20 points and 11 rebounds are just numbers. Let’s look at the plays.
The myth of Enes Kanter being a worthwhile addition to the Oklahoma City Thunder continues to hold merit in Thunder forums. After the 106 to 94 win at the Bulls tonight, Enes specifically mentioned team defense as a reason for the team’s dominant third quarter.
The myth of Kanter’s good defense has spread to Reddit, as well. Here’s the thread at the top of the Thunder’s Reddit page. It is quickly gaining traction.
It gets worse. The next part is going to be hard to read for anybody who realistically looks at Kanter’s game.
There’s so many falsities in this thread. Kanter never hustles on defense. As a result, he is a detriment to OKC’s scheme. And Kanter’s defensive rebounding is merely average. Where Kanter really shines is offensive rebounds.
All of this Kanter love is coming as the result of a 20 point, 11 rebound, 3 assist game. It looked really good, because it came in a road win against the Chicago Bulls. OKC won the game by a big margin, and coasted the entire fourth quarter. The Bulls were 19-18 heading into the contest, and are considered a playoff team. The Bulls had been on a roll prior to tonight, beating the Hornets, Cavaliers, and Raptors over the past three games. For context, the Hornets are fifth in the East, the Cavaliers are first, and the Raptors are second.
Why the Bulls weren’t ready to play
But in reality, this game was tailor-made for Kanter to shine. The Bulls get the majority of their points from the wing positions, with Butler averaging 26 and Wade averaging 19. Meanwhile, Chicago’s bench has a lean, mostly inexperienced front line. Nikola Mirotic is the lone veteran, but he has always been a notoriously terrible defender. Bobby Portis, a 6’11” sophomore, has always been offensively focused and vertically challenged. Lastly, fellow sophomore Cristiano Felicio is a meaty 6’10”, 275 pounds. But Felicio registers four fouls per 36 minutes, and rarely gets blocks. All three of these guys are no match for Kanter. Even Chicago’s starting center, Robin Lopez, is much more well known as a rebounder than he is a defender. Taj Gibson is a good big man defender, but loses out to Kanter by 2 inches and at least 10 pounds. Kanter is probably much bigger than his listed 245 pounds, though it’s not rare for players to lie about their weight.
But here’s another reason why Kanter looked good: The Bulls were in disrepair. Rajon Rondo was benched twice for bad play back in December. Rondo has since been demoted to the bench permanently, and registered his fourth consecutive DNP-CD against the Thunder. Ironically, the Bulls held Rajon Rondo’s bobblehead giveaway for fans against the Thunder. Perhaps even more hilariously, Rondo’s absence has totally ruined the Bulls’ intros.
The Bulls have this 3D court system, as many fashionable teams do nowadays. The 3D court is mainly used during intros. Part of the Bulls’ intro is having images of the players projected onto the court, slowly rotating around as if on a pedestal. But the Bulls clearly didn’t anticipate Michael Carter-Williams’ presence in the starting lineup, as he has no image for the Bulls to use. As such, only four of the Bulls starters were displayed.
That’s not all, though. Jimmy Butler missed the pre-game shootaround due to flu-like symptoms. Butler was clearly under the weather, playing 29 minutes and only taking six shots. Butler missed all six shots, but did contribute 7 assists through the sickness. Butler left the game after the third quarter, and has been ruled out for tomorrow’s contest against the Wizards.
Wade, meanwhile, missed a game a week prior due to knee soreness. Moreover, Wade will be out for tomorrow’s game against the Wizards as well. The reason given for Wade’s sitting out at Washington is rest. But given that Wade had shot under 40% in four of his past five games heading into the game with the Thunder, it’s clear that Wade is battling through injury.
So with the Bulls banged up and breaking in a new point guard, the Thunder headed into last night’s game as the clear favorites. It would have taken a heroic performance from more than one role player to bring the Bulls up to their normal standard.
