Oh, please. Durant is a big time choke artist in the playoffs. He still gets his points, but he starts throwing up enough bricks to build a church with.
Look at the Conference Finals this year. Up 3-1, OKC needs only win one of the final three games to advance to the NBA Finals. That they won the third game had little to do with Durant. The Thunder were good enough to win 118-94 with Durant shooting 8 of 24 from the floor. Game 5? Durant was 12 of 31 from the floor, and the Thunder lose by 9. Game 6? He's even worse. After shooting 33% in game 4, and 38.7% in game 5, he clanks to the tune of 10 for 31 from the floor. 32%. The Thunder lose by 7. Game 7 he shoots more along his norms, hitting 10 of 19 shots, but OKC lose by 8. They'd lost momentum. Durant still scored plenty because he was taking so many shots, and had a bunch of freebies from the charity stripe.
2012-13 playoffs? Same thing. After beating Memphis in the first game of a best-of-7, OKC falls behind 1-2. Durant shoots well, hitting 50% from the floor (20 for 40). The last two games of the series, he chokes it away. He goes 10 of 27 from the floor in game 4 (the Thunder lose by 6), and a laughably bad 5 for 21 in game 5 (OKC lose by 4). Durant goes 15 for 48 (31%) in the final two big pressure games. He also turns the ball over 11 times in the two games. If Durant hadn't played those final few games with his head up his ass, the Thunder would have advanced to the Conference Finals.
In the '11-'12 playoffs, he was good. The year before that? He choked big time in the Western Conference Finals. After tying the Mavericks 1-1, the Thunder lost the last three games by a combined 17 points. In game 3, Durant was 7 for 22 from the floor, including an ugly 0 for 8 from 3-pt range. The Thunder lost by 6. In game 4, he was 9 for 22 from the floor, and turned the ball over 9 times. They lost by 7. And in the final game, he was 8 for 20. He shot 37.5% from the floor in losing three straight.
Seems to me that the biggest reason Kevin Durant has never won an NBA Championship is Kevin Durant. He disappears at the most inopportune moments, like when the season is on the line. It's not like he hasn't had talent around him, either. Westbrook is a stud, an NBA All Star five of the past six seasons. He's been there every year since Durant was a rookie.
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07-05-2016, 12:05 AM
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