While Oklahoma City is still nursing its wounds and waiting on the return of a key few players, the team is certainly enjoying Isaiah Joe’s return to the lineup. The Thunder’s sharpshooter has helped re-awaken an offense that was one of the NBA’s best a season ago.
It was a given that at some point the shots would start falling for the Thunder after an abysmal start from the outside, but Joe’s return has certainly jumpstarted the process. For the first handful of games, Oklahoma City was one of the least accurate teams from the outside, but with Joe back in the lineup, the Thunder are steadily climbing the rankings.
Over the first five games of the season, Oklahoma City launched 39.6 triples per game and shot just 28.8%. Sure, they were missing a few easy looks and got caught up in a slump, but the spacing on offense just wasn’t there. Since Joe’s return against Washington, everything has changed.
During the last three games with Joe in the lineup, Oklahoma City is taking 45.0 triples per night, and converting at a 40% rate. The Thunder’s overall percentage has jumped up to 33.3% and moved up the rankings by nearly 10 spots.
“I’m just trying to create as much space as possible,” Joe said postgame after beating the Clippers. “Move around, find open gaps, my teammates do a hell of a job finding me — all I gotta do is knock down the shot. It makes my job really easy. All I’m trying to do out there is create some space.”
While Joe has certainly elevated Oklahoma City’s 3-point shooting attack, he’s doing so much more on the court to help the Thunder’s offense. Mark Daigneault pointed out how dominant he is in the specific system, and he’s right. He’s a great screener and a terrific transition player. He’s not only opening up easy 3-point looks for himself, but he’s setting the team up for easy buckets, too.
“Those things, those are just game winning plays,” Joe said. “Just being more than a shooter, finding the best shot possible whether that’s for myself or somebody else. Making the easy plays — if we got a mismatch out there, it’s easy to set a screen for Shai and let him do his thing. The defense has to make a decision out there, playing off of each other.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has always played well with Joe in the lineup, but Joe’s point provides the stats to back it up. Since he returned from injury, Gilgeous-Alexander has converted on 8-of-16 triples and found a groove from the outside. The rest of the team has followed suit.
Joe’s winning style of basketball helps the Thunder even when he’s in a slump, but so far this season, he has simply been red hot. This version of Joe helps the Thunder raise its ceiling tremendously — there’s no doubt about it. In three games, he’s averaging 18.3 points and shooting 48.3% from 3-point range. He’s helping ease the Thunder’s need to rush Jalen Williams back while offsetting the team’s shooting slump.
It’s a small sample size, sure, but so far so good for Oklahoma City’s sniper.
