10/21 Utah Jazz vs. Oklahoma City Thunder: Keys to the Game

Key #1 – Limit Thunder Efficiency

There’s simply no way around it – there’s going to be no stopping all three of Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony on any single night. Regardless of if one or more of them struggle, each are so incredibly talented that at least one, if not more, will be able to fill the stat sheet no matter how good their opponent on any given night happens to be.

Therefore, while it’s unrealistic to expect to completely shut down all three of them, the key to beating this Thunder team will be to make their Big 3 work hard for each and every shot, forcing them all into inefficient shooting nights. While all are supremely talented, there’s also no doubting that each are volume shooters and can very well fall into shooting funks from time to time if their momentum is halted from the game’s onset.

So the key isn’t to limit their points, necessarily, but to do everything possible to make sure that those points come at as low of a shooting percentage as possible. In the Thunder’s season opener, each of their three stars put up over 20 points with Paul George leading the way with 28, Carmelo Anthony chipping in 22 and Russell Westbrook putting up 21. Melo and PG weren’t exactly lights out from the field, but Westbrook sure was as he shot 7-of-12 from the field.

It’s hard to expect a team to do much better against those three, but as tough of a task as it might be, the Jazz will absolutely have to find a way to force each member of that trio to shoot right around (and hopefully less than) 40 percent from the field. If they do that, and are able to fluster OKC’s leading men, they may very well be able to overpower the team and take the win.