How Thunder won the Jamal Murray matchup — and ultimately a critical Game 4 vs. Nuggets

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DENVER — Hours before the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 92-87 Game 4 win, while players were on the floor with coaches working on the mechanical aspects of their individual games, Thunder guard Lu Dort could be found slumped in a courtside seat, poring over defensive film with Thunder assistant David Akinyooye.

This season, Dort made a conscious shift in his pregame routine. NBA players are creatures of habit, and it’s commonplace to see them warm up on the court before retreating to sift through a few game clips, if at all. But Dort flipped it, opting to exercise his brain before touching a basketball.

Dort, as Oklahoma City’s most dynamic defender, needs to constantly sharpen his mind. And while his offensive contributions were a big part of their historic 68-win regular season, it’s Dort’s importance at the other end of the floor that explains why so much attention has to be paid to the finest of details. In this series, which is now tied at 2-2, Dort’s primary, secondary and tertiary objective is to slow down Nuggets star guard Jamal Murray.

With eight seasons and five postseason campaigns under his belt, Murray, 28, has established himself as an elite ballhandler, dependable scorer and playoff riser — and an integral part of Denver’s success. Nikola Jokić is arguably the best basketball player on the planet, but the true measure of the Nuggets’ greatness is amplified when he and Murray are working in tandem, able to feed off each other’s strengths.

Dort has made a career of chasing premier perimeter players around. According to Bball-Index, Dort ranked in the 99th percentile this season in time spent defending Tier 1 usage players and the 96th percentile in time spent defending Tier 2 types.

But with Murray, the task is different, and there’s a personal factor that lends to Dort’s individual study. Both players spent time with the Canadian national team last year, with Dort recalling an extremely competitive training camp before the Paris Olympics. Because of Murray’s importance to Team Canada, the 26-year-old Dort had to tone down his aggressiveness and physicality when defending Murray in practice. Over multiple weeks together, however, Dort says he was able to “pick up on nuances” and some of Murray’s habits.

“Just competitive basketball,” Murray said. “We might know each other a little bit, but it’s a fun matchup.”

Before Game 3, Nuggets interim head coach David Adelman discussed the importance of dislodging Dort from Murray’s airspace, citing the need for “legal hits” on the Thunder as it pertained to ball screens. When done correctly, Denver could use its physicality to force Dort off Murray and find him a more favorable matchup. Per Bball-Index, Dort is a 99th-percentile isolation defender and ball-screen navigator. The Nuggets, who rely on a plethora of Jokić/Murray two-man actions via screens, want Dort as far away from Murray as possible.

“It’s been like that all year; it’s not just Denver,” Dort told The Athletic. “I know I’m a good defender and disturb a lot of (opposing teams’) main guys. Whenever I’m off their main guy’s body, it’s good for them.”

When executed properly, like in this Game 3 possession below, the Nuggets can free up Murray, allowing him to work in space with the threat of Dort negated. Dort didn’t even see Christian Braun’s frame coming and ran right into it, putting Murray on Isaiah Hartenstein and giving him full control. According to Synergy tracking data — which counts direct actions, not delayed ones — Denver’s screens forced Dort to switch off Murray on six different possessions, with the Nuggets scoring 12 points.

“It’s nothing we’re not used to,” Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault said before Game 4. “Teams make a priority to get Lu off of their guy for obvious reasons. We see that almost every night. There’s different ways teams try to do that. Denver shifted to more off-ball stuff last game, but we switched some of them, depending on who else is involved. There are solutions we have. It’s obviously a priority for Denver, so it’s a priority for us.”

Oklahoma City rewrote the script Sunday afternoon, using the Nuggets’ penchant for screening against them. One of the underlying storylines from this series has been how two great offensive teams attempt to out-scheme each other, and the Nuggets attempt to run plays for Murray later in the shot clock, allowing someone else to either bring the ball up the floor or handle it initially. (For what it’s worth, the Thunder employed a similar strategy with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.)

Because of Dort’s initial ball pressure, Murray attempted to evade using a Jokić screen but was met by Hartenstein, hanging around the nail in a soft drop coverage, and Alex Caruso, who offers a slight stunt — ignoring Russell Westbrook, who shot just 2 of 9 from 3 in Game 4.

Watch how Jokić attempted to rescreen for Murray, but Dort was nimble enough to dance through contact, refusing to let go. With the shot clock winding down, Murray was forced to dare to take on Dort in isolation, trying to bump him to no avail. As much film as Dort watches on Murray and his movements, he studies the screener as well. Everything works in tandem.

“Just reading the game,” Dort said. “Knowing how well the player I’m guarding is doing on the court. Watching film on the screener, it’s a big part. And honestly, just having my feet moving the whole time. It’s easier to anticipate when my feet are moving.”

A good sign of an elite defender is more than the shots you’re able to contest — it’s the ones that never even get a chance to develop. Aaron Gordon, who has made a point this series to attempt to match Dort’s physicality, was called for a pair of offensive fouls in Game 4, lunging into Dort’s chest trying to remove him from Murray’s field of vision.

Murray, who finished Game 4 with four turnovers and scored 17 points on 15 shots, was simply unable to get into a rhythm. Dort is too strong, too quick for screens to mitigate his impact (very few players can bounce off Jokić’s body like that and still have their footing), and his timing is impeccable.

Just look at this possession.

According to NBA.com tracking data over Games 1 and 2, Dort matched up with Murray for 13 minutes, holding him to just 4-of-12 shooting and a pair of turnovers. As long as Dort and the Thunder can maintain a similar level of production, they’ll continue to find their footing after an important win on Mother’s Day.

“He’s a great player,” Daigneault said of Murray. “It’s really hard in the playoffs, for everybody, and there’s nothing convenient about these games. It tests your will as a player. We’re trying to utilize the strength of our team to try and slow them down.”

As the Thunder head back home, with momentum back on their side in what is now a best-of-three series, there’s a distinct mental advantage that Dort’s poise and control possess. There have been other playoff matchups where basketball has seemingly been secondary at times (think Rockets-Warriors, where the games became as much about the antics, war of words and extracurriculars than anything else). But with Dort, it’s impossible to read beyond his stoic demeanor. When he takes the floor to boos from Ball Arena, both hands are in his pockets, cool as a fan. Dort knows the matchup with Murray can easily go another direction, especially in a tight series, but his calmness prevails. The absence of antics may make him less of a public figure, but that’s not why he’s here.

“I think it’s because I’m not a villain,” Dort said of his lack of popularity. “I’m not a guy that goes out there trash-talking and being loud. I do my job and move on. Even though I know they’re mad and having a bad game, I’m not gonna let them know that.”

Daigneault’s bet pays off

As ugly as Game 4 was at times, the Thunder may very well have been headed home down 3-1 had it not been for a bold move by coach Daigneault at the start of the fourth quarter.

With Oklahoma City slowly but surely losing its grip on the game, trailing 69-63, the Thunder trotted out a lineup of Caruso, Aaron Wiggins, Cason Wallace, Jalen Williams and Hartenstein. During the regular season, that group played just 12 minutes together, but in the playoffs, that has been the Thunder’s second-most used lineup, and the results — a whopping plus-47.9 in net rating before Sunday — have been staggering.

In a three-minute span, Oklahoma City’s offensive rating jumped to an astronomical 225.0 with a stingy 80.0 defensive rating. The secret? Timely floor spacing provided by Wallace and Wiggins, who hit six 3s on Sunday. In the past two games, the Thunder have not shot the ball well from deep (combined 19-of-76 from 3), which is risky against a Nuggets team clogging up the middle. Daigneault leaned on his team’s depth due to a short turnaround, and they’ll need those two to continue to contribute heading into Game 5.

(Photo of Lu Dort and Jamal Murray: Isaiah J. Downing / Imagn Images)

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