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.
Russell Westbrook is .
Ian Levy | @HickoryHigh | FanSided
Russell Westbrook is not perfect. None of us are. He is a one man economy of scale, the human embodiment of quantity over quality — he does a great many things well but he also does everything more often than anyone else. By virtue of that quantity, we see much more of both the good and the bad of his basketball biology. Both are visceral, both are coming in a constant stream. The arbitrary 48-minute endpoint of a basketball game interrupts that stream and the accumulated sum at that moment seems to determine how Westbrook will be perceived for the next few days, often because that accumulated sum can be traced directly to whether the Thunder won or lost.
Today, Russell Westbrook is a hero. His second half — 21 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 turnovers — brought the Thunder to the edge of victory. Him powering through a (strangely) un-called intentional foul for a layup and another foul, sealed the deal. He did the same sort of bull-in-china-shop routine in the first half, but had 6 turnovers and a whole lot of broken teacups to show for it. The inventory in that china shop is getting dangerously low. Westbrook is sticking around to help clean up either, he has a playoff series to win.
Russell Westbrook is a problem. He missed 15 shots in Game 5, turned the ball over to San Antonio 8 times. If he could minimize his mistakes the game might not have had to be so close. If he could play a little more under control, the Thunder would be better and this series might be over already. The problem is that he if he could minimize his mistakes and play a little more under control, he’d be DeMar DeRozan and this whole conversation would be moot for a different reason.
Russell Westbrook is a spigot of basketball, valve fully open, handle snapped off. He’s going to run until the well goes dry, consequences be damned. The waterlogged Spurs are going need to build a raft or risk getting swept away.
Thunder crashing our Spurs-Warriors party
Josh Hill | @jdavhill | FanSided
As the clock wound down in Game 1 of the Thunder-Spurs series, we all came up with the same joke about someone waking us up when the playoffs started.
Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder have violently shaken us awake.
While the playoffs might have overslept a little, we have all been snoozing on a Thunder team that has gone from being fun to watch to being a team that might hold its own against the best team in basketball in the Conference Finals. Oklahoma City has a 3-2 series lead on the Spurs and have pushed them to the brink in just five games.
Nope, that’s not a typo — the Thunder are 48 minutes away from possibly ending Tim Duncan’s career a series short of the NBA Finals.
It seemed that after that Game 4 loss, the Spurs were simply in neutral — oddly biding their time before turning it on and bouncing out the Thunder. No one believed that this team we’ve watched become so consistently amazing over the last 15 years would just roll over before the Conference Finals. But now that they’ve been shockingly pushed to the edge of elimination, we all have to begin to become okay with living in a world where we’re robbed of the Spurs-Warriors series we were so coveting.
This seems like a tragedy, on the surface, but Oklahoma City has proven that it might be a blessing in disguise.
Watching Russell Westbrook do his Superman thing has become a joy that we almost take for granted. Kevin Durant is reminding us why he was the MVP a few years ago and that the best option for him in free agency might be to go wherever Russ is. We forgot that this dynamic duo was capable of carrying their team on an NBA Finals run and it’s restoring our respect in their game and their presence.
It’s high time we start giving their team the same respect.
The Warriors look to be utterly unstoppable; proof of this was seen in their comeback win over the Trail Blazers on Monday night. But the Thunder are an interesting wild card speed bump in the Dubs run to a title and it could be one that maybe yes some serious damage.
Golden State isn’t being tested by the Blazers, despite the series tally and the comeback needed to win Game 4. Oklahoma City isn’t beating the Spurs by chance — they’re beating the Spurs. That commands a certain level of respect, something we haven’t been giving the Thunder a whole lot of all season.
There’s so much to love about the Thunder, from Steve Adams to the ever present Serge Ibaka. Lest we forget Cameron Payne or Enes Kanter who have proved to be reliable in more than one way in this series. We focused so heavily on the ways Pop might beat the Warriors at their own game that we never stopped long enough to seriously consider the idea that the Thunder might be the better equipped team to outsmart a greater foe.
They’re an anomaly that shouldn’t exist. Billy Donovan is one win away from going to the Conference Finals in his first season as a head coach. Billy Donovan is about to outlast and outwit Gregg Popovich — we’re about to live in that world and we should be okay with it.
Golden State might roll over the Thunder, but that’s what we thought the Spurs would do. Now they’re down 3-2 heading to Oklahoma City in a must-win game. Even still, despite the way this series has gone, everyone is assuming that the Spurs will send this back to San Antonio and to a Game 7, but that’s the kind of underrating that put us all in the position to be shocked by the success of the Thunder in this series.
Let the shock wear off, and just bask in the awe of the cinderella Thunder.
For Tim Duncan, the time to go out on top is now
Wes Goldberg | @wcgoldberg | Hardwood Paroxysm, All U Can Heat
For so many years the conversation about the San Antonio Spurs and Tim Duncan was fundamentally the same: is this the year that it creeps in? “It” being both age and the strenuous, rubberband-edness of just being good for so long.
And so we waited and we waited. Before every season you could divide NBA analysts into three camps of “they’re a year older” and “never doubt the Spurs” and whatever Charles Barkley is.
Yeah, you shouldn’t ever doubt the Spurs. They won 67 games this season for goodness sake. But Tim Duncan? Well, now it seems the knot that tied organization and player has finally unraveled.
With San Antonio’s Game 5 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder Tuesday night, the Thunder go up 3-2 in the series and could earn a trip the Western Conference Finals as early as Thursday.
In the final minutes of the game, Duncan got up just enough to block Russell Westbrook’s driving layup. It was a rare moment this season when he did jump high enough. Duncan’s been a top-notch defensive player this season, but not in the Hassan Whiteside-way of jumping super high and slapping balls around. Duncan is more brain than body at this point, taking the right step in one direction or another to move his near-seven-foot assortment of torso and limbs between ball handler and basket.
The block was a great moment. The AT&T Center lost its friggin mind and Chris Webber exclaimed on the broadcast that Duncan is not done. I appreciate Webber’s excitement, but the block didn’t signify the continuation of the rule, it was the last-putter-of-gas exception.
It did, however, signify what Duncan is: A player who left everything on the court. A play that would’ve been so easy for him even five years ago still looked easy Tuesday night–but I’m sure it wasn’t. Gregg Popovich knew this, too, taking him out and having David West finish the game.
Duncan can’t keep up with either of Oklahoma City’s mustaches, nor can he help on Westbrook’s pick-and-rolls. He’s a non-factor on offense in a series in which both teams are totalling nearly 200 points a night. Duncan’s averages of just 3.4 points on 1.4-of-5 shooting, 3.6 rebounds and 20.6 minutes per game are leaving people wondering if he’s even playable at all.
I guess Duncan could have retired after last season or even after the 2014 championship. Going out “on top” whatever it’s worth. Going off into the sunset. But Duncan’s never been about the glory or the propping up of his own legacy.
Duncan helped shape San Antonio into one of the NBA’s premier organizations and he leaves it in the good, gigantic hands of the franchise’s new face. He pushed the bike along, and now he may be finally letting go, letting it ride off into the sunset.
Maybe Tuesday was the last time Duncan played in front of the crowd that’s adored him for all these years or, maybe, the Spurs will steal a game in Oklahoma City and extend this thing just a little more.
Either way, you get the sense now with Kawhi Leonard finishing second in MVP voting and LaMarcus Aldridge signing as a free agent that this organization is finally able to graduate, and no longer needs the caring arms of Duncan anymore. If ever the time was right to hang ‘em up, the time is now.