After the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 110-101 loss to the Houston Rockets, the biggest talking point was Josh Giddey’s continuing struggles.
The 21-year-old’s poor play has been well-documented. He is averaging a career-low in minutes, true-shooting percentage, effective field-goal percentage, rebounding percentage and assist percentage this season. The on-off numbers are also gruesome: He is a negative 15.1 per 100 possessions.
The Rockets defended him noticeably different from the rest of the team. Each time Giddey touched the ball, the Rockets dared him to shoot by giving him plenty of space.
Here's 2:11 minutes of the Rockets completely ignoring josh Giddey on defense and attacking him mercilessly on offense: pic.twitter.com/YPZMxo7Vxl
— Itamar (@Itamar_17_10) December 7, 2023
During Thursday’s practice, Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault noted Giddey told him that was the first time he’s ever been defended that way.
Daigneault also said teams sagging off Giddey is something the Thunder will need to adjust to because it’ll likely continue until he proves the approach is no longer effective:
“He’s like, ‘It’s the first time I’ve gotten played like that.’ Which I think is an important point. He’s been here for two years, and I look at it as it’s a compliment to our offense that we’re seeing that now.
“In the last four games, Minnesota — I mentioned it after the game — but we scored 60 points on the best halfcourt defense in the league. They zoned us in the second half. Could’ve handled it better. Dallas, we’re up by 20, they start double-teaming all over the place. Could’ve handled it better. Last night, cross-match onto Josh, switch with Chet. Could’ve handled it better. To me, that’s the natural course you have to go through. You have to go through those struggles to evolve.
“I think it’s particularly interesting that we’re playing Golden State tomorrow because they were a team that had a lot of success playing a very distinct style. The league is not just gonna sit back and let you do what you wanna do. Everybody adjusts — so Golden State is getting switched. Golden State gets blitzed. Golden State gets switched off-ball. They stay with their own off-ball. They’ve developed all these tricks against all these different things where it’s like, no matter what you throw at them now, it’s familiar.
“The point of that is they haven’t just hatched into that. This wasn’t where they started. They started with success a certain way then they probably struggled their butts off for a long time with the adaptations they were seeing, it forced them to evolve. They had to clear those hurdles and then they got better and then they got to a point where they were almost unbreakable.
“That’s why they were so good. Because not only were they good with Plan A, but when you went to Plan B and C against them, they still had solutions.
“We need to develop solutions, but I look at the fact that three out of our last four opponents have gone to something that’s totally unconventional for them as a compliment to our offense, our base offense. And just a challenge for us now that we have to evolve.
“I don’t want the emotion of the moment to get in the way of the perspective that this is a process we’re going through right now. It’s the first time that we’ve had a good enough offense probably, collectively, that we’re seeing the kitchen sink. And now we’re seeing the kitchen sink, we have to calibrate, we have to improve.”
Mark Daigneault on how Josh Giddey is getting defended pic.twitter.com/ognlEzQWse
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) December 7, 2023
When pressed further about what type of adjustments they can make to help both Giddey and the offense, Daigneault said he needs to make quicker decisions and return to being more decisive with the ball in his hands.
“Play on the catch, the quicker you play against that stuff the harder it is for teams to calibrate,” Daigneault said.
Mark Daigneault said the first adjustment for Josh Giddey is “let him see it” said he has never been played like this before, but “we need to find solutions with it,” said he told Josh to “play on the catch, the quicker you play against that stuff the harder it is for teams to…
— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) December 7, 2023
Giddey’s struggles have been a growing issue that might’ve reached a boiling point against the Rockets. Regardless of whether he’s a long-term fit with OKC, playing four-on-five in a half-court offense is not a sustainable way to play winning basketball.
Eventually, something has to give with Giddey. Either the Thunder will be forced to make an uncomfortable decision or Giddey will turn around an ugly start to his third season and get out of his current funk.
