2018 NBA Playoffs Preview: Oklahoma City Thunder vs Utah Jazz, SWOT Analysis & Prediction

#2 Weakness

OKC's bench is their biggest problem

Oklahoma City Thunder

While Oklahoma City Thunder may boast of several qualities on the court, their bench remains their Achilles heel. Scoring only 26.4 points per game, OKC's bench is the second-worst in the league in terms of bench points. Not a single Thunder bench player is averaging double digits in terms of points.

It is a rather normal occurrence for Oklahoma to see their lead getting reduced/surrendered once the bench takes over. To counter this situation Billy Donovan has made sure that one of their big three plays with the bench but this strategy will eventually tire out their big name players because of the additional minutes raked up.

The charity line is not OKC's favorite spot on the court either, as they are second-worst in the league in this department as well converting only 71.5% of their free throws. Russell Westbrook averaging a career-low free throw percentage of 73.7% doesn't help the cause either as he is one of the most fouled players on the roster.

Free throws can decide the result in close games and OKC have been on the losing side of many thanks to their poor results in this department. Their choking loss to the Boston Celtics in late March is the first one that comes to mind

Utah Jazz

Utah Jazz don't have adequate scorers in their team

The biggest weakness of the Utah Jazz has to be the lack of featured scorers. Apart from Donovan Mitchell who is accounting for 20.5 points per game, Quin Snyder's side has no other player to turn to for scoring points on a regular basis.

In fact, no other player apart from Mitchell is averaging over 15 points a game for the Jazz. The one other player who did so, Rodney Hood, is now a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Utah have genuine problems on the offensive end of the court. While they have a decent field goal percentage of 43.2, the Jazz are still 19th in the league in terms of points scored per game.

They are also one of the slower teams in the league, slotting in at the 25th position in pace rankings. This pretty much explains their inability to move the ball well enough as they rank only 21st in the league in terms of assists. This, coupled with the fact that the Jazz turn the ball over a relatively high 14.7 times per games implies unhealthy scoring runs.