The Rotation: Kevin Durant haunts the Thunder

The NBA regular season is a freight train that waits for no one. With multiple games nearly every single night, it can be difficult to keep up. As a solution, we humbly offer The Rotation — a daily recap series sharing three big stories from the previous night, one focused on a player, one focused on a single play, one focused on the big picture.

Kevin Durant haunts the Thunder

By David Rouben (@david_rouben)

After months of anger, subtweets, and verbal spats, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook finally went head-to-head. It was clear that Westbrook felt betrayed by Durant’s decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors, but there is an obvious line of thought that Durant left because he was sick of playing with Russ. If Westbrook is trying to say he can do what he wants now that Durant’s gone, KD is out to prove why he made the right choice.

All of Westbrook’s actions — dressing up as a photographer, his cupcake post on the fourth of July, his Air Jordan commercial — only appeared to anger Durant. Everyone expected Westbrook to have the big performance tonight, but this game showed everyone just how terrifying an angry Kevin Durant can be.

To recap, Durant finished with 39 points, seven rebounds, and one assist. He was 15-of-24 on field goals, and 7-of-11 on three-point attempts. And sure, the one assist sticks out like a sore thumb on a team that prides itself on ball movement. But the seven three-pointers, which matched a career high, doesn’t. To add insult to injury, he even added a block on Westbrook. While Durant has yet to have a bad game in a Warriors uniform, this was one of the best performances of his career.

Durant’s decision drew plenty of comparisons to LeBron’s, and he dialed up that comparison even further. LeBron’s first game with the Miami Heat against the Cleveland Cavaliers saw him score 38 points in three quarters, Durant topped that by one point. This game wasn’t in Oklahoma City, but the bad intentions were there all the same. While Westbrook’s hot start made some Thunder fans think they could forget about Durant, he’s going to haunt their dreams for awhile longer.

Even if Durant wasn’t that close with Westbrook, there were former teammates who were gutted watching him. He had a great relationship with Andre Roberson and Steven Adams, and their reaction as they looked on from the bench was soul-crushing:

But for the Warriors, this is exactly what they expected when they added a former MVP to their team. All the hot takes after their opening night loss to the San Antonio Spurs can fade away now, as Golden State is clearly the class of the Western Conference.

And while everyone was focused on Westbrook vs. Durant, this game proved how large the gulf in in depth is between these teams. If Oklahoma City couldn’t beat the Warriors with KD and a 3-1 lead, how can they expect to compete with them now? No matter how good Westbrook is, he’s not going to have a big game every night, and the Thunder can’t thrive on having just one playmaker. The next few games will determine if, and how, the Thunder can recover from this demoralizing loss.

The rage of Russell Westbrook

By Cody Williams (@TheSizzle20)

If it wasn’t evident before, Russell Westbrook made it clear that playing the Warriors was personal. From the moment he entered Oracle Arena, he was clearly talking to Golden State — even if he never actually said anything. The Thunder point guard’s motivations were vindictive and dripping with the rage he normally reserves for the rim.

However, as any good action movie will tell you, rage and revenge will only make you sloppy. Your emotions cloud your judgment to the point that you eventually are throwing wild haymakers to no avail. That’s how you end up with Russ taking shots like this:

Sure, that shot went in. But everything about it screams desperation. And while it might be the most impressive made bucket of the entire night, no one’s going to institute that play in their standard offensive system. Westbrook and, by proxy, the Thunder were erratic in trying to eviscerate the Warriors. There was no measured approach, just a headful of steam charging violently and hoping that it hurt them when they finally collided.

This was just like a classic action movie in how ineffective that approach ultimately was.

Only amplifying the rage-induced ineptitude of Westbrook and Oklahoma City was how contrastingly calm the Warriors approached Thursday night’s matchup. From Stephen Curry to Draymond Green to, of course, Kevin Durant, there was never a deviation from their game plan. Rather than having better judgment be clouded by anger and emotions, it was a methodical dismantling that took place. Each player played to their strengths and never wavered from that. Sure, there were moments where players were jawing with the opponent and Draymond got his obligatory big-game technical foul. However, it was an assassin-like approach from Golden State. All business.

Read More: James Harden is set to have a season for the ages

You could certainly argue that Westbrook’s overly emotional play was only amplified by the fact that he doesn’t have a team around him near the caliber of the Warriors. That’s part of the issue, without question. Still, that doesn’t necessitate getting out of rhythm, out of control, and out of sorts because of the personal and emotional stake you’ve put in the matchup. Maybe the Thunder still lose if Russ plays more controlled on Thursday night; but they don’t get embarrassed.

In the grander scheme, these matchups between the Warriors and Thunder don’t hold that much weight in an 82-game season. However, there is something more than playoff-positioning at stake when these two teams collide. The difference in the first matchup was each team and each star’s approach. And if Westbrook truly wants his revenge, tempering his rage against the Warriors is the first step.

A preview that wasn’t really a preview

By Chris Manning (@cwmwrites)

At the start of this season, many pegged the Boston Celtics as the Cleveland Cavaliers’ biggest threat in the East. Their coach, their deep, versatile roster and the addition of Al Horford have many thinking Boston is the team with the best chance of ending LeBron James’ reign of terror over the East; Thursday’s game in Cleveland was the first chance to see if this could be true

Boston, though, came in at less than full strength. Horford — the Celtics’ best player and Isaiah Thomas’ pick-and-roll partner — missed the game with a concussion. Additionally, Boston’s best option on LeBron — Jae Crowder — hurt his ankle last night and will be out at least a week. Throw in the fact that Boston was on the second half of a back-to-back and that the Cavs are still figuring out their rotation — only one lineup entering Thursday’s game had amassed over 10 minutes together per Basketball-Reference — and you have the makings of a game that wouldn’t prove to be as insightful as one might have hoped when circling on the schedule.

Did the game — which the Cavs won 128-122 — get close late? Yes, especially while LeBron sat and the Cavs struggled to maintain a rhythm. Were there fun moments, like Tristan Thompson ending Tyler Zeller on national TV, rookie Jaylen Brown scoring on LeBron or the Cavs’ Flying Death Machine being fully engaged? Absolutely. And is it somehow historical, with LeBron James getting very close to passing Hakeem Olajuwon on the NBA’s all-time scoring list and entering the top-10? One hundred percent, yes.

But the players missing — plus belief that the Cavs can/will hit a level above everyone not in Oakland when it matters — and the this game taking place so early in the season tempers its educational value. While the game was close late, it felt as if the Cavs were toying with Boston at times; when the Celtics’ comeback happened, it was at least somewhat caused by the Cavs struggled to stay sharp in a game that felt over.

“I don’t want to say it was boredom,” Cavs guard Kyrie Irving said. “We just need to muster up our internal motivation to just put teams away. That’s a good team in that locker room. We have to make more of a concerted effort to extend that lead and get rest in the fourth quarter. It won’t happen all the time, but for us, we have to have that mental edge we’ll need later in the season, so why not start now?”.

If there was one direct takeaway from this game to be applied to how these teams stack up — and it’s hard to see if this will carry over, as Horford and Crowder are probably the two most important pieces of Boston’s defense — it’s how the Celtics defended LeBron. When James would have the ball out in isolation on Monday — whether he was being guarded by Brown or Smart — the Celtics sent a big to help. When this happened, LeBron shifted into passer mode and the Celtics’ defense was forced to scramble and defend cuts to the rim. As far as stopping LeBron strategies go, this wasn’t bad. Other trends on both sides — Irving’s expanded role in Cleveland’s offense, Avery Bradley’s emergence, etc. — were already becoming realities before last night.

Another lesson could be the the Celtics know exactly what they are up against in the East and what it’ll take to make the Finals when the playoffs inevitably come.

“This is the best I’ve seen the Cavs play in November,” Boston coach Brad Stevens said. “Everybody is trying to figure themselves out to be the best version of themselves, but they’re way ahead of where they were the last two years, in my opinion. And (James) looks great. I mean, they’re really good.”

Stevens cited the Cavs’ willingness to maximize what their players do well — LeBron’s passing, Kyrie’s shot creation — as a reason why Cleveland is so good so early. In that sense, the two teams are built the same with the Cavs having a higher ceiling largely because of a certain guy who wears No. 23.

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“Everybody is utilized to the best of their strengths, so there is a lot of positives,” he said. “From what I can see, I think that’s a part of why they look so much better this November than others. And maybe that’s the continuity of having been together a few years, but [Cavs coach Tyronn Lue] has done a great job.”

Looking ahead, the Cavs and Celtics don’t play again until Dec. 29 — roughly two months and a few holidays from now — and then again March 1 and April 5. Between now and then things will change, Boston will probably get better and the Cavs will (probably) have ironed out a rotation by then. And when ‘then’ actually happens, we might learn something more substantive about how these two teams match up. Tonight was just the feeling out process.