Finally… Super Bowl Saturday with the NBA on ESPN. The game everybody has been waiting to see since Kevin Durant went down just before halftime with an ankle injury in last season’s incredible first half of basketball at Oracle. So much has happened to both teams since.
Durant went on to eventually miss 55 games as Oklahoma City would miss the playoffs despite record setting heroics from Russell Westbrook.
Golden State won sixty games, then beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games to claim the O’Brien Trophy. But much was made by scribes of Golden State not having to deal with Oklahoma City, or having the luxury of playing a Cleveland team without Kyrie Irving or Kevin Love, or having the luck of not having to play the San Antonio Spurs at all. The experts were calling the Warriors championship a bit of luck with a perfect storm attached.
But that was then, now is a different matter after a record starting winning streak to open the season, a 22-0 home record, and a glistening overall mark of 45-4, and a team very much with a chance to reach the seventy win plateau this regular season. Suffice it to say, Golden State is sending a message to the pundits.
Meanwhile, OKC’s Thunder is about what we thought they’d be with a healthy Kevin Durant back in the lineup for all but seven games this season. The Thunder are 35-9 with Durant and either the third or fourth best team in the league, depending on how the Spurs’ health holds up. Durant has been spectacular this season with an improved game which features better defense and more passing than ever before. Russell Westbrook has been fabulous and is garnering triple doubles galore and has shownan expanded willingness to feed teammates. Clearly, this is the best season of combined play Durant and Westbrook have displayed while in OKC.
But the glaring question is a simple one. Has Sam Presti put enough around Durant and Westbrook for the Thunder to seriously challenge either Golden State or Cleveland in a best four out of seven series? It’s a very fair question, yet one not broached enough by the gentle Oklahoma City local media.
Obviously, I’m not alone in this thought as Vegas has OKC currently as an eight point road underdog despite being 12-1 in their last thirteen games.
Warriors’ GM Bob Myers and Co. have put everything into building a team which can play smart, can hang with big lineups if needed, and yet take small ball to a level never seen in the NBA previously. Plus, despite what people might think–the Warriors are good defensively with a rim protector in Andrew Bogut. A versatile defender in Draymond Green who can guard multiple positions. And an elite lockdown defender in Andre Iguodala who can defend either LeBron James or Kevin Durant. Note to some in OKC: Iguodala is an elite lockdown defender, Andre Roberson is not. Good, perhaps, but not elite.
The questions for me tonight are two-fold. 1 Can Serge Ibaka, Steven Adams, Dion Waiters, Enes Kanter, Anthony Morrow, Cam Payne, Kyle Singler, and Nick Collison play at a high enough level on the road to give enough support to Durant and Westbrook for OKC to have a puncher’s chance in the last two minutes? And 2 Will Billy Donovan be able to morph his combinations quick enough on the fly to avoid Golden State hitting OKC with several haymaker runs through the course of the game?
Vegas says no and I pretty much agree. But that’s why you play the games and don’t put an overemphasis on just the first game of this series.
But I would say from an OKC standpoint, they need to play well tonight. Play smart, hang around and have a chance to win so as to have something to build on during the remainder of the season which makes them believe Golden State isn’t completely unbeatable.