Has Josh Giddey regressed in NBA playoffs? Mark Daigneault defends OKC Thunder guard
Fifty seconds into Thursday’s Game 2 loss to the Mavericks, Thunder guard Josh Giddey was back in a place he thought he’d played himself out of. Dallas abandoned Giddey on offense as obviously as it could. Not with a stunt, or with a defender within feet playing the gap. It left him an island — a runway so lengthy it appeared intimidating to take off from.
It’s the strategy that plunged Giddey’s confidence and productivity for a multi-month stretch early in the regular season. The strategy that, after leaning into alternative roles on the floor, shrunk in effectiveness for the past couple months.
Giddey’s last month and change of the regular season looked like a turn in the right direction. His gutsy shotmaking down the stretch of Game 4 of Oklahoma City’s first-round series sealed its sweep of New Orleans.
What felt like one of the defining moments in Giddey’s journey to reinvent himself was a rough go in Dallas after the trade deadline, a 3-for-14 showing that ended with Giddey being a season-low minus-23. Now he’s facing the Mavericks in the Western Conference semifinals, and they’re rehashing everything he worked to gloss over.
Through two games, Giddey is a minus-27 in 28 minutes played, the worst plus-minus on the team this series. The next worst is Gordon Hayward at minus-4. OKC is a plus-40 in Giddey’s time off the floor. Giddey played a season-low 11 minutes on Thursday night. The 17 minutes he saw in Game 1 is top-five among his season lows in minutes.
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“What I've seen is three years of Josh Giddey, and he's a very good player and a very important player to our team,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Friday, asked what he’s seen in Giddey’s minutes.
“In Game 4 of New Orleans, I don't know that we close that series if he's not banging in shots in the fourth quarter. These games are high stakes, they’re obviously emotional. But I think it's important with every player — good, bad — to zoom out and see the big picture. And the big picture is he's been a very productive player for a long time. He's 21 years old. He's gonna be a very productive player for a long time moving forward.”
The Thunder has tried everything to make it work.
On offense, it’s let Giddey float into the dunker spot, set ball screens, cut from the slot and into in-stride floaters among other wrinkles. On defense, OKC has stuck him on the least threatening ball handler, usually tucked away in the corner where Giddey can mostly be stationary and dig in the lane.
But on Thursday, seemingly everything that could’ve gone wrong for Giddey unfolded. Dallas sought that reality.
In a four minute stretch to begin the game, Giddey was victim to a couple of Luka Doncic’s early buckets. On one play, a loose ball that nearly became a Thunder fast break, Giddey was in no man’s land, searching for the ball and his man. Doncic threw a lob over OKC’s head to Daniel Gafford. Giddey was on the receiving end of stepbacks and spot-up 3s alike.
Targeting Giddey defensively doesn’t necessarily look like him being put in the pick-and-roll until he’s dizzy. It’s the reluctance that escapes Mavs’ players bodies when they seek him in transition or as he hovers nearby with shaky attempts to close out. It’s the attack of those close outs without a second guess of whether Giddey could recover.
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Dallas’ defense has best shrunk the floor in Giddey’s minutes. His effectiveness offensively depends on shotmaking, a fickle and especially volatile variable in the postseason given how much possessions weigh.
Even with the first two games of the series possibly calling for Giddey’s role to gradually shrink, removing him from the starting lineup would be unprecedented. He’s started every game of his career through three NBA seasons.
His on-court ideas and plenty of wins helped earn Daigneault the NBA’s Coach of the Year award. But one of Daigneault’s most useful qualities as a coach has proved to be his management of egos, the way he’s gotten players to buy into him so heavily. Removing Giddey from the starting lineup on this stage could likely threaten that.
Still, Daigneault hasn’t been afraid of pivoting from Giddey when the game calls for it. In Game 1, when a third quarter run shaved OKC’s lead to one, Isaiah Joe replaced Giddey and contributed to the run that the Mavs never responded to. Daigneault looked to Aaron Wiggins to start the second half of Game 2.
Though each game presents different wrinkles, it’s difficult to envision Dallas moving away from what it’s done or suddenly rendering Giddey more effective. If the game calls for it, which it has throughout the two-game series, Daigneault will likely adjust. It's just unclear what that might look like for Giddey on Saturday, or for the remainder of the second round.
“We've gone with different people on different nights against many different opponents," Daigneault said. "It's not isolated to one opponent. And every game in a series is different. Last night, I made the best decisions I could to try to help us win Game 2. Tomorrow, I'll make the best decisions I can to help us win Game 3. We'll see how the game unfolds tomorrow.
“I can't predict what's going to happen tomorrow. But I can tell you that Josh is a very important part of what we're doing.”
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Joel Lorenzi covers the Thunder and NBA for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joel? He can be reached at jlorenzi@oklahoman.com or on Twitter at @jxlorenzi. Support Joel's work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com or by using the link at the top of this page.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Mark Daigneault calls Josh Giddey 'very important' to Thunder plans
