How SGA and the Thunder compare to Stephen Curry and the 73 ...

WITH THE OKLAHOMA CITY Thunder crowd standing and buzzing with anticipation on a late January night, 22-year-old Thunder guard Jalen Williams stood on the center court logo, repeatedly pounding the ball into the hardwood as the final seconds of a tie game melted away.

Portland's Jerami Grant stood in front of him, but only briefly. A second later, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander abruptly flashed to the top of the key, not only bringing his defender with him, but also causing Grant to momentarily hesitate before deciding to help occupy the superstar guard, too. As a result, Anfernee Simons -- who at 6-foot-3 was not only the shortest but also the weakest defender on the floor -- ended up being the last line of defense against the 6-foot-5 Williams.

The game clock dwindled below the five-second mark, before Williams dribbled twice and rose from the left wing. The high-arcing 18-foot jumper swished through, winning the game 111-109 for the Thunder.

After the victory, a couple key pieces of information emerged. Gilgeous-Alexander, the MVP candidate, mentioned he was serving as a decoy on the play, one Thunder coach Mark Daigneault specifically called for Williams. "Obviously I have high gravity [out to the three-point line], so I just wanted to use it in that situation and try to confuse the switch and confuse the defense to get him a look he's comfortable shooting," Gilgeous-Alexander said.

An MVP decoy? A buzzer-beating playcall for Jalen Williams?

Williams had hit two jumpers from almost that exact spot on the short left wing -- his most accurate shot location this season -- just moments before. And he is shooting 69.2% in clutch moments this season, leading NBA guards in clutch field goal percentage among players with at least 25 attempts.

But that aside, the Thunder offense is equipped to break defenses, no matter who touches the ball last on a given play. That's both because of their chaotically selfless style of play and their historically accurate jump-shooting, which right now stands as the best in NBA history. And they're doing it using a playbook that fueled Stephen Curry and the 73-win Golden State Warriors.

"They do a good job of creating confusion," said Celtics guard Derrick White, a member of last season's All-NBA defense team, after the Thunder beat Boston back in January. "They're a tough team to guard, and I think the whole league is trying to figure [their scheme] out."

DURING GOLDEN STATE'S decade-long dynasty, it became routine to see the team, spearheaded by its superstar point guard, finish with the league's best three-point percentage and the NBA's best effective field goal rate.

Yet there was always more to the Warriors' offense than met the eye. Aside from simply having Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green (and Kevin Durant, depending on the years), the Warriors also had a fascinating gameplan that fundamentally inverted key offensive concepts.

For starters, they utilized the pick-and-roll -- which forces defenses to make split-second decisions, and are the bread and butter of most NBA offenses -- less frequently than any other team. (This was the case even though the Dubs were the NBA's most efficient pick-and-roll unit.) What they did far more often than any other team was run their stable of perimeter shooters off screens away from the ball to create looks.

The twist? Golden State had their guards -- Curry included -- be the ones to set the off-ball screens. Countless times, it would result in two defenders chasing the world's best shooter, only to find the teammate Curry screened for breaking wide-open for a layup at the rim. Cheat-code level stuff.

As the second-youngest team in the league, Oklahoma City isn't quite at that level yet. Still, the similarities should be terrifying to the rest of the league. At 39.6%, the Thunder shoot the three better than any other team. And with a 56.7% effective field goal rate, they recently pulled ahead of the 73-win 2015-16 Warriors, who had held the best mark in the shot-tracking era, according to ESPN's Stats & Info. Much like Golden State, they rarely run pick-and-roll sets, despite being the most efficient team in the league when they do. Instead, they have their guards do the dirty work -- similar to the Dubs.

Oklahoma City leads the NBA this season in screen assists -- a pick set for a teammate that directly leads to a basket -- by guards, with 216. Uncoincidentally, the Warriors rank second in that category with 198. No other team has more than 157.

"Once you see how [the guard-to-guard screening] works, and how open it makes guys, you become more and more susceptible to doing it," Williams told ESPN. "It's definitely different, but it's something you end up embracing because you're watching it work."

The Thunders' offense operates like clockwork. Oklahoma City ranks first in the league in transition points per game, and first in points per possession in isolation. For the fourth consecutive season, it leads the league in drives to the basket. When opponents opt to load up on Gilgeous-Alexander, he simply kicks the ball out to teammates who have enough time to catch the ball, sip some lemonade, check their phone for new text messages, then shoot.

Consider this: On average, Thunder shooters are getting nearly eight feet of separation -- the most in the NBA -- from the nearest defender when they launch triples following kickout passes. OKC's 23 wide-open three-point attempts per game are tied for the NBA's most, and the team has knocked down 41% of them.

On top of that, Oklahoma City lives quite comfortably in the midrange, taking just over 10 per game and knocking down nearly 47% of them -- the third-highest percentage in the league. "My approach is, go with force, and keep going until someone stops you," Williams, who is shooting 51.6% on off-the-dribble midrange jumpers, ranking second in history only to Durant, said. "If someone stops you, then you go to Plan B."

HOWEVER MANY PLANS exist within OKC's offensive scheme, there's yet to be a plan to consistently stop any of them.

What you can't do, though, is clear: run drop against them.

The Los Angeles Lakers, a team that often drops its bigs into the paint while guarding pick-and-rolls, found out the hard way during a Nov. 30 matchup as Gilgeous-Alexander repeatedly took advantage of their laid-back coverage.

As Los Angeles sunk Anthony Davis and backup center Christian Wood into the paint in hopes of taking away Gilgeous-Alexander's ability to get near the basket, the 25-year-old superstar seemingly got whatever he wanted early -- triples, comfortable midrange jumpers, a couple shots at the rim, trips to the line -- and scored 18 of his game-high 33 points in the first frame. Behind Gilgeous-Alexander's hot start, the Thunder mollywhopped the Lakers for 42 points in the second quarter.

The Lakers eventually varied their coverage, but it was too late: Oklahoma City exploded by putting 133 on the board. Between his assists and his own scores, Gilgeous-Alexander directly contributed to 20 points against the Lakers' drop looks -- a season high for him against that type of defense.

Opposing teams resort to drop pick-and-roll coverage against Oklahoma City just 31% of the time, the lowest rate in the NBA. That's because the Thunder, whose guards are cozy from both the midrange and the arc, score more points per possession than any other team in the league when facing that alignment, just as Curry's Warriors did from 2014 to 2019.

There is one skinny, massive difference between those Golden State clubs and the Thunder, though, and it arguably gives OKC the potential to be even more unguardable.

Though everyone in those Warrior lineups was skilled as a ball handler and passer, the reality was that defenses often could get away with leaving forwards Green and Andre Iguodala on the perimeter because of their inconsistent three-point shooting. That certainly isn't the case with Chet Holmgren, who, despite being just 21 years old and in his first true season, is already a deadeye jumpshooter and bonafide game-breaker.

The 7-foot-1 big man doesn't hesitate to put the ball on the deck from the perimeter, and he's a nifty passer with a soft touch around the rim, where he shoots 76% within three feet.

But it's Holmgren's ability to stretch the floor as a 40% marksman from deep on four attempts per game that allows everything to fall into place. He's the ingredient that causes defenses to disintegrate. With his range and versatility, defenses can't cover the ground necessary to make a meaningful contest on each play. Someone is almost always open, which explains how Oklahoma City is beating opponents by a whopping 10 points per 100 possessions in the minutes that Gilgeous-Alexander, Williams and Holmgren play together.

For Holmgren, it's clear to him when his opponents' frustration is mounting. It was even noticeable after the first two months of play, he said, because teams started using the kitchen-sink strategy with them.

Asked how he'd defend OKC's attack if he were forced to do so, Holmgren laughed. "If I did [know], I couldn't tell you that," he told ESPN. "But honestly, I'm not sure how you'd [stop] it. At this point, we're seeing all types of different coverages. Zones. Switches. Crossmatches. You almost have to take it as a compliment that other teams are going away from what they do every night to try to counter what you're doing that night.

"They started [altering their defensive schemes] with us 20 or 30 games into the season, and it's crazy because those were honestly just our first 20 or 30 games together as a unit."

Despite its youth, this Thunder team is on pace for 57 wins. It's still early in the club's lifecycle -- at some point, the team figures to tap into its war chest of more than 30 draft selections over the next seven years, including as many as 15 picks that could turn out to be first-rounders -- but the proficiency and skill the young roster exhibits is similar to that of another precocious Big Three that played in OKC. That trio, featuring Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden, resulted in all three players eventually winning the Most Valuable Player award, but fell short of an NBA championship in 2012 before disbanding. The Thunder know all too well that you can't take youngsters this skilled and talented for granted.

"It's exciting to have this sort of success early on because it's just rare in the NBA for young teams and young players to have this type of thing going," Holmgren told ESPN. "But at the same time, we can't let it distract us from how much better we have to get. Hopefully we're playing together for a long time and we have a long runway together to figure things out."