Credit Memphis for some of Westbrook’s TOs

Memphis forced 18 Thunder turnovers in Game 1, seven from Russell Westbrook. (AP)

It has been a rough couple of weeks for Russell Westbrook, a fantastic player who has had three shaky playoffs games in a row and has two things going against him:

1) He’s on the same team as Kevin Durant, meaning every so-so shot he takes will be seen as a possession wasted.

2) He’s 22, and still learning how to play point guard in the NBA.

Westbrook committed seven turnovers in Game 1 of the Thunder’s conference semifinal series against Memphis, a performance sloppy enough to provide more fuel to the “Westbrook is doing too much” chorus. Those people are right, to a degree.

Westbrook is doing too much. But this gets at something that has bugged me all season: The Grizzlies are really, really good at forcing turnovers. No team forced them more often, per possession, this season, and only a handful of teams over the last decade have forced turnovers at Memphis’ rate. Whenever a team plays Memphis and coughs it up nearly 20 times, fans will inevitably bemoan the sloppy play that led to all of those turnovers: “We just didn’t take care of the ball!”

Forcing turnovers is a skill. Too often, we think of teams that are good at forcing turnovers as creators of chaos, as a collection of guys running around, arms waving, doing crazy and unpredictable things the beautiful teams would never do. And the Grizzlies do some of that. But their chaos has rules, and those rules can sometimes be quite rigid. We saw it with their ability to take away the corner three-pointer against San Antonio, and we saw it again with the way Memphis handled Oklahoma City and Westbrook on Sunday.

I re-watched each of Oklahoma City’s 18 turnovers from Game 1 several times, and, as is always the case, those miscues came in part from poor decision-making and in part from whip-smart Grizzlies defense. Let’s focus, for now, on the latter and look at a few things that emerge when you break down the tape:

• The Grizzlies know Westbrook is going to get into the middle of the paint against Mike Conley, and they are OK with that. They appear to have even planned for that. Over and over, you see Westbrook drive into the paint, only to have at least one help defender (and more often two) meet him somewhere between the foul line and the dotted line at the bottom of the semicircle. The goal is clearly to have Westbrook pick up his dribble there and force him into a split-second decision — preferably one he has to make while he’s in the air. That slice of space is far enough from the rim that any shot is going to be a difficult floater instead of a layup; if he gets much deeper than that, the Grizzlies understand they are in trouble.

• This is the key: When Westbrook does pick up his dribble, the Grizzlies want all the easiest passing lanes clogged. They are incredibly good at this, and you can tell they have a few central principles they are going to use in this series. The first is to keep a defender as close to Durant as possible, no matter where the scoring champion is. He’s usually on the perimeter, in Westbrook’s direct line of sight, so the Grizzlies have committed to taking away that pass.

Take Westbrook’s turnover at the 7:45 mark of the second period. He beats Conley off the dribble and rumbles from the left wing into the paint. As he arrives at the elbow, four Memphis defenders surround him. Conley is on his left hip.  Darrell Arthur has slid down off Nick Collison to block the passing lane to Westbrook’s right (the direction Westbrook is facing). This in theory leaves Collison open as a release valve at the top of the circle, but O.J. Mayo has shifted into that passing lane, leaving only James Harden well beyond the top of the arc, directly behind Westbrook’s back and out of sight.

And Durant? He’s on the right wing, behind the three-point line, easy for Westbrook to spot. Because of some cross-matching, Zach Randolph is defending Durant, and he is staying home. No pass there.

That leaves only Ibaka on the left edge of the paint, and he appears open, as his man (Shane Battier) has moved to the center of the paint to take a possible Westbrook charge. But Battier is baiting Westbrook. When Westbrook rises and passes to Ibaka, Battier is sliding back in Ibaka’s direction before the ball is even out of Westbrook’s hands. He steals the pass.

This stuff isn’t an accident. When Westbrook commits a charge at the 6:56 mark, you once again see every Memphis defender come over to help in the paint — except for Battier, who is guarding Durant on the right wing and stays right on him, removing that pass. When Westbrook beats Conley off the dribble on the next possession, the Grizzlies converge in the paint again but do so in way that the only available pass is a brutal over-the-shoulder, no-look job to Ibaka on the right baseline. Every other lane is closed; Nick Collison is under the rim, in line for a simple drop-off pass, but Randolph is stationed between Collison and Westbrook. Sam Young never moves far from Durant on the perimeter. Mayo is in position to deflect any pass to Harden on the left wing – another target in Westbrook’s sight line. Even Conley, beaten badly, has moved toward Ibaka on the baseline to at least make Westbrook think about the only pass he has left.

Westbrook tries that Ibaka dish, but it’s off target, and the Grizzlies steal it.

Let me be clear: The Thunder made a blatant mistakes that led to some of those 18 turnovers. Kendrick Perkins needlessly traveled in the post — a chronic problem with him. Thabo Sefolosha passed up an open baseline jumper in the fourth quarter, opting instead to pump-fake, drive and try to thread a tough interior, back-handed pass to Collison under the rim. Shockingly, it didn’t work.

And on Westbrook’s final turnover, you couldn’t help but feel that Scott Brooks needs to sit his point guard down and have him watch some film of Rajon Rondo’s running Boston’s fast break. With about 3:25 left in the fourth quarter, Westbrook rebounds a miss and pushes the ball hard. The problem for the Thunder is that Westbrook is moving so fast that he is ahead of the rest of his teammates. He’s not ahead of the Grizzlies, though. No fewer than four Memphis players surround Westbrook as he arrives at the three-point line; two of those players are directly in front of him. Westbrook almost has to pick up his dribble, and as he does, only one Thunder player has caught up with him. Westbrook passes to that player at the left elbow.

Unfortunately, that player is Perkins. To give your center the ball that far from the rim in a chaotic situation is to invite disaster, and disaster indeed follows. Perkins, dying to get rid of the ball, tosses it in the direction of Durant at the top of the arc — a pass Mayo sees coming a mile away. Mayo lunges and steals the ball. The statisticians had no choice but to give Perkins the turnover, but it was Westbrook’s fault, and it’s the kind of play where Rondo (or Chris Paul) would have turned the ball out, waited for his shooters and shoveled a pass to whoever came open.

Westbrook, at this young stage, hasn’t learned to make that kind of play consistently, in the half-court or in transition, and the Grizzlies used that against him in Game 1. Just don’t call them lucky — and don’t blame it all on Westbrook.