How to stop Russell Westbrook

Matthew Huang
Staff Writer

Through 19 games, Westbrook has lead the Thunder to a Western Conference 6th-best record and is currently averaging a triple double.  Westbrook is no doubt the motor of the Thunder offense, willing them to wins off his intensity and insanely athletic highlights.  But if a team were to stop Westbrook would the Thunder fall apart? And further, how would a team stop Westbrook? One of the most athletic players in the league is not exactly a rotational adjustment but rather adjusting how a whole team plays.

Following a very impressive performance from Russell Westbrook in New York, another triple double and a win is tallied for Oklahoma City and their star point guard.  Posting a 27/18/14 statline on 39.1/66.7/100 with 7 turnovers is an impressive feat for any player, but when your point guard is posting a near 20/20 statline, it begs the question: is Westbrook hurting the Thunder with his ‘stat-chasing’ by playing out-of-role?

And if his triple-double-chase is not hurting the Thunder, to what extent is he ‘carrying’ them?

After watching the Knicks game on Monday, 11/28, a thought emerged.  Westbrook’s dominance on the ball is no secret - just look at the stats - but if Westbrook were to be shut down or stopped, would the Thunder be stopped as a whole?  Westbrook leads the league in Usage, accounting for 40% of all the Thunder’s posessions.  For a team that is 3rd in possessions/gm to have a player playing 35min/gm and account for 40% of those possessions means that without Westbrook, the Thunder would look pretty lost on offense, to say the least.  They’d have about 38.5 more possessions to figure out who to take the ball up, lead their fast breaks, run their plays and every other dynamic that would come with losing one of the most ball-dominant players on a relatively dependent team.  So how does a team go about shutting down, or even slowing down, an animal like Russell Westbrook?

The Knicks made something extremely apparent after their loss on Monday to the Thunder.  It is that Westbrook, as dominant as his stats suggest, actually struggles in the halfcourt setting.  Westbrook’s authority over the game is extremely dependent on his explosive athletic abilities, and if you take away that advantage, relatively speaking, he is much less effective.  When we dig into some stats, a weak pattern emerges -- the Thunder prey on teams that are in the bottom half for Team Opponent Fast Break Points/gm.  It is not 100% a rule, as the Thunder have beaten teams in the top 10, but a majority of Thunder losses have been from teams that handle the fastbreak well, stopping Westbrook’s largest source of good looks.  While it may seem obvious that the best teams have the best defense and therefore the best fast break defense, take note that Golden State, Cleveland and San Antonio are all in the bottom half of that stat because they play faster paced basketball, effectively giving the other team more opportunities because of the pace they command.  This stat proves to be ineffective standing by itself, so we must move away from generalizing the discussion and specialize, focusing on much more specific instances on why the Thunder have lost while still keeping in mind that they generally destroy teams that let them run in the open court. When Westbrook is in the open court at full speed is when he is at his best, and everyone knows this.  Whole teams will collapse to stop him and if there isn’t a strong contest he is either getting a quality look off the break, or using the attention he draws to create open looks for teammates.

Westbrook draws attention and dishes to Oladipo on the break

(Check this video out about Westbrook' finishing ability and how it's not as good as you think it is!)

It was stated earlier that Westbrook, without his freakishly athletic ability, actually struggles a little bit in the half-court.  Against the Knicks, Westbrook spent a lot of time looking for his shot, and if the shot wasn’t taken on a fastbreak or within 10 seconds of the shot clock, Westbrook was extremely inefficient, converting a little under 30% of attempts. The Knicks played solid team defense, challenging Westbrook to take tough shots like this one that left him fading 15ft away from the hoop on top of a tough contest.  

Westbrook - tough square up, fading away, over Derrick Rose 15ft from hoop

However, it goes without saying but Russell Westbrook is still an extremely talented player and a prolific scorer, and plenty of these shots like these will go in.  There’s not a lot you can do about it besides playing good defense and hoping for the best. Even with great perimeter defense, Westbrook will still produce.  Against the Knicks, Westbrook dropped 14 dimes.  Russell’s playmaking has come a long way from even last year and has become a tool Westbrook relies on in the halfcourt whenever he can’t get an open lane or jack up a three.  Rose played very well on Russ, locking up for the majority of the matchup but when ‘Russ-ball’ turned into a 2-man game, the Knicks almost fell apart.  Westbrook tore apart the Knicks pick-and-roll defense, whether it be assisting a Kanter pick-n-pop, throwing a nice lob to the rolling Adams, or skipping the Knicks rotation and hitting a wing for a corner 3, Russell has the tools to win even if you shut him down scoring-wise.  Russell’s desire to win is so strong he will do anything he can to best the opposition, almost willing the Thunder to a Western Conference 6th-best record.  It is also important to note that while Derrick Rose may have put some cuffs on Westbrook, the Knicks often times look lazy, hence why they struggle in guarding the pick and roll, which takes a whole team effort.  Additionally, the Knicks also let Russell have free reign in the open court where, again, Westbrook flourishes.

The goal should not be to shut Westbrook down, (because that might be impossible) but to shut parts of his game down that would mitigate his efforts on offense, inherently crippling the Thunder’s offense, evident in the early season matchup with the Warriors. The Golden State Warriors beat the Thunder early in the season by controlling Westbrook. While it was early in the season, the Thunder looked lost on offense and struggled to get anything going that didn’t result in a turnover or a bad shot.

Westbrook struggled against the Warriors, one of the best defensive teams in the league.  They played their flexible, active defense; sent doubles, swarmed passing lanes and did everything in their power to shut down Westbrook, which essentially shut down the whole team.  GSW held Westbrook to 4/15 shooting and forced 6 TO’s, baiting him into shots like these that had him pulling post-escape shots out of a double team.  In fact, Westbrook does this often when faced with team defense..

Westbrook chucks ball at backboard out of double team

Pachulia grabs Westbrook's shot out of his hands in a double team

Westbrook attacks rim with two established and defenders and gets swatted by third.

While this may have been one way to slow Westbrook down, there is only one Golden State and the Warriors team defense is not exactly easy to replicate.  However, there remains another way to stop Westbrook and incorporating every single point discussed so far, the best way to beat the Thunder would be to stop the Westbrook-domination on offense which you can only do by either playing very good team defense or a much easier method would be to cut out his quality fast break look entirely.  Teams that have successfully stopped the Russ-break have gotten a majority of the team back and clogged the lanes while also stopping the ball at the perimeter.

Westbrook is stopped early by Thad Young help D

While this “break” was off a made shot, Westbrook is definitely near full-speed, ahead of most of his teammates and trying to get an easy bucket in the end of transition.  The Pacers get all five guys back, with three of them clogging lanes and looking to help in the likely chance of a drive.  Thaddeus Young plays a vital part, containing Westbrook while Teague was still catching up. After Teague catches up, he contains the sideline drive in anticipation that Westbrook will capitalize on the rotation/switch, then rushes back to his man.  This kind of defense involves a whole team effort which may be hard to do for 48 minutes, but what if a team were to make a similar effort much earlier in the possession? ‘Containing Pressure’ similar to what Thaddeus Young is doing can be done much earlier which could slow Westbrook down and buy his teammates time to get back and obstruct any lanes and also, more importantly - take away the Thunder’s most important weapon, Westbrook on the break. Getting five back off of every missed shot would be extremely hard to do but is very effective and similar results can be garnered from early pressure from an offensive rebounder.  If a team were to send their 3 or 4 crashing the boards on every shot, it would result in either 1) the offense gets a 2nd chance, or 2) the 3 or 4 pressures, for a couple of seconds, Westbrook upon his receiving the ball either by rebound or outlet essentially buying his teammates 3 or 4 more seconds to get back on defense and clog the lanes and most importantly, not letting Westbrook get to full speed because as mentioned earlier, when you take away Westbrook’s athletic advantage, he tends to struggle in a halfcourt set which would mean the Thunder as a whole team would begin to struggle.  Outside of the entire team locking in for 48 minutes, this is the best way to stop Westbrook as it: is not terribly physically demanding, would keep your point guard in the game for as long, would stop Westbrook (the motor of the Thunder), would stop the break.

Concluding this lengthy article, Westbrook is definitely the powerhouse of the Thunder and his dominance through the first quarter of the season has been immense.  The Thunder are at a conference 6th-best, they're on a three win streak and looking strong, but if Westbrook's athleticism were contained and his fastbreak's stopped producing for the Thunder, they most likely would begin to struggle like how they fared against Golden State.  Most teams cannot lock up for 48 minutes against a fast paced team like the Thunder so a simple method of containment (sending an offensive rebounder to pressure Westbrook early) would go a long way as it would shut down the Thunder's biggest offensive weapon and allow for the defending team to get more people back.  Lastly, this is all in theory and a beast like Westbrook would be extremely difficult to stop but a lot of the evidence points in this direction and as the Thunder get better and better, new methods of stopping them will become necessary.