Consider the following.
Before this post season began, the Warriors and Spurs won a combined 140 games this NBA basketball season. Both were considered historical while the Thunder were mentioned as a next tier team and possibly the fourth best team in the overall league. A team with an outside chance of reaching the Finals. Even more damaging to the Thunder’s pedestrian regular season resume was the fact they led the entire NBA, dumpster fire Lakers and piece of shit Sixers included, as the NBA team with the most blown fourth quarter leads.
Yet here we are on the cusp of Memorial Day weekend and the Thunder have turned the basketball world upside down not because they’re a fluke or a Cinderella like one of those NCAA Tournament darling teams, but more to the fact they finally started playing and finishing to their ability.
Maybe it was in Game 2 against the Spurs when Steven Adams put the team on his back and said let’s go. Maybe it was in the aftermath of the choke in Game 3 against the Spurs when Russell Westbrook took full responsibility for a horrific home loss which magnified everything bad about the Thunder these past four frustrating seasons. Or maybe, it was after the Game 2 blowout loss to the Warriors when the Thunder gave the Warriors the game by reverting to dumb basketball, but whatever was the turning point, the Thunder led by their two superstars have otherwise been incredible in winning seven of their last nine games against the Spurs and Warriors.
Everything has worked. A starting shooting guard who couldn’t shoot is now double doubling due to a tweak by Billy Donovan. Dion Waiters has blossomed into a consistent sixth man and closing the game type player. Serge Ibaka has left Bambi behind. Steven Adams has become a rock star. Enes Kanter and Randy Foye have been for the most part dependable bench pieces. Billy Donovan has been the best coach in basketball.
And of course there’s those two guys named Westbrook and Durant who’ve been balling to the max like superstars on both ends of the floor.
With all that in place the Thunder enter tonight with a 3-1 series lead over the stunned Warriors. The last two games have been lopsided blowout Thunder wins with the Thunder shredding the Warriors for two seventy point plus halves in back to back games.
Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, and Andrew Bogut have all looked lost to varying degrees.
So we enter tonight’s Game 5 in Oakland with all this in place as the Thunder now have three games to finish the Warriors and move onto a rematch with LeBron in the NBA Finals.
If you’ve been paying attention, it’s been a fairly simple series to decipher. The team which wins the boards and takes care of the ball has won the first four games.
But more has made itself it clear as four games have been played. OKC is clearly the more versatile team as far as style of play. The Thunder can go big with the big boy lineups of Adams, Ibaka, and Kanter — or they can go small with the lineup of Westbrook, Durant, Ibaka, Waiters, and Roberson. Either way Donovan rolls it he has the bigger team on the floor because with OKC’s small ball lineup which has halted the Warriors’ death ball lineup the Thunder are still extremely long.
Durant and Ibaka both have the wingspans of seven footers. Roberson has freakish length as well. Westbrook is the best rebounding guard in the NBA, and Dion Waiters plays with physicality as well. What has happened here is that Billy Donovan and his team have placed the Warriors in a box.
The Warriors clearly do not want to go out this way in Game 5 at home to end their historical regular season. But unless Steve Kerr can figure out a way for his Warriors to not get mauled on the boards in the remaining games of this series it seems unlikely they can come back all the way from 3-1 down in the series.
For OKC keep doing the things which got you here. Keep it simple. Win the boards, create extra offensive possessions with the rebounding advantage, continue to make smart basketball decisions, keep everyone involved, and finish the series in either Game 5 or Game 6. Grind, bump, and wear out Steph Curry every time he touches the ball. Make sure he takes a physical toll tonight in the event this goes back to OKC for a Game 6. One note of concern, Andre Roberson needs to start making his free throws or else you’d think Kerr might start putting Roberson on the line as Donovan has done with Ezeli in this series.
Only the opening game in this series has been close. The last three games have been blowouts. The games have yet to be epic for the most part, yet fascinating because of how the series so far has unfolded.
But you have to win four games to win a series. The Thunder need one more game, the Warriors need three. Clearly, the math and OKC’s more versatile style of play gives them a reasonable chance to win this series before it reaches a Game 7 in Oakland.
The basketball world watches with fascination as Durant, Westbrook, and the Thunder attempt to reclaim their stake to the Western Conference supremacy which was supposed to be theirs before the rash of injuries the past three post seasons gave these Warriors an opening which they took full advantage of up to this point.
The stage is set.
It should make for great theatre.