Oklahoma City! Where the wins come sweepin’ down the plain…

The OKC Thunder rumbles into Georgia to tangle with a well-rested Atlanta Hawks team (7:30 PM Eastern, SportSouth, FoxSports Oklahoma). Back home in Sooner Country, the Thunder’s winning streaks sure smell sweet. After easily dispatching the NBA East-leading Indiana Pacers on Sunday night, the 15-4 Thunder remains undefeated this season at Chesapeake Arena (10-0).

Grounded in untimely fashion by a knee injury in the 2012 Playoffs, the always untimely fashionable guard Russell Westbrook pairs up once again with his gangly fellow All-Star forward Kevin Durant, after returning at least a month early from a late-preseason arthroscopic surgery. While Westbrook (21.3 PPG, 5.9 APG, 41.4 FG%) plays his way back into All-NBA form, Head Coach Scott Brooks has been able to rely upon career-high performances from backup guard Reggie Jackson (11.6 PPG, 3.5 APG) and Norcross’ own Jeremy Lamb (8.9 PPG) to fill the voids.

The league’s leading scorer, KD has upped his assist (5.0 APG) and rebound averages (8.3 RPG) to career-highs. Serge Ibaka continues to carry this team defensively while putting up career-highs of 14.7 PPG and 9.9 RPG. Brooks is getting all he can ask for out of young bigs Steven Adams and Perry Jones III. Altogether, the Thunder ranks in the top-ten for both offensive and defensive per-possession ratings, one of five NBA teams doing so.

We’re only sayin’, you’re doin’ fine, Oklahoma City! Over their last 11 games, the Thunder’s sole setback in the win-loss column involved getting blitzed in the second half at blazing Portland last Wednesday. Before that, Westbrook’s heroics nearly clinched a victory at Golden State before a split-second game-winner from Andre Iguodala stole his thunder.

While they’ve been world-beaters at home, they haven’t exactly been laying out there like killers in the sun once they hit Thunder Road. They do sport a winning 5-4 record away from OKC, yet those five victories so far were at Utah, Detroit, Milwaukee, Sacramento, and (Anthony Davis-less) New Orleans. Their scoring margin in away games is a scant 102.3-101.7, compared to a sound 106.9-96.8 advantage in Loud City.

So, why does their seemingly impenetrable Sooner Schooner wind up looking more like the Joad Family Car once they leave Oklahoma? It isn’t terribly obvious, but on the road they appear to play a more bruising style on defense to stay in games, and rely more on Heroball isolation from Russ and KD (combined 46.2% of home offense; 50.0% of road offense) than on any free-flowing passing schemes.

Pertaining to the latter factor, the Thunder’s 1.43 assist-to-turnover ratio in home games (17.5 assists per 100 possessions; 10^th in NBA) plummets to a paltry 1.12 (14.1 assists per 100 possessions; 27^th in NBA) on the road. To seize an advantage in Atlanta, the Thunder role players will need to play like they’ve made themselves at home.

Alongside Ibaka, OKC deploys professional bump-on-a-log Kendrick Perkins in the starting lineup, and behind them they have a plethora of bigs of varying states of questionable quality to roll out there: Nick Collison, Adams, heck, throw in Ryan Gomes or Hasheem Thabeet if it tickles your fancy. On defense, the very best assets Perkins and these backups (backup point Derek Fisher included) have to offer are up to six fouls apiece, effectively keeping their stars out of foul trouble, so once again Atlanta’s free-throw shooting will be critical. The Thunder usually latch Thabo Sefolosha onto an opponent’s biggest perimeter threat and dare ballhandlers to drive or toss the ball into the Petrified Forest of stiffs waiting in the paint. Keeping points-in-the-paint to a minimum, OKC blocks a league-leading 6.0 shots per game in road games. With Sefolosha sitting to rest a sprained knee, tonight’s perimeter rover will be rookie first-rounder Andre Roberson, returning from the D-League after averaging 17.3 PPG and 11.3 RPG.

On offense, those Thunder bigs contribute a little less, aside from Adams’ and Collins’ active participation in the pick-and-roll to free up Westbrook. What their mere floor presence really provides is the ability for KD to log lots of advantageous minutes against opposing small forwards. It’s a toss-up which will get you in bigger trouble: posing for selfies with the Danish prime minister at a dignitary’s funeral while the missus glowers nearby, or isolating any of DeMarre Carroll, Wheaties cover model Kyle Korver, Mike Scott, and/or Cartier Martin on Durant for thirty-plus minutes in a game. Paul George himself could do little on Sunday to impede Durant (36 points on 14-for-23, 10 boards, 5 dimes vs. Indy), deeming KD the league’s “toughest cover,” so the defensive gameplan tonight from Mike Budenholzer will be a sight to behold.

Atlanta will look to Al Horford and Paul Millsap to wear Oklahoma City’s interior meat-grinders thin, hopefully requiring Durant to shift to a less-desirable power forward role. Or they may stick an Elton Brand or a Pero Antić onto Perkins, giving Millsap more of the unenviable role of containing Durant for long stretches. The Hawks are among the least whistled teams in the league (18.6 personal fouls per game, 4^th fewest in NBA; 20.4 opponent free throws per game, 5^th fewest), the cocoa-butter-handed Horford the only NBA player with fewer than two fouls per game (1.7 PF/G) while averaging over 15 PPG and 1.0 BPG. They’ll give themselves a chance if they can make Durant (league-leading 10.5 free throw attempts per game, 88.5 FT%) earn his offensive production without an abundance of trips to the line.

Jeff Teague (38.0 FG% last 4 games) will have to out-work Westbrook in creating offense from dribble-penetration. Based on player tracking data, Horford, Teague, Martin, Korver, and Carroll are all clumped within the NBA’s top-20 for opponent FG% on shots between 5-9 feet (all around 46-47%). However, Westbrook on defense has the league’s third highest opponent FG% (53%) on shots between 10-15 feet (minimum 50 opponent field goal attempts).

Atlanta will need similar effectiveness on dribble-drives from Lou Williams (36.8 FG% through 8 games; season-high 13 points in 27 minutes vs. Cleveland), now free of minutes restrictions according to C-Viv at the AJC. Lou is customarily most effective when he seeks out avenues into the paint for the offense, although the occasional long-distance heroics don't hurt.

Go Hawks!

~lw3