Post#49 » by Senior » Sun Jul 24, 2016 1:13 am
I headed to bball ref to refresh my memory of Durant's playoff run in 2014 and I came away more impressed than I was at the time. Even though OKC's run ended in the WCF, it's in the argument for his best playoff run.
In the RS, he threw in 32/7/6 on 63.5% TS and 3.5 TO/game. OKC went 59-23 with Westbrook missing 36 games.
For the playoffs, he had 30/9/4 on 57% TS and 4 TO/game as they lost to SA. The 6.5% drop looks a bit worse than it is - Durant had a 5/21 game against MEM in the first round and his FTr dropped from .477 in the RS to .386 in the playoffs. Both MEM and SA were top 5 at keeping teams off the FT line, and Durant was no exception. I do think Durant gets a decent share of soft foul calls that vanish in the playoffs (his skinnier frame sometimes makes contact look worse than it was and he's an occasional flopper)
I felt that in addition to his typically devastating shooting from pretty much everywhere, KD took a jump in his playmaking. With Westbrook out for nearly half the season and Jackson as his replacement, Durant shouldered more of the playmaking load and did pretty well. Westbrook missed all of January and most of Feb; Durant had 6.1 and 7.2 AST in those months respectively. The main issue was that his handles were a bit suspect as he was new to this role and hadn't quite developed the ballhandling skills from a typical PG - in Jan/Feb he was at 4.2 TO/game. Another problem was his height. As a lead ballhandler, Durant could be exploited by smaller players with active hands that could poke at the ball and steal it. This occurred against players such as CP3, Tony Allen, and even Tony Parker at times.
So in the first round, OKC faced Memphis. Memphis was an excellent defensive team at 7th (-2.1 vs league average), but that understates how good they were because they were missing Marc Gasol for 23 games, Allen for 27, and Courtney Lee for 33. They were all active for the playoffs.
Durant averaged 30/10/3.4 on 54% TS with 4 TO/game. Westbrook put up 26/10/8 although he also had 5 TO/game and rocked a 49% TS. OKC won by double digits three times and Durant was awesome in all of those wins, scoring 33+ in all three. The other four games were a bit shakier. Game 4 was probably the worst playoff game of his career (either that or the 7/33 fiasco vs DAL) but Reggie Jackson went for 32 in an OT win. OKC's offense in crunch time was a bit stagnant and their FT shooting was really awful in the clutch for some reason (possibly due to fatigue after so many physical minutes?) Westbrook missed a crucial FT at the end of Game 3, Durant missed a potential game-tying FT in Game 5 and then a 3 to end the game. I felt that OKC took a lot of bailout threes when they couldn't get anything - in this series it was really apparent. I would love to see the amount of 3 point attempts in OT and the %, I can't imagine it's that good.
Anyway, MEM's offense was also really spotty and they were prone to droughts which OKC took advantage of, especially in transition. They were the most athletic team in the league and a 15 point deficit to MEM felt more like 25. Then Z-Bo got suspended for Game 7 and they didn't have the firepower to keep up on the road. Overall I'd say this series was okay for KD - definitely inconsistent but he was great the last two games and Memphis was a nasty defense.
LAC was next, 57-25, 7.27 SRS (2nd). KD KILLED these guys. 33/10/5 on 61% TS, playing 43 MPG. Westbrook was awesome too, 28/6/9 on 62% TS. LAC was a -2.5 defense but the one problem they had was perimeter size - apart from Matt Barnes they really had no one to throw at KD. Crawford and Redick sucked, and CP3/Collison had Westbrook to deal with. The next best option was Dudley.
LAC was also bad at keeping teams off the FT line all year (22nd) and it showed. Durant was at 11 FTA/game and Westbrook at 10/game. They were a solid albeit undisciplined defense. Blake/DJ were in foul trouble most of the games.
Finally, OKC had a significant edge in rebounding, and they were +7 on average in this series. LAC was -.7 compared to their opponents, OKC was +3.8. Durant as OKC's leading rebounder in this series is a point to him.
So LAC blows OKC out in Game 1. Durant and Westbrook play well but CP3 goes for 32 on 8/9 from 3. Not much you can do about that. Game was over by the 3rd.
But then OKC takes the next 4 of 5. LAC had to make a huge comeback for Game 4 (to be fair they gave away Game 5), but KD goes for 32/12/9, 36/8/6, 40/7/3 (L), 27/10/5, and 39/16/5. That 40/7/3 came with 8 TO and that contributed heavily to the loss as OKC was up 16 with 9 minutes left and lost. But apart from that? He looked unstoppable. Westbrook threw in Lebron statlines (31/10/10, 23/8/13, 27/6/8, 38/5/6, 19/3/12) and got to the FT line at an insane rate, but Durant's next best scorer was Ibaka at 11.3. You could argue that Russ and CP3 played each other to a wash (CP3: 23/4/12 on 61% TS) but Durant just overwhelmed the Clippers. That 39/16/5 in Game 6 on the road, 11 in the 4th was probably his best game in the playoffs that year.
Next was SA. 62-20 and 8 SRS and a deserving champion. Again, these numbers understate their ability as Kawhi/Green/Parker/Manu all missed about 15 games, Splitter missed 23, and SA occasionally threw games for rest. Durant had 26/8/3 on 56% TS but had more TOs than assists. SA was also excellent at not fouling - Durant didn't have more than 9 FT in any game during the series after AVERAGING 11 vs LAC. Durant also had a crucial matchup against Kawhi who would play him well on both ends.
Finally, Ibaka got hurt late in Game 6 vs LAC and missed the first two games as SA blew OKC out twice. Duncan had a relative field day against Perk and Ibaka, averaging 18/10 in just 30 MPG.
This was a pretty odd series. The only remotely close game was Game 6 which went to OT. Durant had 31/14/2 but with 7 TO. OKC's offense bogged down late again, and although Westbrook kept them in it with 13 in the 4th, the Thunder resorted frequently to hero 3s and missed five threes in OT.
Overall I felt this series was both teams taking turns making huge runs, but SA was more reliable to halt OKC's runs and start runs of their own. Both teams ran off 10+ runs pretty easily but they came in basically opposite ways. SA had the amazing ball movement and open looks; OKC had the athleticism and superstars. This series wasn't *that* good for KD, but it's the best team either Durant or Curry has faced so far.
Anyway, it's still hard to definitively call one peak better than another, and it really depends on how much you value the RS vs playoffs, but I definitely felt better about 14 Durant's playoff run vs 16 Curry's, although the injury confounds the evaluation quite a bit.
edit: also wanted to mention the depth of SA vs OKC. SA had 10 players in double figure minutes and 6 averaged 10+ ppg. Only Duncan and Kawhi played over 30 mpg. Durant was at 39 for this series, Russ at 37, Ibaka at 35, Jackson at 31 and only those four averaged 10+ ppg. You can argue that the OKC's system/relative lack of playmaking from the stars fed into the low production from OKC's supporting cast, but after the Harden trade, I felt no other playoff team relied as heavily on their stars as the Thunder except the 2014 Heat.
