Winning the “turnover battle” has always been more of a point of emphasis for old school football coaches than anything else, but it’s become very relevant in NBA circles as well.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have benefited greatly from their turnover margin. Not only do they force turnovers on defense (2nd most steals in the league this season), they also take care of the ball on their end (2nd fewest turnovers in the league this season). On average, that gave them an extra 4.1 possessions a game.

That success has translated to the playoffs as well. In the last two playoff runs, they’ve forced 18.6 turnovers a game, and only turned the ball over 12.6 times themselves (with a +6.0 margin that’s even better than their regular season mark).

When OKC is winning that battle, they’re awfully hard to beat. They’ve gone 25-5 in the playoffs when they’re at a positive or neutral turnover margin.

It’s an incredibly small sample size, but they’re only at a 1-2 record when they lose the turnover margin in a game. In game 3 of last year’s Minnesota series, they lost the turnover battle by 5, and lost the game by a whopping 42 points. In game 6 of last year’s Finals, they lost the turnover battle by 11, and lost the game by 17 points. The one exception happened this year in game 4 against Phoenix. The Thunder lost the turnover margin by 5, but were able to overcome that with some particularly good shooting (¹⁷⁄₃₄ from 3).

all stats courtesy of basketball-reference