Mark Daigneault and the Oklahoma City Thunder enjoyed a day off before returning to practice on Friday. After center Isaiah Hartenstein and the Thunder beat the Portland Trail Blazers, Daigneault, with an additional three days’ rest on tap, had plenty of time to reflect on the first 16 games of the 2024-25 season. In doing so, he’s still perplexed over how his team and star, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, lead the NBA in drives per game but is 28th in free-throw attempts.
After practice, Daigneault explained his case to Thunder reporters.
“The guys’ driving and attacking the paint on a play. I thought Caruso had one in transition the other night. He got hit on the arm on. Dub is obviously in the paint quite a bit, and we’re leading the league in drives as a team. And that’s not just Shai,” Daigneault said. “Shai leads the league in drives individually, but the team’s in there as well. In practice tomorrow and in film today, we were trying to identify, through 16 games, some of the things we need to improve on. And doing some targeted work on that is one of those things.
“So, we’re not just outsourcing all of the responsibility to the officials; we’re looking internally at how we can improve. And we’re hoping that the whistle comes around as we address some of those things,” Daigneault concluded.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder lead the NBA in drives to the rim
All-Star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander leads the NBA in drives to the rim as a player, and the Thunder leads as a team in the same statistical category. Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t the kind of star who complains about officiating. However, while Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault did point out instances where the officials missed blatant fouls, he’s generally puzzled over his findings.
Still, as he mentioned Friday, it won’t change the Thunder’s offensive approach.
“We want to be a paint-attack team, and that doesn’t necessarily mean all of your shots are going to come in the paint. Some of the threes are paint-created, and those are good shots,” Daigneault said. “You have to got to take what the defense gives you. We want to uptick the threes, but not at the expense of rim attacks. If defenses sell out in the paint, which they tend to do against us because of our drive frequency, then if the threes are open, we want to shoot them.”
The Thunder are shooting at a 42.3% clip and are the third-most efficient three-point shooting team this season, per NBA.com.
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