Due to the implied agreement between you and me, the consumer and the generator of content on the vast Internet, it would be rather unbecoming of me to invite you here, to an ostensible “Oklahoma City Thunder playoff preview” piece, and leave you with only two words, even if they are the only two words that matter as far as the subject is concerned: Russell Westbrook. Alas, you clicked, so it stands to reason that I provide something more substantial for your eyes, currently wandering from whatever work you’re avoiding.
Now, of course, it’s a bit more complicated than just Westbrook. Despite his monolithic status and gravitational pull, both as a basketball player and as a burgeoning cultural figure, Westbrook is merely the thermonuclear device at the epicenter of a team built with a reciprocal fire. As his teammates enable him, so, too, does he enable them.
The Thunder are built around Westbrook because they have to be. This is an obvious truth, as plain a fact as there is in the NBA in 2017, but it is nevertheless of the utmost importance when considering how Oklahoma City could possibly get into the playoffs, let alone win a single playoff game or series. Head coach Billy Donovan has played to the strengths of his entire roster, and it just so happens that their strengths comfortably complement those of their MVP candidate.
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“Sheer force of will” has been an inescapable phrase with regard to Westbrook single-handedly carrying his team to victories this season, which reduces both his teammates and himself. On the one hand, the Thunder have many capable, real-life NBA players, the likes of which would be heartily welcome on any other roster in the league. On the other, Westbrook is one of the most physically impressive athletes in the world, and his work ethic is, by all accounts, a property somewhere in the Black Mamba subdivision.
To stand any chance against the Rockets in the first round, however, the Thunder are going to have to rely on their defense, which was top-10 in the league in the regular season by defensive rating, and their rebounding, which was the best in the NBA. With erstwhile teammate James Harden running the Rockets’ historically-great, 3-point bombing offense, Westbrook and the rest will have to hunker down defensively and control rebounds. How Steven Adams and Enes Kanter match up against Clint Capela and Ryan Anderson in the paint is going to be vitally important.
A key for the Thunder will be to leverage their own, and reduce the Rockets’ second-chance scoring opportunities. Naturally, the Thunder and Rockets were fifth and sixth, respectively, in second-chance points in the league. Adams and Kanter, as well as Domantas Sabonis, will have to stake a claim on the paint, punishing defenders at the rim on offense — the Thunder were second in the NBA in the percentage of points they scored in the paint — and preventing clear cutting lanes on defense. Andre Roberson, presumably the man tasked with defending Harden, will have to take care not to be hypnotized into open doors and foul trouble.
There is a bit of poetry in having the general-consensus top two MVP candidates square off against each other in the first round. The series between the Rockets and Thunder, and, by extension, between Harden and Westbrook, will represent a dichotomy of basketball philosophy. Neither deserves to be reduced to lacking nuance, but both are and will be, with Harden the orchestral conductor and Westbrook the General Patton-esque foolhardy leader of men.
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Yet, it all comes back to Westbrook, because it always does. He is Rubin’s vase, and the faces surrounding it. If the Thunder are to have any measurable playoff success in their first year post-[REDACTED], it will have to be by Westbrook’s sword. Even after 81 games of happily running into the sun dressed in a potato sack, Westbrook appears ready to continue upending expectation. Why not?