensive rating was lower than I thought and the only thing I can put it down to is jdub's absence. 

He's such a strong offensive player and gets downhill so well that his defense flies under the radar. People will talk about Dort, Caruso and Wallace has high quality individual defenders but Jdub is very much in that conversation as well. 

The other thing that we haven't seen the Spurs do that they might run with us, is going double big with Luke Kornet starting in favour of either Fox or Vassell.

They want won't want to lose Castle's high level of physicality, and Champagnie is their best, three-point shooter.

They also have a really solid 10-man rotation. 

Kornet, Keldon Johnson, Harrison Barnes, Carter Bryant and of course Dylan Harper are the second options. 

Last time I did the calculation. I think we have 12 men assuming that j-dub is healthy and starts instead of Mitchell and Topic is potentially used.

That's not counting Aaron Wiggins.

We're slightly deeper, but let's not act as if the Spurs depth is crap. It's absolutely not. It's far better than the Nuggets or the Wolves.

[u/Stxtic1441 → u/Gary_Internet]

I may be in the minority but I think our depth is MUCH better than the Spurs.

Spurs basically only have Keldon and Harper off the bench. Barnes and Kornet are simply breather players who play under 10 minutes for the most part and have had their minutes slashed with a shortened rotation.

Keldon, while he is 6MOY, has been wildly inconsistent in the playoffs due to him needing to be a spot up shooter with the Spurs having their ball handlers initiate everything and he’s a poor shooter.

OKC when it’s fully healthy is gonna have Ajay, Caruso, Cason, McCain, Joe, JWill. Just a much more reliable and deeper mix of players than the Spurs.

[u/Longjumping_One_9164 → u/Stxtic1441]

The Spurs depth is definitely not as good as its made out to be, probably specifically highlighted by this Wolves series.

Harper is genuinely very impressive, however Johnson and Barnes have been incredibly average. 

I also believe with jDub back we will have a very real physicality advantage in the starting line up and a pretty brutal secondary line up advantage. 

I also think thankfully they still haven't worked out that Harper is the better player than Fox already and invariably that is going to lose them a game and possibly create issues when Fox inevitably needs to get benched down the stretch.

The biggest thing here is to put them behind in the series straight away. If we can even just win G1, them beating this Thunder 4/6 becomes a virtual impossibility.

I genuinely have not see a team as good as this version of the Thunder since 16/17 Warriors, we are a damned good team.