Originally posted by sacniner:
Damn the Thunder are hard to stop... Westbrook mid range is deadly. Defenders give him so much room because they are scared of him driving and he just pops the jumper. And Durant... Wow. How do you stop a guy with that much skill and length? This thing will still go 6 or 7. But I think the Thunder are too complete to beat.
That Durant/Westbrook combo is something else, man. After Durant had that crazy run in the 4th, Battier started playing some pretty good ball denial on him and you got some stale possessions where Westbrook had the ball with about 8 seconds on the shot clock and they had nothing going on. At that point you have ANOTHER guy that can create something out of nothing in Westbrook. Not a damn thing you can do about it either.
That said, this framework is made possible by Durant's skill set, and ability to catch & shoot. LeBron & Wade could vibe off of each other in the exact same way if one of them was good at operating off of the ball, were effective from mid range, and could catch and shoot. The type of shots that Durant was hitting simply aren't the kind of shots that those two can hit on a regular basis, so instead they have to take turns basically doing the same thing. My biggest complaint with LeBron on the court has always been that his type of game is the type of game where it's hard for both him and someone else to have a great night on the same night. It happens, but it's rare.
If OKC goes on to win this series, it will be the 5th year in a row that the winning squad had a devastating mid range player. Pierce, Kobe X2, Dirk, & Durant. Skill set matters.
[ Edited by LA9erFan on Jun 12, 2012 at 9:08 PM ]