Nylon Calculus: Kevin Durant makes the impossible look easy
By Ian Levy
Thanks to the incredible show Kevin Durant put on in Game 3, the Warriors are in position to finish a sweep tonight of the Cavaliers. Durant started hot in the first quarter and just never cooled down, attacking every mismatch, making every play up to and including a back-breaking 3-pointer in the final minutes that echoed the one he hit in last year’s Finals.
His 43-point, 13-rebound, 7-assist performance is perfect for Basketball-Reference Play Index bingo. By Game Score, it was the sixth-best individual Finals performance going back to 1983-84. It was the second-most points ever scored in a Finals game on less than 25 shots from the field. It was the third-most points ever scored in a Finals game by a player who also recorded at least 10 rebounds and five assists.
His performance was remarkable in so many ways but the efficiency with which he scored against Cleveland’s defensive pressure really stood out. According to data from NBA Advanced Stats and Sportsradar’s shot difficulty model that takes into account specific information about the shooters, defenders, shot location, distance to defenders and actions prior to the shot, Durant scored 16 more points than expected, given his shot selection.
That’s an absurd margin and one of the reasons Sportsradar’s model estimated the Warriors to have had an enormous margin in both shot-making over the Cavaliers in Game 3, only a small portion of which was driven by creating higher quality shots.
Durant has been making the impossible look easy throughout these entire playoffs. His postseason marks for efficiency in isolation (1.01 points per possession) and post-ups (1.10 points per possession) would have ranked 15th and second in the league in the regular season, among players with at least 75 possessions.
Durant’s footwork and skill are letting him create enough space to get his shots off cleanly, but not enough that we would actually call them open. Nearly two-thirds of his shots in the playoffs (64 percent) been tightly or very tightly defended (with the defender four feet away or closer), according to NBA.com. He’s posted an effective field goal percentage of 51.5 on those closely defended shots, roughly equivalent to Jimmy Butler’s effective field goal percentage on all shots, open or defended, during the regular season.
This ability to make the shots most other players wouldn’t even think of attempting is one of the reasons he’s scored so efficiently in the Finals. According to Sportsradar’s shot-making model, Durant has scored 21 more points than expected across the entire series.
Durant’s shot-making has meant so much to the Warriors in the Finals. Although they’re up 3-0 and we saw Stephen Curry break the single-game Finals 3-point record in Game 2, the offense hasn’t exactly been humming. Draymond Green is just 2-of-9 on 3-pointers and David West is the only other Warriors with a made 3-point basket besides Durant, Green, Thompson and Curry. And although his record-setting performance in Game 2 dominated headlines, Curry has shot just 6-of-21 on 3s in the other two games of this series.
Next: The Warriors' imperfection has defined their NBA Finals run
In the Finals, the Warriors have managed to score just 82.3 points per 100 possessions which Durant on the bench, a drop-off of 45.9 points from what they’ve averaged with him on the floor. Getting to this point hasn’t been nearly as easy as the 3-0 lead would make it appear, and that’s mostly because Kevin Durant is making all the hard shots look easy.