The Rotation: Kyrie Irving leads the Cavaliers to a sweep

The NBA playoffs are here. The games are tighter, the lights are brighter, and the narratives are getting thick. It can be a lot to keep up with but don’t worry we’re here to help. Throughout the NBA postseason, FanSided will be gathering together some of the most talented writers from our network for a daily recap of our favorite stories from the night before.

Welcome to the Rotation.

Fearless Kyrie Irving makes anything possible

Maxwell Ogden | @MaxwellOgden | Daily Knicks, HoopsHabit

The Cleveland Cavaliers will either win a championship or face history’s unforgiving wrath. LeBron James has shouldered that burden since entering the NBA in 2003, but his teammates are beginning to face a similar measure of pressure.

Kyrie Irving’s fragile limbs are growing stronger with every postseason game.

For Irving, the 2015-16 regular season was more rehabilitative than it was conducive to his development as a player. True as that may be, he’s playing at a level he’s never consistently reached before. Between his late-game heroics and itchy trigger finger, a fearless Kyrie Irving has transformed the Cavaliers into legitimate championship contenders.

Irving appeared uneasy throughout the 2015-16 NBA regular season. He never seemed comfortable shooting from beyond the arc, as evidenced by the fact he converted a career-worst 32.1 percent of his three-point field goals. Only once before had Irving finished a season below 39 percent, which was a 2013-14 campaign during which he made 35.8 percent of his attempts.

Far more important than the statistical improvement is how far Irving has come mentally. He attacked without relent against the Detroit Pistons in Cleveland’s four-game sweep, throwing caution to the wind and aggressively looking for his shot.

Whether it was a clutch moment or an in-rhythm look at the basket, Irving is making a concerted effort to not let Cleveland lose. He hit enormous three-pointers down the stretch of both Games 3 and 4. As James embraces his role as the methodical leader on the court, Irving has become the explosive scoring threat Cleveland so desperately needed a season ago.

Irving isn’t concerning himself with trivial issues such as field goal percentage or shot count. He attacked every caliber of defender Detroit had to offer, and seems to be feeling far more comfortable in accepting his responsibility as a scorer. And thus, the Cavaliers’ championship aspirations have suddenly become legitimate.

For the lack of a better word, James has been grooming Irving for this role since he returned to Cleveland. Even in 2014-15, James seemed very comfortable deferring to his younger teammate — almost to the point that he preferred it. The clear message was that James understood how important it is for Irving to find his comfort zone as a scorer.

Against the Pistons, Irving embraced that role. He created for himself in isolation, finished at the rim, lit Reggie Jackson up from midrange, and converted three-point field goals off the catch.

In other words, Irving is doing all of the things that James needed his teammates to in the short-handed 2015 NBA Finals. Love him or hate him, James will penetrate at will and create opportunities for his teammates. During the 2015 Finals, however, a shorthanded Cavaliers team failed to provide the necessary supporting fire.

When James wasn’t creating their offense, there was no offense to discuss.

When Irving plays the way he did against Detroit, concerns about the offense stalling become neutralized. Detroit may not be Golden State, but this was a tough and physical series. When Irving plays the way he did against Detroit, anything is possible for the title-hungry Cavaliers.

Come at King James, you best not miss

Cody Williams | @TheSizzle20 | Lake Show Life, FanSided

In Season 1 of David Simon’s indelible HBO series The Wire, there’s an episode in which Omar Little — one of the shows most violent yet polarizing characters — retaliates after his street rivals destroy his home and his vehicle. After shooting one of the two assailants, Omar taunts the other by saying simple, “Come at the king, you best not miss.”

When it comes to the NBA Playoffs the mantra should read something similar: you come at King James, you best not miss.

This is a lesson that Detroit Pistons rookie Stanley Johnson learned the hard way in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. After a minor physical incident in Game 2 where LeBron James bumped the rookie, Johnson proclaimed to reporters after the game that he was “definitely in his [LeBron’s] head.”

The reality of the situation is that Johnson may have been getting under James’ skin at that particular moment, but the rookie only angered the beast that lives within LeBron in the postseason. If you need anymore evidence of that, just know that the Cavaliers superstar averaged 23 points, 10 rebounds, 5.3 assists, and 1.7 steals per game while shooting 47.5 percent from the floor in the final three games of the season as Cleveland proceeded to sweep the Pistons out of the postseason.

It’s nigh impossible to not look at Johnson’s comments as foolish. Sure, there’s a level of brashness that you have to admire from the youngster, but the line between confidence and stupidity is often too fine to decipher in these situations. At this point, though, it should be common knowledge that you don’t poke the bear that is King James in the postseason — especially if you aren’t able to substantiate or back up your claim.

This was a point most recently proven in the 2014 Eastern Conference Finals as LeBron was still making his residency in South Beach. In Game 5, as King James was struggling and the Indiana Pacers were trying to fight back in the series, the immortally sophomoric Lance Stephenson decided it would be in his team’s best interest for him to taunt James — highlighted by the infamous blowing in the ear:

How did that end up for Stephenson and his team as the Pacers won that Game 5 to pull the series to 3-2? The next game, on only 32 minutes on the floor, LeBron dropped 25 points, six assists, four rebounds, a steal, and a block as he led the Heat to a closeout victory to take Miami to their fourth-straight NBA Finals appearance.

Lance wasn’t the first to make this mistake, though. The most egregious example of such things came the previous year before the postseason had ever started. Then Milwaukee Bucks guard Brandon Jennings was being interviewed about his upcoming series against LeBron in the Heat. Jennings went on to slight James and Miami by saying that Milwaukee — a team that went 38-44 in the regular season — would win in six games:

That ended every bit as poorly as you’d expect as the Heat swept the Bucks behind a huge four-game run by LeBron. James averaged 24.5 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 6.8 assists per game while shooting 62.7 percent from the floor, simply dominating the Bucks almost single-handedly in the quick series and gilding Jennings’ “Buck-in-6” in the lore of NBA stupidity.

Jennings may be the worst example, but Johnson is the most recent without question when it comes to taking shots or slighting LeBron James. What remains the same is how terrible of an idea it is to simply anger one of the best players in the world and possibly of all time.

One day a player will take a shot at LeBron James in the mental game of the NBA Playoffs and they’ll be able to back it up. After all, (spoiler alert) even Omar dies in The Wire. But that day isn’t now for King James on the streets of the NBA.

Isaiah Thomas, The Great and Powerful

Daniel Rowell | @danieljrowell | Hardwood Paroxysm

On Friday night, after a 42-point performance in Game 3, Isaiah Thomas sat at the podium for his postgame interview. A media member began by listing players that had scored 40 or more points in a playoff game for the Boston Celtics: “Ray Allen, Larry Bird, John Havlicek, Sam Jones, Reggie Lewis, Paul Pierce, Rajon Rondo, JoJo White… and Isaiah Thomas” After just a few names into the list, Thomas turned away from the reporter, looking down to fight the smile growing on his face. Thomas had won the first playoff game of his career and had done it in a manner that only eight Celtics legends had done before.

Two days later, after his second playoff victory, Thomas invited his two sons, Jayden and James, onto the podium for the post-game interview. Thomas has 28 points and six assists, battering Atlanta’s interior defense with relentless drives to the rim, and helping the Celtics even the series at two games apiece. As Thomas stood and ushered them off the stage, they grabbed the mic. Giddy with excitement, they didn’t want to leave. Jayden laughed into the mic before James leaned in and proclaimed “Isaiah’s the greatest basketball player.” In just two playoff games at TD Garden, Isaiah had gone from an 0-6 playoff record, to Celtics legend, to the ‘greatest basketball player’.

Thomas’s son James was not that far off with his mic drop, over the opening round of the NBA playoffs Thomas leads the NBA in scoring, averaging 28.3 points in six games. Thomas has transformed from the lead scorer on a injured team that wasn’t quite good enough, to the comeback story of the playoffs. A series that had been largely written off after a gruesome shooting performance in Game 2 became the most exciting games of the weekend, including an overtime in Game 4 that threatened to overlap with the timeslot and hype for the premiere of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

Like a kid grabbing the podium mic to cape for his dad as the GOAT in front of the NBA media, watching Isaiah Thomas take over in Boston and bring his team all the way back to a 2-2 tied series wasn’t just enjoyable, it was cathartic. Let’s face it, it’s been a difficult opening round for the NBA Playoffs. It’s a playoffs where the 73-win Golden State Warriors had to sit Steph Curry in three games, scheduling an MRI for Monday. It’s a playoffs where a Thunder team that finally had their health in the postseason was coughing up home losses to Raymond Felton’s Dallas Mavericks. It’s a playoffs where the re-emergence of a rehabbed Paul George is soured by the desperation of a Toronto Raptors team that just can’t figure it out. The 101 minutes of fast-paced, hard-fouled, big-shot basketball that the Celtics and Hawks gift-wrapped for the fans this weekend was a poetic couplet in a milieu of garbage time and garbage matchups.

And here is the joy of basketball. Isaiah Thomas is a 5-9 point guard that has moved from 60th-overall pick to NBA walkabout to Giant Killer. Watching Thomas find a home in Boston these past two years has been great, but watching him show up for Boston in the playoffs has been storybook. He’s facing a frontcourt in Paul Millsap and Al Horford that are averaging a combined six blocks per game, driving between a defensive scheme that’s designed to stop Thomas at the cost of open shots for his teammates. Through the first two games in Atlanta, Isaiah Thomas had hit a wall — 12-of-36 from the field with six turnovers. In Game 2, Thomas scored just five points on 16 drives to the basket, meeting double and triple-coverage that dared Thomas’s teammates to shoot. The Celtics had their worst effective field goal performance in two years under Brad Stevens, 34.7 percent, only scoring seven points in the first quarter.

In two games at home, Thomas scored 30 points on 46 drives to the basket. It’s ridiculously efficient and it wasn’t just Thomas. His teammates combined for a 53 effective field goal percentage in Game 3, well above their average and they hit shots when Boston needed it most. During a fast-paced stretch in the fourth quarter Amir Johnson, Marcus Smart, Thomas, and Evan Turner all made key field goals in answer to three straight completions from the Hawks to keep the lead. A clutch three-pointer from Thomas earned him 40 points and sealed the game for the Celtics.

Headed into Game 4, the Celtics captured video of Thomas walking into the Garden. In a tan suit jacket, shirt and tie, he smiles as he walks to the locker room, but can’t help but peek into the tunnel and the court where the sea of green t-shirts hanging in the stands is waiting. A quick glimpse of the court where he put up 42 points, where hoped he to recreate some of the magic from Friday.

In the fourth quarter, the Celtics had lost the lead on two straight Atlanta three-pointers, down 92-90. Thomas took the ball at the top of the key with 18 seconds left. The Hawks blitzed on a screen from Marcus Smart, but Thomas cut left and beat them both. In the paint, he split a collapsing Al Horford and Kent Bazemore, tossing an underhanded shot off the glass. Tie game. In the last minute of overtime, the Celtics then up 4, Evan Turner passed to an open Thomas in the corner for a three-pointer that sealed it (Again!). At the free throw line on the next possession, the Garden began cheering, “MVP.”

Thomas is the kind of player that’s hard to root against. Some of it is his size. Some of it is his NBA journey to this point. But in a NBA opening round that has been lackluster at best, watching the point guard (and his kids) re-introduce himself isn’t just must-watch, it’s must-love.

Charlotte Hornets go big, get big results

James Tillman III | +JamesTillman3 | HoopsHabit

Once all of the Eastern Conference playoff seeds were determined, I thought that the one of the most competitive first-round series would be between the Charlotte Hornets and the Miami Heat. However, after the first two games, that prediction seemed to be a bit premature to say the least.

After all, Miami was averaging 119 points per contest on 58 percent shooting from the field. That, along with that fact that they had no answer for Hassan Whiteside, who averaged 19 points and 12 rebounds on a sizzling 17-for-19 from the floor, things looked pretty bleak for the Hornets heading in Game 3.

So what strategy could the Hornets employ to get back into the series? The answer was simple according to Hornets owner Michael Jordan and associate coach Patrick Ewing: make a concerted effort to get the ball inside to Frank Kaminsky.

This strategy sounded a bit strange on the surface considering Kaminsky is the same guy who didn’t attempt a single shot in the series opener. Additionally, Kaminsky missed his lone shot attempt in Game 2 and finished with just four points. The only bright spot Kaminsky provided for the Hornets in Games 1 and 2 was that he was the only Charlotte player to finish with a positive plus-minus rating in both games.

While it would be difficult for head coach Steve Clifford to argue with the advice from two Hall-Of-Famers, the odds of this move paying off were between slim and none. And after missing on both of his attempts in the first half of Game 3, it appeared that Kaminsky was heading toward another unproductive day at the office.

However, in the second half, the tide of the game changed for both Kaminsky and the Hornets. With the game tied at 51 in the third quarter, the Hornets went on an 18-0 run (22-5 overall) that essentially enabled them to come away with a convincing 96-80 victory, marking their first postseason win since 2002. Kaminsky scored 13 in the decisive period and finished with 15 points and six rebounds.

In addition to Kaminsky being inserted into the starting lineup, Marvin Williams was moved over to the small forward spot in place of Nicolas Batum, who is out with an ankle injury. What were the results?

Williams finished with 12 points on 5-for-9 shooting and pulled down 14 rebounds, allowing the Hornets to enjoy a 52-28 edge in the paint. Although the Hornets had an impressive showing to avoid falling into a 0-3 hole, Clifford knows that this goes beyond winning just one game.

“This isn’t about winning one game, Clifford said, via NBA.com.”This is about winning a series. The NBA is a series, four-out-of-seven. You’re either 0-1 in a series or 1-0. Really what it does is it gives us a chance. The guys played well. Again we have to be mature enough to do the same thing, watch the film. What did we do well? Make it better. What do we need to do better? There are certainly a lot of things, fix those and then give ourselves a chance to win again on Monday.”

On the heels of an impressive victory, the Hornets have proven that they can play well against a team that stifled them through the first two games. The question is, can they ride the wave of this newfound momentum and notch another victory on their home court in Game 4?

Ian Mahinmi finally had his night as a playoff x-factor

Tom West | @TomWestNBA | FanSided, Clipperholics

As the third-best team in terms of defensive efficiency, armed with a two-way superstar in Paul George, there are a few assets that are allowing the Indiana Pacers to ruin what Toronto Raptors fans hoped would be a fairly stress-free first round. It feels like something the Raptors have earned after a franchise-record 56 wins this season, falling just one win shy of the Eastern Conference leading Cavaliers.

Beyond the Raptors’ overall improvement and top-five finish in offensive efficiency, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan — two players who already had All-Star appearances to their names before this season — elevated their impact even further this season.

With that in mind, and the adjustments made to the rest of Dwane Casey’s roster, you’d think the Raptors’ playoff demons wouldn’t still be nipping at their heels, causing them to be stuck at 2-2 with the Pacers. But that’s still the case, and rather than Paul George being the reason why Indiana won Game 4 by a healthy 100-83 margin, it was none other than Ian Mahinmi.

Fighting through lower back pain and reminding us that there was a center waiting to deliver besides Jonas Valanciunas, Mahinmi had the game of his life.

Mahinmi has had a playoff-filled career so far with minimal roles. He represented the Spurs for a few minutes in 2009-10, won a ring as a minor backup with the 2011 Mavericks, and sat behind Roy Hibbert in the Pacers’ tough defensive rotation over the last two seasons. But stepping up more than anyone else, putting Lowry and DeRozan’s struggles to shame, was Mahinmi with a game-high 22 points. The Pacers outscored the Raptors by 20 in the 33 minutes he played.

On a night where all the stars were fairly pale in comparison, and Valanciunas stopped dominating the paint as he had the last three games (averaging 14.7 points and 16 rebounds), Mahinmi found more success with hook shots and simple positioning down low then he ever has.

Thanks to some patience inside, waiting for quick passes from driving guards, Mahinmi was able to capitalize with easy opportunities to make up for his lack of range, finishing well through contact as he has all season (69 percent shooting within three feet). He went 9-of-14 from the floor to go along with 10 rebounds, five assists, two steals and a block, even adding a ferocious drive past Bismack Biyombo for a dunk that demoralized the reeling Raptors even further.

Along with his sound defense, highlighted by the fact he’s held the Raptors to just 44 percent shooting at the rim against him this series (per NBA.com), it was Mahinmi’s turn to take center stage after Valanciunas took control in the last three games. Along with the work of his teammates, Mahinmi was a key part of the Pacers’ holding the Raptors to 36.5 percent shooting overall.

If the Pacers’ defense keeps smothering the disappointing playoff versions of Lowry and DeRozan, there’s no reason this series can’t go to seven games. And if Mahinmi is able to come close to replicating this kind of performance again (he averaged only 20 minutes and 4.3 points over the first three games), he can provide an interior edge as well, helping to counteract Valanciunas and stumping the Raptors even further.

The defense is expected, but any random playoff-Mahinmi offense is just an added bonus. And it’s one that should make Indiana rejoice at the increasing chance of an upset.

The Warriors can’t stop, won’t stop breaking records

Todd Whitehead | @CrumpledJumper | Nylon Calculus

On Sunday afternoon, the Golden State Warriors made a playoff-record 21 three-pointers. This seems like another in a long line of records for this year’s Warriors: most wins in a season, most road wins in a season, most wins to start a season, individual single season three-point record… What’s most impressive about the Warriors’ latest record, though, is that they did it (mostly) without ace shooter, Stephen Curry.

The sequence of the Golden State Warriors 21 three-pointers in Game 4 against the Houston Rockets, split into quarters, with time and scoring margin listed.

At the end of the second quarter, when Curry sprained his knee falling on a Donatas Motiejunas sweat slick, things looked dicey for the defending champs. The game was tied entering the third quarter and Curry was not available to re-enter the fray. In their moment of uncertainty, the Warriors found “Strength in Numbers” — the team mantra that evokes The Warriors’ depth and teamwork — specifically, the Warriors found strength in one number; the number THREE. In the subsequent quarter, the Warriors netted eight three-pointers: four from Klay Thompson, three from Draymond Green, and one from Harrison Barnes.

The long-distance barrage blew the game open; Golden State scored 41 points in the third and established a 21-point lead. The Warriors held onto their advantage in the fourth quarter and chipped in four more three-pointers from four other players, breaking the record for threes made in a playoff game. Ultimately, nine different Warriors made three-pointers: Curry, Thompson, Green, Barnes, Andre Iguodala, Marreese Speights, Ian Clark, Leandro Barbosa, and Brandon Rush.

Steph Curry and the cost of senseless hubris

Josh Hill | @jdavhill | FanSided

For 85-games this season, Golden State Warriors fans were hoping that the injury bug didn’t bite their team and destroy a chance to make history.

In the 86th game of the year, it appears the Dubs might have flown too close to the sun — and stupendously so.

Steph Curry slipped and took a nasty non-contact fall in Golden State’s rousing Game 4 win over Houston on Sunday. He didn’t return to the game and has been diagnosed with a sprained knee.

Everyone is worried about the fact that Curry’s knee injury looks really bad, but the real concern here isn’t within Curry’s knee but the forces controlling how much stress will continue to be put on it.

The weight of history is on the shoulders of the Warriors, and Steph Curry is stepping up to be the face of the crusade. But the toll it has taken is starting to show and the hubris of being the best player in the NBA on the best team in professional sports is the real injury that continues to get worse.

Let’s be real: Steph Curry has no business playing in this series. When he rolled his ankle in the first game, he should have just been shut down for the remainder of the series. Do the Warriors — a team that won 73-games this year — really think that the Rockets — a team that literally fell asleep in Game 4 — can beat them?

The Warriors could pull five fans down from the crowd and still beat a Rockets team that is about as uninterested in being in the playoffs as a franchise possibly could be.

You’d think that a team would try to preserve their superstar player at all costs, especially when so much is riding on the Warriors seeing this season through. Lest we forget, this is the first round of the NBA Playoffs, not Game 7 of the Finals. The Dubs aren’t getting the Larry O’Brien trophy if they beat the Rockets; they need to get through Los Angeles and then (probably) San Antonio to get there.

Why risk Curry in a series that the team you’re playing against doesn’t even want to win?

Patrick Beverley was supposed to break Curry, he wasn’t supposed to do it to himself. It’s like Curry and the Dubs are thumbing their nose at the basketball gods. We were given no warning when Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook tore their ACL’s. Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving went down so suddenly. With Curry, the gods are screaming that something bad is going to happen, but the hubris of the Dubs forces them to ignore the signs.

The Warriors have been perhaps the smartest team in basketball all season long, but playing Steph Curry in this series after he hurt his ankle might be the dumbest thing a team has done in a very long time.

We expect more out of Golden State, which is why this is so much more frustrating than it has to be.

Things I will tell my grandkids about the San Antonio Spurs

Ian Levy | @HickoryHigh | FanSided

Watching the Memphis Grizzlies crumble before the San Antonio Spurs was expected, one team was ravaged by injury, the other was at the height of their powers. It was also a reminder that nothing lasts forever. While the Spurs are chasing history, the steady march of time will eventually pass them by. That understanding has me in a reflective mood, thinking of how I will explain the this team and their era to my children and my children’s children. Here is a short list of things I would like to pass on to them and, in the Levy family tradition, I have made sure not to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

The San Antonio Spurs spent two decades moving the largest mountains in the land, and they did it one pebble at a time.

A Tony Parker mid-range jumper could bring a grown man to tears, so precise was its arc, so beautiful was its geometry.

They Spurs were shapeshifters, bound not by the laws of physics or the parameters of time and space. Their only limitation was their collective imitation.

Manu Ginobili had a bald spot so beautiful, so striking that it single-handedly put the Hair Club for Men out of business. Even Woody Harrelson thought it was dope.

The Spurs created a player development machine that was as efficient as any recycling enterprise in the history of mankind. It was “garbage in, gold out.” To this day, alchemists are still working to unravel the intricacies of their processes.

To watch Tim Duncan play basketball was to confront your own humanity, to stare into its wise eyes and grey-bearded face. To know everything and nothing at once.

Gregg Popovich had a sick wine cellar. Dude appreciated a nice Pinot.

Kawhi Leonard has eight arms and hands twice as big as your head. He was natural-born but science could not have built a more perfect basketball player.

If you could live your life the way the Spurs played basketball, really inhabit their culture and values, transfer them to your own mundane existence, the stars and the rainbows would whisper their secrets to you. Immortality would be yours for the taking.

Thunder booms, but lightning strikes

Gerald Bourguet | @GeraldBourguet | HoopsHabit

The term “thunderstruck” is funny when you think about it. Isn’t it the lightning itself that does the striking? The thunder is just the booming sound heard from miles away, seconds after a searing bolt of energy strikes the ground. It may scare you for a moment during a storm, but the lightning does the actual damage.

In the category of championship contenders, then, there is no NBA team more aptly named than the Oklahoma City Thunder. On paper, the Thunder have everything you’d need to win a title:

An electric point guard who might be the league’s greatest triple-double machine since Magic Johnson? Check.

A once-in-a-generation scorer who heats up in a hurry and drains the long ball? Check.

A stretch-4 who protects the rim on one end and spreads the floor on the other? Check.

A high impact reserve who puts up big numbers in a hurry? Check.

A physical interior presence with a hall-of-fame mustache? Check.

In reality though, their title aspirations might just be noise with zero substance.

Any team with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook is a force of nature, and if we extended this analogy to individual players, Westbrook might actually be the NBA embodiment of lightning in a bottle, only if that bottle were lobbed from the rafters of Chesapeake Energy Arena and shattered all over the court for 48 straight minutes.

Unfortunately, OKC’s first round series against the vastly inferior Dallas Mavericks has implied that the Thunder might be a championship-caliber talent, but not the right disposition or mental toughness to actually win one.

After the Thunder stormed into Dallas and won both road games, it’s unlikely the shorthanded Mavs have enough in the tank to become the 10th team in NBA history to overcome a 3-1 series deficit. But Oklahoma City’s constant scuffling against scrappy underdogs has been even more embarrassing than dropping Game 2 at home.

Yes, the Mavs started it when Charlie Villanueva and Justin Anderson got in the way of Westbrook and Cameron Payne’s pregame dance-off — a tradition the two have shared all season long.

But getting huffy for interrupting an improv dance routine is a description not really befitting a professional basketball player, and it threw the Thunder off for that Game 2 defeat.

In Game 3, the shenanigans continued, even in a 29-point rout. Raymond Felton and Steven Adams had to be separated, earning double technicals. Dirk Nowitzki had words with Andre Roberson after the Thunder wing plowed through him on a screen. Head coach Rick Carlisle even went as far as calling Durant out for an unprovoked elbow thrown at Salah Mejri.

Things got even worse in Saturday’s Game 4 despite the Thunder earning another convincing road win. Westbrook received a technical for a shouting match in front of Oklahoma City’s bench after Anthony Morrow started playing keep-away with the ball from Mejri.

Serge Ibaka earned a technical for throwing an elbow in the closing seconds and Kevin Durant was ejected for an “attempt” on the ball that ended with Justin Anderson getting walloped in the side of the head — even if he apologized and said it was unintentional afterward.

Not all of these incidents were instigated by the Thunder. The Mavs are playing physical as the outmatched team, trying to get under their skin. A team like the Spurs won’t do that, but they won’t need to; for all the on-court dominance, Oklahoma City’s late-game woes have been telling and their lack of overall composure has been downright petty.

Thunder is loud, booming, authoritative. It commands attention, respect and may even scare some people. But much like Oklahoma City’s first round display, it might just be noise without any real substance.