Alex Caruso trade was the final piece of the Thunder’s NBA championship puzzle

The Alex Caruso trade might have made the Thunder unstoppable

It often feels like Alex Caruso is playing an entirely different sport when he’s really locked in. Basketball players need to be able to dribble, pass, and shoot, and any deficits in that skill set tends to get exposed exponentially under the harsh spotlight of the NBA Playoffs. Caruso has some level of competency in those areas, but it’s not why he completely dominated the fourth quarter of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s historic comeback win in Game 3 of their first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Caruso is listed at 6’5, 186 pounds, which should make him either a big point guard or an undersized two. For the Thunder, Caruso is a truly position-less weapon, locking down an All-NBA caliber big man like Jaren Jackson Jr. on one possession and tying up a guard in Scottie Pippen Jr. on the next. The way Nikola Jokic sees the floor on offense is how Caruso sees it on defense, moving a step ahead of everyone else to give Oklahoma City a game-breaking defender for any situation. Caruso’s reputation as the best defensive specialist of his generation has been solidified for years, but Game 3 showed everything that makes him special in a high-leverage game that will go down in the history books.

The Grizzlies led the Thunder by 29 points during the first half of Game 3. It was a shock to the system after the Thunder won Game 1 by 51 points and coasted to a Game 2 win without much trouble. Memphis was roaring until Ja Morant’s injury in the second quarter. As OKC slowly chipped away at the lead, Caruso entered the game like a shark smelling blood in the water, and his decimation of the Grizzlies’ offense was every bit as visceral and gory.

The Thunder beat the Grizzlies, 114-108, on Thursday night to go up 3-0 in the first-round series. Memphis scored just 31 points in the second half on horrific 38.4 percent true shooting. So many of their struggles can be tied to Caruso’s nuclear defensive playmaking.

Grizzlies players shot 3-of-15 when matched up against Caruso in Game 3, according to the NBA’s tracking data. He was credited with four steals and one block in the box score, but even that undersells his impact. Add in his seven deflections and you start to get closer. The Grizzlies couldn’t get into their offensive actions without Caruso foiling their plans, and it led to them throwing away a gigantic lead.

Here’s a supercut Caruso’s defensive genius in the fourth quarter of Game 3. The diversity of impact plays is something perhaps no other defender in the NBA can match.

Jackson Jr. will be having nightmares about Caruso all offseason. The supermax contract he’s in line for will help him fall asleep comfortably after a little while, but no one as big and as talented as Jackson should be locked up by someone like Caruso. Of course, that’s just the type of effect Caruso has regardless of his assignment.

Caruso is extra short for a nominal power forward, but he can’t be bullied. His chest and his feet move in unison, granting him a strong center of gravity to maintain his position and fight through the typical pounding in the post. When the ball gets exposed, Caruso uses his razor sharp hands to swipe down and jar it free. This type of individual defense will make him a valuable piece to any contender, but it’s the veteran’s help defense that really unlocks a new level for the Thunder.

Caruso is like a defensive coordinator on the floor, analyzing actions in a split second while still having enough physical talent to recover. His body and mind work in unison, making him at once the smartest and toughest player in any given matchup.

On this possession, with the Grizzlies down three with under one minute left, Caruso helps deter a downhill drive by Desmond Bane off the screen, immediately rushes to recover to his man on the wing, and immediately comes in with a hard two-handed dig to knock the ball loose. Coaches love to preach defense, but skills like this can’t be taught.

Here’s another graph that describes Caruso’d defensive impact in Game 3. There’s no one like him.

The Thunder kept Caruso on ice for most of the season after acquiring him in a summer trade with the Chicago Bulls. For most of his career, Caruso has been a little bit injury prone: he needs to play an incredibly intense brand of basketball to stay on the floor given his offensive limitations, and that usually leads to injury when parsed out with a heavy minutes load over an 82 game season. Caruso played only 52 games and averaged just over 19 minutes per game for the Thunder this year. He still graded out as the NBA’s best defender this season, according to the DEPM metric.

The Thunder had an all-time great defense even when keeping him in a smaller role. OKC finished No. 1 in defense rating, allowing only 106.6 points per 100 possessions when the average offense scored 114.5 points per 100 this season. Now they are unleashing the full might of Caruso in the playoffs, and the early results are terrifying for any opponent in their way.

Oklahoma City pulled off the heist of a lifetime to getting Caruso from the Bulls for only Josh Giddey in a 1-1 trade. Giddey couldn’t play in the playoffs for OKC a year ago when his shaky defense and lack of shooting was brutally exposed. While Giddey needed a specific fit to have any kind of success, Caruso is a natural plug-and-play option that perfectly complements the Thunder’s stars. His skill set is purely additive, and it raises the Thunder’s ceiling in what should be a championship season.

Giddey put up nice counting stats in Chicago this season in the second half of the year, but someone has to get those stats when you play as fast as the Bulls did this season. It’s hard to imagine that Giddey could have played in a game like Game 3 on Thursday night, when the pace slowed down and the margins for creation became slimmer in the halfcourt. It marks the difference between Giddey’s floor raising for a bad team, and Caruso’s ceiling raising for a great team. This trade was only a “win-win” when viewed through the low expectations that have defined the Bulls over the last 20 years.

Caruso’s talents were always wasted on a middling team like Chicago that never played a meaningful game. Big games bring out Caruso’s best, and he’s going to be playing in a lot of them for the Thunder, provided he can stay healthy. He may not have a flashy skill set or the box score numbers that get players paid, but Caruso impacts winning at the highest levels, and it helps make the Thunder the definitive championship favorite.