Mark Jackson on the broadcast kept going on about the Portland pick and roll defense. I agree in that I’ve seen Enes Kanter up close as a Thunder fan with his defensive blemishes. Terry Stotts will have to adjust somewhat if you can adjust against the Warriors.
But Enes Kanter aside…nobody in the NBA is going to be beating these Golden State Warriors by putting up 94 points on the board.
115 points or so is usually the barrier a team needs to put on the board to hang with these iconic Warriors whether Cupcake is on the floor or not.
Did you really notice any significant difference without Durant on the floor?
What Kevin Durant is for Bob Myer is a hedge. A hedge in the sense he was there for the Warriors when LeBron was still relevant being on the Cavs playing in the NBA Finals. Relevant as in the next round Durant will come in handy when the opponent will either be lead by Giannis or Kawhi. But for this series—I really don’t think the Splash Brothers will need Kevin Durant and his moods of sulkiness and self-doubt littering the Western Conference Finals.
With all due respect to Mark Jackson–I feel through watching Durant from his days at Texas and with the Thunder … I have a much better feel on Durant than either he or Jeff van Gundy do from their national perch.
Kevin Durant is a hedge and he was a double hedge in reality. Bob Myer was smart enough to realize that the instant he removed Durant from Oklahoma City the Thunder would no longer be a viable rival to his Warriors in the West. Bob Myer is the guy I want handling trade deals with the Chinese…not Wilbur Ross.
Tell me with a straight face that didn’t work to perfection. Since the Cupcake exit to Oakland—the Thunder have become a Northwest Division also ran and a combined 4-12 in post season play. The question in Oklahoma City for next season isn’t if they’ll be a real contender…the real question will be if the NBA will still consider the Thunder viable enough to put on the Christmas Day schedule.
But for this Game 1 …it was really very simple and let me help Mark Jackson out and this might be why Steve Kerr is coaching his team right now:
Splash Brothers 62 – Damian & CJ 36.
There’s your storyline. Steph and Klay obliterated the Portland backcourt in this first game of the best of seven.
Harkless and Hood both had decent games with 17 points apiece, but combined–Damian and CJ went 11-31 from the field. No way do the Blazers win any games in this series with those two only attempting 31 shots and only making 12 of them.
No way.
Terry Stotts and his team have some things they need to talk about in the film room this afternoon if they want to make this series competitive whether Kevin Durant plays or not.
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I didn’t write about Game 2 on my blog because I was basking in the Boston Bruins glorious Eastern Conference championship. Here’s Steve Kerr discussing Golden State’s 114-111 win in Game 2. Take note…114 points for Golden State in relation to the 115 point plateau.