How The Thunder Made Playing In Transition an Identity

The Oklahoma City Thunder are coming off a fairytale season where they went 68-14 and completed the season with their first-ever championship.

There are a lot of things that the Thunder thrived at last season, and one that can not go without notice is how they got out in transition and ran the floor.

The Thunder averaged 120.5 points per game in the regular season last year, ranking them fourth in the entire NBA. This productivity continued in the playoffs as they averaged 114.7 points per game, which ranked second. These averages were fueled by fast-break points, where the Thunder averaged 16.1 points per game in the regular season and 15.5 in the playoffs.

The Thunder were able to get out and run so much because of their quick hands on defense. OKC averaged 10.3 steals per game, leading the league. This, along with the different types of playmakers in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, allowed for Oklahoma City to space the floor to find open shots. All of this put together allowed the Thunder to lead the league in points off turnovers with 21.8

The Thunder didn’t just control fast breaks for themselves, but they made sure teams didn’t get opportunities to use fast breaks against them. 

OKC was the best in the NBA at taking care of the basketball. The team only turned the ball over 11.7 times a night, and few of those opportunities were taken advantage of against them as they only gave up 12.7 points off their turnovers. 

Even when teams were able to try and run the floor on the young athletic Oklahoma City core, it was not guaranteed they would score. The Thunder again led another stat in the league as they only allowed an average of 11.8 fast break points to be scored on them a night. 

The most interesting part is that the Thunder are just going to get better in transition. They still have one of the youngest cores in the league, who are learning day by day how to complement one another better. Not to mention, they should have a healthy Holmgren all year to improve both their scoring and defending on the run. 

Young teams have had reputations for run-and-gun play styles, and the Thunder have taken that play style and made it their very own.