There is an unspoken rule of ascension in the NBA That dictates that any new team wishing to move up the league hierarchy must begin that process by defeating the team that had previously beaten them.
It’s not absolute, but the rise of a superpower almost always coincides with the fall of a rival. Michael Jordan and the Pistons. LeBron James and the Celtics. Both the Bucks and Celtics in recent years have launched championship runs by exorcising old demons against the Heat. The Nuggets did it against the Suns. It’s standard NBA procedure.
Regular-season games aren’t as significant on that front as postseason series, but it certainly didn’t feel that way when the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Dallas Mavericks from the floor 118-104 on Tuesday in the NBA quarterfinals. . Cup.
It wasn’t exactly a preview of what a potential playoff rematch would look like. The Thunder, now 19-5, still don’t have Chet Holmgren back. An illness has been making its way into the Dallas locker room lately and that kept PJ Washington out on Tuesday. But Tuesday’s battle was fought on many of the same strategic fronts as last year’s second-round series, and the Thunder won them all emphatically.
The Thunder dominated Luka and the Mavs defensively
Dallas won that series primarily in two places: on the boards and in the corners. The Mavericks outrebounded the Thunder by 28 in six second-round games. Oklahoma City brought Isaiah Hartenstein into the equation on Tuesday and outrebounded the Mavericks 52-44.
Dallas averaged 16.2 corner 3-pointers per game in that series, a number that would have led the league by a mile all season. They still got 14 on Tuesday, but many came in the fourth quarter when the game seemed almost out of control. The Thunder contested many of the others. The ones that didn’t were largely aimed at shooters they were willing to ignore.
Oklahoma City allows those corner threes by design. They are the natural consequence of catching Luka Doncic. But this time that approach proved significantly more effective. Doncic averaged nearly 25 points and nine assists in that series, but was held to an inefficient 16 and five in this one. That’s a testament to the defensive depth Oklahoma City has amassed.
Doncic didn’t just spend this match in Dorture’s chamber. Lu Dort, Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace took turns harassing him. Everyone else largely stuck to the pick-and-roll, preventing Doncic from racking up too many easy lobs or free runs to the basket created by fear of those passes. Taking Doncic out of the game neutralized almost everyone else. The bewildered Mavericks turned the ball over 18 times.
Thunder can make a statement in Las Vegas
The Thunder looked, as they have all year, the best defense in the NBA.
And their victory on Tuesday gives them the opportunity to prove it. Oklahoma City’s status as a favorite in the Western Conference has been more or less accepted by fans and critics, but there is a difference between the intellectual process of comparing rosters on paper and the reality of earning that credit on the court. Getting that big win over Dallas, especially with a Doncic-less loss to the Mavericks in November already under their belt, was a critical first step.
But now the entire NBA world will be attentive to the Thunder’s arrival in Las Vegas. In the NBA Cup semifinals, they will face either the NBA’s newest dynasty, the Golden State Warriors, or an equally young and promising defensive juggernaut in the Houston Rockets.
Beating them, and subsequently the last remaining Eastern Conference foe, will guarantee them nothing this spring. But it will be a statement to the league that Oklahoma City’s rise is near. This is no longer the young team with a million draft picks. He’s a full-fledged conference favorite, ready to start putting heads above his mantle.
Tuesday’s Mavericks were just the beginning.
