It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it is the age of wisdom, it is the age of foolishness.
Every game in the NBA playoffs is a blowout, which is no fun to watch. But at the same time, the storylines manifesting are as compelling as ever. This postseason is proving that this league is not always a predictable march of inevitability.
The unbeatable Golden State Warriors are not only getting beat — but walloped. They have given up more than 70 points in each of the past two first halves while getting run out of the gym by the Oklahoma City Thunder. Until now, 70-point halves were only produced regularly by only one team: the Warriors. But now the destroyer is becoming the destroyed.
The most impressive part of all this is, naturally, the Thunder. They are clobbering Golden State on both sides of the ball, taking control on the defensive end to force the type of misses and turnovers that make the defending champions look unrecognizable. Then they are continually aggressive with the ball, sticking 3s with confidence and getting to the rack with impunity.
Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant are looking like the best duo since prime Shaq and Kobe ran it back-to-back-to-back. Like a ’93 Wu-Tang Clan, Oklahoma ain’t nuthing to eff wit. KD is tiger style personified, Russ is the fatal flying guillotine, and the New Zealand super cat is like quarterback sacks from L.T.
Survey said, ya dead.
Golden State has all sorts of issues. Steph has turned into Seth Curry. Draymond Green looks less revolutionary, more revolting. Their other bigs are no match for their peers on the other side of the ball. And the small-ball lineups that were unstoppable all season now look like haphazard, gimmicky units that cannot defend a traffic cone.
All year, the debate centered on whether the San Antonio Spurs were actually good enough to knock off the Warriors in the de-facto NBA Finals that would take place when the West’s two top teams met. Both were all-time squads. Both put up ghastly margin-of-victory differentials all year. Both seemed to play a different sport from the rest of the league.
But another team has flattened them both.
The Thunder have now won six out of their last seven against these two powerhouses. They beat a Spurs team that lost only one game at home all year twice in San Antonio. Now they have taken back-to-back games from a Golden State squad that didn’t lose two in a row this whole season.
Though Steph is dealing with a banged-up knee and elbow, this is the playoffs and nobody cares. Excuses don’t fly when you’re on the court during the conference finals — and that goes double when you publicly scream “I’M BACK” after returning from injury while staring down opponents and flaunting your success so openly. Simply put, he has been terrible in the past two games, shooting 13-for-37 (35.1%) including 5-of-21 (23.8%) from 3-point range.
In Game 3, you could say it this is just a make-or-miss league and that he had a rough outing. It could happen to anyone. But in Game 4, Curry was committing unthinkable turnovers via careless passes. He looked like a younger brother who was helpless to do anything against an older sibling with no interest in taking it easy on the skinny young lad.
The Warriors inability to stun the Thunder with their shooting exploits has led to a reversal of confidence. Whatever life force once made Golden State unsolvable has been sucked out of them and only further fueled a rising behemoth in Oklahoma. And Curry’s waning confidence and inability to put on his Superman cape has been the most-glaring factor in a deflating effect that goes teamwide.
Then again, Steph’s dreadful play in the past two games is really not why the Thunder keep putting up 70-point halves.
It has started with Oklahoma’s defense. Kevin Durant has been the catalyst there. The four-time scoring champ, who has been putting up plenty of buckets, is using his length and smarts to disrupt everything. He is deflecting passes and just being a nuisance all over. It is the type of evolutionary performance that, if he can maintain going forward, means it is hard to see anybody beating his team for a long time.
Russell Westbrook has been the hammer. His 21 first-half points in Game 4 drained the Warriors spirits, and that was only a portion of his wrath. As the floundering Warriors D, particularly an out-of-sorts Draymond Green, could do nothing to slow the Thunder, Westbrook served up 9 assists in the first two quarters alone that led to 20 more points, according to ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh. He carved up Golden State in all ways possible, scoring when he desired and effortlessly setting up teammates for easy baskets when that was the path of least resistance. Russ creating 41 points in the first 24 minutes is what allowed OKC to blow out one of the best teams ever even as KD shot just 8-of-24.
How did this all happen?
We have no idea. We never saw it coming. And now we can do nothing but sit back in awe of an Oklahoma City team that rookie head coach Billy Donovan has playing better than anyone, other than KD and Russ, ever expected.
It’s as if, after the whole league spent the past 200-ish games getting ruthlessly uppercutted into the stands by Curry and company, the dynamic duo of Russ and Durant have come along and uncovered a pattern. It’s the same way we all eventually beat Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.
After hours or just staring at the screen, dumbfounded and throwing controllers in frustration while thinking victory was impossible, OKC have taken control of Little Mac and laid a perfect champion on his back. Steph and Klay keep shuffling there feet and throwing haymakers that knock out everyone else. But not Russ and KD. The’ve figured it all out and made the majestic look formulaic.
There are basketball means to explain what is happening. Mike Prada of SB Nation wrote a nice breakdown. Zach Lowe of ESPN has the goods. Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated offers a nice perspective. But as cool as the autopsies are, the amazing aspect of all this is that nobody saw this coming. This is like when the Soviet Union collapsed — changing the geopolitical balance of the planet overnight — and the whole world looked towards the foremost experts on international relations, who all just shrugged and were like, “Errrr, I dunno.”
On the other side of the league, the Cavaliers have been walking over everyone — especially in Ohio. After demolishing the Toronto Raptors last night, LeBron’s team improved to 7-0 on its home floor while beating opponents by an average of more than 20 points.
This is in line with how the whole postseason, and especially the two Conference Finals series have been going. Just two of the nine games played have been within double digits, with the other seven being decided by 31, 19, 27, 15, 28, 24, and 38 points.
Overall, this has been the most lopsided postseason in NBA history. At the start of this week, per ESPN, the average margin of victory for all teams was 14.0 points, beating out the 13.1 and 12.9 points per game seen in 1959 and 1964, respectively.
But the nutty storylines and unpredictability trump the non-competitiveness of the individual games.
We are now looking at the likelihood of the Cavaliers having home-court advantage in the NBA Finals. That is nuts. Yes, Cleveland’s participation in the event was a formality. The East just has no other teams on that level.
But they were also supposed to have no chance, simply serving as a foil who would partake in the coronation of the Warriors — or perhaps the Spurs. But now? After starting the postseason 10-0 and kicking hell out of everyone? They might just win this thing.
Toronto’s tale is also one of intrigue. While they simply have no business on the same stage as the Thunder, Cavs, and Warriors, there is grace in their failings.
Even in defeat, Lowry and DeRozan have redeemed themselves after early-round nightmares while Bismack Biyombo has become the breakout face of the postseason. Nobody has made themselves more money than Bismack. And DeMar has done an adequate job of salvaging his reputation enough to (probably) still get a max contract this summer.
The Raptors started with lackluster showings in back-to-back series. They barely escaped with Game 7 wins over inferior foes. Then the Raptors All-Star guards flipped the discussion. They did enough during two convincing wins over the Cavs to be seen as a formidable opponent. It’s just that, like every other East team over the past six years, the Raptors eventually had the misfortune of not employing LeBron James.
Lowry has made his mark though. He has risen to a higher level, taking and making long 3s in crucial moments while leading his team to wins in Games 3 and 4. He hit 21-of-33 (63.6%) of his shots in those victories as a whole country was galvanized by his performance.
For a time, Curry did something similar for the Warriors.
His knee injury threatened to derail an historic campaign by the reigning champs. Even if he came back in time for the West finals, would he be ready?
Upon return, he was more than ready.
Steph Curry was the best version of himself while scoring a record-setting 17 points in an overtime against the Trail Blazers. Then he somehow one-upped himself with a 47-punch combo on the Thunder in Game 2 that perhaps nobody else who has lived could do. He dropped 15 straight points in mere minutes while flattening OKC and all but ending the game single-handedly in the third quarter.
It all happened so recently — but it feels like ages ago. The Thunder have erased that past and rewritten their own future. They are dominating in ways that seemed inconceivable just last week. It started on Sunday — that was the night everything changed — and within 48 hours the entire NBA world had morphed into something else.
After watching OKC put the rout on that past two games, it makes little sense to consider a comeback for the Dubs. There is nothing from the past 96 minutes of basketball — and really the past seven full games for Oklahoma — to suggest this team could lose three straight right now.
Tyson does have those uppercuts though. And when they catch you leaning the wrong way, it’s lights out.
It isn’t hard to see the Warriors winning big in front of a fired up Oracle crowd in Game 5. Then maybe they take a close win in Game 6. Then it’s Game 7. And you never know.
It’s a long shot for sure.
But whether that unlikeliest of situations comes to pass or the Thunder simply close it out tonight in another blowout, the final script is still an all-timer. No, the individual games have not been as compelling as promised. The overall saga of the past six weeks, however, has been choice storytelling full of twists and turns that nobody saw coming.
Dunk King
The rumors of LeBron’s aging have been greatly exaggerated.
This is not a new development — we covered it in this space just last week — but it is so fascinating to me that an update is necessary. LeBron has been getting to the rim at an ungodly rate this postseason. He is doing things at 31 that he wasn’t able to do even in his early 20s.
LeBron now has 23 dunks in the 2016 playoffs, averaging one dunk every 21.3 minutes of court time. He only dunked once every 52.8 minutes last season and it was once every 34.3 and 32.8 minutes during his two title-winning campaigns. Only in 2009, when he had a career-high 29 dunks in a postseason, was he hanging on the rim more often, dunking every 20.0 minutes.
He has also abandoned the midrange. He is now just taking layups and 3s, which have now accounted for 72% of his shot attempts in the playoffs. That’s almost three-fourths of his attempts. He has just refused to take jumpers that aren’t worth 3 points to such a degree that Daryl Morey is blushing.
Other than this year, he has never taken even two-thirds of his shots at the rim and behind the arc. His previous high was 62.9% of his shots. For his postseason career, it’s closer to half at only 56.0%.
With the Cavaliers hitting their 3s and LeBron having a near-idyllic shot selection, nobody should count the Cavs out. The Thunder look unstoppable, but we should know by now to stop trying to predict the future.
Just watch and enjoy.
There won’t be too many more years of LeBron swinging on rims like he has in these playoffs. So pop your popcorn and get ready to enjoy.
Words With Friends
This week’s five must-read articles about the NBA. Excerpts here — click through to read the full piece.
1. Warriors’ Harrison Barnes journeys deep into Oakland
by Marcus Thompson, Mercury News
“Why does it have to be the media guy gets in trouble, or something tragic happens in their family, for you to get to know some of these media guys’ personal story?” [said Barnes] … The Ames, Iowa, native has an affinity for the grass roots, gravitates toward the down-to-earth. Barnes appreciates the beautiful struggle of overcoming. He is intrigued by backstories and context. So we took a ride … I took Barnes to the spot where we played hoop on a rollout court, a block from a high-traffic dope corner. I was giving some friends the business on the court when shots rang out. In a drug deal gone bad, some corner boys were shooting at customers speeding off — right in our direction. The piercing sound of bullets zipping by your ear is life changing. I also took Barnes to Tyrone Carney Park, named after a 20-year-old kid from the neighborhood who died in combat in the Vietnam War. It’s shut down: A gate keeps drug dealers from posting up, rust coats the play structures and untamed weeds fill in the court’s free throw line. It was at this park a dealer with a scary reputation threatened to kill me if he ever saw me there again. I just wanted to hoop. He knew a college-bound kid like myself didn’t belong up there.
2. Thunder Road: How long before Kevin Durant and Oklahoma City reign?
by Lee Jenkins, Sports Illustrated
The impact of sports franchises on urban renewal is often overstated, but in Oklahoma City it’s obvious. “The Thunder has given us a worldwide brand we’ve never had before,” says the mayor, Mick Cornett, citing the area’s strong corporate recruitment and staggering influx of millennials. “The exposure has been immeasurable. You tell somebody in another country you’re from Oklahoma City, and they say, ‘Kevin Durant.’”
3. Magic Johnson’s greatest tweets from the 2016 NBA playoffs, ranked
by Kenny Ducey, Sports Illustrated
Literally just a list of star players: “OKC vs. Golden State series will have it all…especially star power w/ Warriors’ Curry, Green & Thompson & OKC’s Durant, Westbrook & Ibaka!”
4. Everything you always wanted to know about Russell Westbrook but were afraid to ask
by Royce Young, ESPN
He calls his parents before every game. In a 2015 interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Westbrook said, “I talk to them every day. We’ve been so close as a family, I talk to them every day regardless of whether it’s two minutes, one minute, 30 seconds. I talk to them every day. Just on … about life and different things that may go on. All the time. Before every game, I call my parents, my brother, my fiancée as well. Sometimes it may not be about basketball, sometimes it just may be about random things. It’s just something that I’ve done and something that works for me.
5. The complete, costly guide to dressing like Russell Westbrook
by Whitney Medworth, SB Nation
Russ reminds me of Zorro. But you see those zebra shoes? If you have trouble finding them online, it’s because their Russ’ own shoes from Del Toro. His entire line from Del Toro runs at $395 a pair. Because that’s Russ.