There is an unspoken rule of ascension in the NBA this requires any new team hoping to move up the league hierarchy to begin that process by beating the team that previously beat them.
It’s not an absolute, but the start of a superpower almost always coincides with the fall of a rival. Michael Jordan and the Pistons. LeBron James and the Celtics. In recent years, the Bucks and Celtics have started championships by exorcising old demons against the Heat. The Nuggets did it against the Suns. This is standard NBA procedure.
Regular season games aren’t as significant on that front as the playoffs, but that certainly wasn’t the case when the Oklahoma City Thunder knocked off the Dallas Mavericks 118-104 on Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the NBA. Cup.
It wasn’t exactly a preview of what a potential playoff rematch would look like. The Thunder, now 19-5, still haven’t got Chet Holmgren back. An illness has been making its way through the Dallas locker room lately, and it kept PJ Washington out on Tuesday. But Tuesday’s battle played out on many of the same strategic fronts as last year’s second-round series, and the Thunder won them all emphatically.
Thunder dominated Luka and the Mavs defensively
Dallas won this series mainly in two places: on the boards and in the corners. The Mavericks outscored the Thunder by 28 rebounds in six second-round games. Oklahoma City introduced Isaiah Hartenstein into the equation on Tuesday and dominated the Mavericks 52-44.
Dallas averaged 16.2 corner 3s per game in this series, a number that would have led the league by a mile all season. They got 14 again on Tuesday, but many came in the fourth quarter when the game looked mostly out of control. The Thunder challenged many of the others. Those they didn’t largely went to shooters they were willing to ignore.
Oklahoma City allows these corner 3s by design. They are the natural consequence of trapping Luka Doncic. But this approach proved significantly more effective this time around. Doncic averaged nearly 25 points and nine assists in this series, but was limited to 16 and an ineffective five in this one. This speaks to the defensive depth Oklahoma City has accumulated.
Doncic didn’t just spend this match in the Dorture room. Lu Dort, Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace all took turns harassing him. Everyone largely resisted the pick-and-roll, preventing Doncic from accumulating too many easy lobs or free runs to the basket created by fear of those passes. Removing Doncic from the game neutralized just about everyone. The bewildered Mavericks turned the ball over 18 times.
Thunder can make a statement in Las Vegas
The Thunder looked, like all year, like the best defense in the NBA.
And their victory on Tuesday gives them the opportunity to demonstrate it. Oklahoma City’s status as a Western Conference favorite 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 getting a such credit on the ground. Getting that big win against Dallas, especially with a Doncic-less loss to the Mavericks in November already under their belt, was a crucial first step.
But now, the entire NBA world will be watching as the Thunder arrive 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 heavyweight, the Houston Rockets.
Beating them, and then the last remaining Eastern Conference foe, won’t guarantee them anything this spring. But it will be a statement to the league that Oklahoma City’s ascension is near. This is no longer the young team with a million draft picks. This is a conference favorite in his own right, ready to start putting heads above his coat.
Tuesday’s Mavericks were just the beginning.
