Last season, the Los Angeles Clippers fell just short of reaching the Western Conference finals for the first time in franchise history.
They managed to advance one round in the playoffs but ran into a dominant Spurs team in the midst of a 20-game win streak.
If the Clippers want to take the next step, here are five things they need to take care of.
The sight of a grown man sobbing doesn’t usually strike fear into the hearts of onlookers, but that’s exactly what should have happened when basketball fans around the world witnessed Kevin Durant sobbing while embracing his mother at the end of the 2012 NBA Finals.
Durant, who has led the league in scoring during each of the past three seasons and is only improving, soaked in every painful moment following the conclusion of Game 5. He understood that LeBron James had been validated and enjoying himself like he never had before.
The pure onslaught of emotion when Durant saw his parents proves just how much the leader of the Oklahoma City Thunder cares about the sport of basketball, his ongoing quest to win his first title and making his reign as the “Best Player in the World Without a Ring” a short one.
When the Thunder took on the Miami Heat, they attempted to skip one of the crucial steps necessary to become NBA champions: heartbreak, utter despair and the resiliency that comes with it if one is willing to put in the work.
Throughout the annals of NBA history, it’s quite difficult to find a superstar who won a title right off the bat. Bill Walton and the Portland Trail Blazers did so in 1977 while inspiring Blazermania. Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers won in 1980 during the point guard/center’s rookie season.
That’s just about it though.
Michael Jordan had to suffer through years of disappointment against the Bad Boys of Detroit. LeBron James dealt with ridicule after his disappearance against the Dallas Mavericks.
Now we can say that both bounced back and came out on top. If a player is great enough, failing once isn’t simply failure, but rather, a stepping stone on the way to success.
Durant and the rest of the Thunder now have the bitter taste of failure clinging to their collective taste buds until the 2012-2013 season begins and they start anew. As young and motivated as they are, you can be quite sure that they’ll hate the taste as much as anything.
The Thunder were tested on the biggest stage this sport has to offer and failed. They dealt with the humiliation of defeat, the anguish of watching the other team hold the trophy and the disappointment of unrealized potential following a lot of hard work.
That said, they gained valuable experience. James Harden now knows that he’s supposed to continue to play basketball after advancing beyond the Western Conference Finals. Russell Westbrook now knows that he’s going to have to slightly alter his playing style.
Scott Brooks is going to deal with criticisms about his rotations and strategies for the entire off-season (although he may not even be back as the team’s coach).
Durant is just going to want to get better.
This team was unstoppable enough during the 2011-2012 season and bull-rushed their way through the playoffs until running into a black and red juggernaut. With even more motivation and experience, unstoppable won’t be a strong enough word next year.
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This was supposed to be the Spurs‘ year.
They finished the regular season with the best record in the NBA. Tony Parker was playing at an MVP level, and Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili had been invigorated by an infusion of talented, young role-players.
The Spurs even won a staggering 20 consecutive games, spanning the final 10 of the regular season and their first 10 in the playoffs.
Then their spectacular run came to an abrupt halt. After taking the first two games in the Western Conference Finals, San Antonio was run off the court by a younger, more athletic Oklahoma City Thunder team in the final four games of the series.
For the second consecutive season, San Antonio finished with the best record in the Western Conference and failed to advance to the NBA Finals. In fact, they haven’t reached the Finals since 2007.
Duncan, who just turned 36, is a free agent this summer. Ginobili is 35 and, with one year remaining on his contract, may be an attractive commodity for a contending team. Is it time to say good night to the Duncan, Ginobili and Parker era and rebuild?
Not so fast.
The Spurs’ performance in the third quarter of Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals was so brilliant that it left grizzled NBA veterans in awe. TNT’s Marv Albert aptly compared their precision passing and player movement to the great Celtics and Knicks teams of the early 70s.
This team is too good to disband, and the “Big Three” are too intertwined to break up.
What’s made the Spurs of the Duncan-era so special is their ability to play together as a team. With Duncan, Ginobili and Parker, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
That cohesion has enabled them to win so many games over the past few seasons, even though Duncan’s and Ginobili’s skills have waned. The flip side of that chemistry is that losing one of those core players is devastating. The Spurs can’t yield equal value in return.
For example, the Memphis Grizzlies are supposedly considering trading versatile forward Rudy Gay. Gay, who’s just 25, can shoot from behind the arc, as well as take his man off the dribble. The Spurs would benefit from his athleticism on the perimeter.
On its face, a Ginobili for Gay trade would make sense for San Antonio. But, realistically, it would take years for Gay to develop the chemistry with Parker and Duncan that Ginobili has, and Duncan doesn’t have years.
The Spurs are going to keep Duncan, Ginobili and Parker together and continue trying to add younger pieces around them. General manager R.C. Buford will need to be creative because he has very little salary cap space to work with.
His first order of business will be to re-sign Duncan, who made it clear during the playoffs that he will be a Spur for life. Assuming Duncan signs for an annual salary of about half of the $21 million he made this past season, San Antonio will be capped out.
That leaves Buford with the mid-level exception of just over $5 million per season. He could free up another $3.75 million by using the amnesty clause on forward Matt Bonner, who’s owed $7.5 million over the next two seasons.
After taking care of Duncan, Buford will need to work some magic. Two years ago he signed free agent Danny Green at bargain-basement value. Last summer he traded George Hill to the Indiana Pacers for the fifteenth pick in the draft, Kawhi Leonard. His biggest concern this offseason is the power forward position.
San Antonio has a glut of big men, and they all bring something different to the table. Matt Bonner is a great three-point shooter. Tiago Splitter thrives in the pick-and-roll. DeJuan Blair is a physical rebounder, and free-agent-to-be Boris Diaw is an excellent passer.
The Spurs are also interested in signing Erazem Lorbek, a 6’11″ Slovenian whose rights they acquired in the Leonard deal. The 28 year old is a very good outside shooter with a deft touch around the basket.
For all their differences, the Spurs’ big men have two things in common: a lack of athleticism and inability to protect the rim.
San Antonio should target the Memphis Grizzlies’ two talented young forwards, Darrell Arthur and Marreese Speights. Both are restricted free agents, and Memphis may not be willing and able to match offers for each of them. The Lakers’ Jordan Hill is another up-and-coming free agent for the Spurs to consider.
Buford will also explore the trade market. The Spurs don’t have a pick in the first round of next week’s draft, so they could offer Splitter, Blair or backup point guard Gary Neal for a pick late in the first round. Fab Melo out of Syracuse is a shot-blocker who could be a nice fit.
Next, Buford must decide whether to retain Green. The third-year guard was lights out from behind the arc this season, knocking down 43.6 percent of his attempts, but that number plummeted in the Western Conference Finals. The Spurs would like to have him back, but at the right price. The same goes for Diaw.
Leonard is developing into the Spurs best perimeter defender since Bruce Bowen. Buford will add a couple more parts, Coach Popovich will tweak the game plan and the Spurs, led by Duncan, Ginobili and Parker, will be among the elite teams in the league once again next season.
Their three stars may not have enough left to win another ring, but this team has transcended championships. The Spurs play beautiful basketball.
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Wise shot selection is a foreign concept to Russell Westbrook.
The Oklahoma City Thunder point guard has one of the quickest trigger fingers in the league. If he fails to make smarter decisions with the basketball, the Miami Heat will win the 2012 NBA Finals.
Last season, Westbrook cost the Thunder a shot at a championship berth by going into Marbury-mode. Against the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals, he shot a pitiful 36 percent from the field. While his numbers are slightly higher this year, they’re not nearly improved enough to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Through Game 3, Westbrook is shooting just 41.2 percent from the field. From downtown, he’s shooting an embarrassing 21.4 percent. As reckless as Westbrook’s statistics seem, they even look worse when placed next to Kevin Durant’s.
The league’s leading scorer is shooting an eye-opening 55.7 percent from the field against the Heat. Perimeter scorers rarely convert plays at that high of a rate. Despite Durant’s unbelievable efficiency, for some odd reason, Westbrook is still averaging 3.3 more shots per game than him.
Luckily for the Thunder, though, Durant doesn’t sound like he’ll allow that to happen again. After their Game 3 loss, he had something to say about how frequently he’ll shoot for the remainder of the series in the postgame press conference (via NBA).
Now, that will only happen if Westbrook passes him the rock.
In the Thunder’s Game 1 win, Westbrook dished out 11 dimes. He followed up that performance by recording 11 assists total in their next two games. When Westbrook looks to get his teammates involved, he’s nearly unstoppable, but when he plays hero ball, his shot selection is the Thunder’s Achilles heel.
There isn’t a more physically gifted point guard in the NBA than Westbrook. He possesses the ability to lead OKC back and defeat the Heat. But that will only happen if plays the role of a floor general and not a one-man wrecking crew.
David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.
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It may sound like 22 shot attempts is a lot, but not when you’re talking about Kevin Durant.
And, it’s not nearly enough when Russell Westbrook is taking 27 of them.
It’s no secret by now than that the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s point guard is more a floor gunner than he is a floor general. It’s also common knowledge that head coach Scott Brooks is just fine with that arrangement—no one is expecting Westbrook to start playing like Steve Nash.
There’s no sense in forcing a player to be something he’s not. There’s plenty of sense in putting guys in a position to succeed.
But, that doesn’t mean what happened in Game 2 against the Miami Heat is acceptable.
On two possession toward the end of the fourth quarter, Kevin Durant found himself momentarily open behind the arc amidst fast breaks—golden opportunities given how well KD was shooting the ball. And, on both occasions, Westbrook failed to get him the ball.
In the first instance, he forced a pull-up jumper off the backboard to no avail. In the second, he kept the basketball just long enough to turn it over.
At a time when every member of the Thunder should have been bending over backwards to get Durant the ball, Westbrook’s poor floor vision was on full display.
He may not be a pass-first point guard, but he still has to look up in those kind of situations. Even if he were a seven-foot center, these are passes that any player needs to make.
It’s utterly baffling that Durant doesn’t touch the ball at least once on every single possession. Whether he’s in a position to score or not, he’s the Thunder’s best player on the floor. Not only is he the best-suited to shoot; he’s also the best-suited to make plays for others.
With his length and ability to rise above defenders, the three-time scoring champion could be a far more prolific passer—especially with his penchant for drawing so much attention.
The fact that he had just one assist in Game 2 isn’t a function of selfishness. It’s simply what happens when a guy isn’t touching the ball frequently enough.
When all was said and done, Westbrook looked a lot like the guy who’d struggled against the Heat the four times he’d faced them prior to Game 1—an inefficient scorer putting up too many shots. This time, that meant a 10-27 shooting performance.
That didn’t just compromise Durant’s touches. It also meant that James Harden ended up with just 11 field-goal attempts for the duration of the game.
In part, that had something to do with Brooks keeping his hot hand on the bench for a few minutes too long in the third quarter. After going off for 17 points in the first half, one would think the feared beard would have been hurried into the second half as soon as possible.
You’d at least think he’d score more than four points in that second half.
The bizarre shot distribution also had to do with the Thunder moving the ball as they had in the first two games against the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals—which is to say, not nearly enough.
Whether Westbrook is the one creating plays for others, someone needs to be passing the ball.
And, however that ball winds up in Kevin Durant’s hands, there’s no question he should be the one taking 27 shots, if not a few more.
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Even though the Oklahoma City Thunder lost Game 2 to the Miami Heat, we learned something about the young Zombies tonight.
We learned that no matter what the score is after one quarter, two quarters or three quarters, this team is going to fight with everything they have until the final buzzer.
The Thunder pulled within two points with just over 30 seconds remaining in the final period after trailing all game long. They weren’t just trailing; they were left in the dust by the Heat from the opening tip.
LeBron James and company jumped out to a 25-8 lead, a deficit that would have buried most teams before the second quarter began, but no, not the Thunder.
Miami led by 12 at halftime, but the Okies at the Chesapeake Energy Arena didn’t give up on their lovable team. They continued to jar and prod the Heat at the free-throw line, during timeouts and whenever they had the opportunity to.
Why should they? The 18,000 fans in that building knew better than anyone else that the Thunder weren’t going to go down quietly. This wasn’t going to be some roll over and die, we’ll get ‘em in Game 3 kind of night.
Young, reckless teams are supposed to fold when the going gets tough. The Thunder aren’t supposed to have the wherewithal to keep their heads firmly fixated on their shoulders once they get smacked in the mouth like they did in Game 2.
They do, though. We saw their collective coming of age when they went down two games to none against the San Antonio Spurs. Tim Duncan and his fellow battle-hardened veterans were supposed to be able to close out the series, and many pegged the Thunder for dead.
Even after the first quarter of Game 6, when Tony Parker ran wild and the Sours led by 14 at the end of the opening period, there were people proclaiming that the series was heading back to the AT&T Center and the Thunder would fall there.
Kevin Durant would have none of that. The Durantula finished what he started and dragged his teammates—kicking and screaming—back from the 14-point deficit to complete the comeback in the sixth game of the Western Conference Finals.
That’s the Thunder in a nut shell. Just like they came back from a two-game deficit, they came back and won Game 6 to give themselves a shot at the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Sure, they fell short tonight, but it wasn’t because of their lack of effort. The Heat played with desperation and were firing on all cylinders for the better part of 48 minutes.
You just have to love what you see from them.
Russell Westbrook soaring to the rim, looking like a young…Dwyane Wade, if I may—except far and away more explosive.
Durant playing his you know what off after picking up his fifth foul early in the fourth.
James Harden slicing and dicing, making the Udonis Haslem and Chris Bosh look foolish. Serge Ibaka being Serge I-Blocka.
Thabo Sefolosha locking down the opposition’s best player in a resounding display of defensive prowess.
Even Derek Fisher throwing himself on the floor here and there.
If there is such thing as a moral victory on the biggest stage in basketball, the Zombies got one tonight. The Heat didn’t choke down the stretch like we’ve seen them do; the Thunder just slowly but surely climbed out of the early hole they let themselves fall into.
It takes a special team to do what Oklahoma City has done this postseason. They’re going to win this series because they are too good and too resilient not to, and they don’t care if you think otherwise.
The Thunder didn’t get what they wanted last season, but this series will serve as their redemption song.
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Tony Parker is a stellar player. The San Antonio Spurs point guard is a strong scorer and a good distributor. His inside scoring ability remains high. However, despite all of his positive qualities, Parker isn’t the type of player who can carry a team on his back.
With Parker, there’s little room between fantastic games and bad games. He scored 20 or more points 26 times this season. He had 17 games in which he shot 55 percent or better from the field. Also, he had 12 double-doubles.
That he was able to put up so many nights of great production is wonderful.
However, his bad games were noticeable. Of the 15 games in which he shot worse than 40 percent from the field, Parker shot 30 percent or worse in eight of those games.
Sometimes, Parker’s high scoring games came with extra turnovers. In six of his 26 20-point games, Parker committed five or more turnovers.
Parker led the team in scoring with 18.3 points per game and was the only player to average over 30 minutes per game. He was one of only four Spurs to average double figures in scoring, although five more averaged at least nine points per game.
The playoffs showed an even greater imbalance, as he, Duncan and Manu Ginobili were the only ones to average double figures in scoring.
Parker has pushed an aging core with high energy and precise management. However, the last three games of the Western Conference Finals showed that he was slipping. He struggled to convert shots, hitting five of 15 in Game 4, five of 14 in Game 5 and 12 of 27 in Game 6.
The burden became too much for Parker, who took 32 percent of San Antonio’s shots in Game 6.
The Spurs will have to show in the offseason that they recognize that Parker can’t carry a team offensively. They have three key players entering free agency in Tim Duncan, Gary Neal and Danny Green.
The Spurs should see Duncan return for another year or two to finish his career, since Duncan told the San Antonio Express-News that he considers himself a “Spur for life.”
Neal and Green both averaged between nine and 10 points per game this season while shooting better than 40 percent from three-point range. Both will likely be cheap players to retain in the offseason.
The Spurs will have to rely more on free agency and building from within their roster than the draft this offseason, since their only draft pick is the next to last pick of the draft.
They have some players who could grow into scoring roles, such as Neal and Kawhi Leonard. The Spurs could see significant growth in Leonard if he receives more minutes. Leonard averaged 7.9 points per game in the regular season and 8.6 per game in the playoffs. He had four games with more than 15 points in the playoffs.
Hopefully, the Spurs will be able to develop scorers in the coming years. Duncan has shown in the last three years that he can’t carry a scoring load like he used to. Ginobili can’t get the job done as often as he once could, especially with his ailing body. Parker can’t be this strong for much more than a year or two.
The Spurs have remained a top-tier team in the Western Conference by plugging guys in. They’ll have to take someone—likely from their own roster—and plug him into a key scoring role to assist Parker.
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Kevin Durant is the hero—the Oklahoma City Thunder‘s knight in shining armor who can do no wrong.
However, it’s his unpredictable sidekick, Russell Westbrook, who will decide if the Thunder win Game 1, and ultimately, the NBA title.
Westbrook is an uncontrollable force of basketball fury, unleashing violent assaults on the rim with no regard for human life. He tries to dunk on everything in sight, and although his forays into the paint often resemble a four-car pileup, he’s usually quite effective.
He averaged 23.6 points, 5.5 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game this season, while finishing tenth in the league with a 23.11 player efficiency rating. He improved his field goal percentage for the fourth straight year, and he was a menace with that pull-up mid-range jumper, knocking down 43 percent of his shots from 16-23 feet out.
He was also a critical piece in the Thunder’s rampage through the Western Conference playoffs. He single-handedly buried the Lakers in the semifinals and stuffed every column on the stat sheet against San Antonio.
His decision making has improved by leaps and bounds, and although his field goal percentage was hideous in the Western Conference Finals, he flexed his basketball IQ throughout the series.
He will have to do more of the same against the Miami Heat, who are the only team in the league that can match the Thunder’s youth, energy and absurd athleticism.
With LeBron James keying in on Durant, Westbrook will have to be a monster for OKC to win in Game 1. He’s got to find the perfect balance between dominating and deferring, between not passing for consecutive trips and not touching it on others.
He sometimes seems reluctant to play second fiddle, but I’m confident in Westbrook’s ability to juggle this unusual role. He and Durant are legitimately good friends, and they complement each other in an oddly perfect way.
Although they share the same hipster attire off the court, Westbrook and Durant are polar opposites between the baselines.
Durant is cool and calculated; Westbrook fiery and spontaneous. Durant flows like a calm river, while Westbrook explodes like a pipe bomb. They share almost nothing on the court, except, of course, for their brilliance.
Durant is the second-best player in the league—the future of professional basketball as we know it. But without Westbrook, the NBA’s darling superstar would be watching the Finals from his mother’s couch.
Now, Durant will be relying on Westbrook to help him earn the first championship of his young career.
As complicated as he can be, Westbrook’s value in this series is pretty simple. If he proves he can harness his own emotions and athleticism in Game 1, the Thunder will prevail.
If he doesn’t, they will go down in flames, plummeting into a devastating 0-1 hole to start the 2012 NBA Finals.
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If Kevin Durant wants to overtake LeBron James as the best player in the National Basketball Association, he needs to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a series victory in the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat.
Durant will never be looked at in the same light as James if he can’t prevent the Heat from winning their first title of the LeBron era.
After Durant’s masterful performance in the Western Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs, there have been plenty of people asking if he is better than James. Those debates will be stomped out if Durant can’t carry his team and make sure they hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy when all is said and done.
James already has a leg up on Durant, being that he has already won three MVP awards. This is the second consecutive time he’s led his team’s charge to the NBA Finals. He’s run roughshod on the league like nothing we’ve ever seen before (sans Michael Jordan), and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
But there’s one thing that levels the playing field: he hasn’t won an NBA championship.
Durant has won the last three NBA scoring titles, surpassing the 30-point average threshold in the year he won his first. He doesn’t have the same kind of physical gifts that LeBron has been afforded, but he has his own advantages.
This is LeBron’s ninth season in the league, and he’s yet to win a title in any of his campaigns. Despite his personal accolades, he’s missing the one true thing that elevates a superstar player to legendary status.
Not to mention he’s the bad guy in the eyes of most NBA fans.
Durant is in the fifth season of his career. He and the Zombies fell to the Dallas Mavericks last season, but beat a Spurs team last week that was supposed to be the juggernaut of the NBA playoffs.
The Durantula is on the cusp of NBA immortality, and only LeBron and the Heat stand in his way.
Unlike James, he’s the protagonist in this story. Everybody outside of South Beach is pulling for him to lead the run-and-gun Thunder to glory.
Durant doesn’t have the MVP awards or as impressive as a resume as James has, but if he can edge LeBron in these NBA Finals, he’s going to be looked at as the best player in the league.
There’s no reason to bring up regular season accomplishments or scoring averages once the two best players in the league square off on the biggest stage in all of basketball. All that will matter is which team won, and whatever team wins will be contingent upon which of these superstars played better.
If Durant can win the title and deprive James of his only goal, he has the inside track to becoming the best NBA player of the new millennium. Tout James’ abilities and statistics all you want, but if he doesn’t get a title this time, he might not ever get one.
No matter which way this series goes, be it to Oklahoma City or to Miami, it will be looked at as the pivotal moment in the Durant-LeBron rivalry that will continue for the better part of the next decade.
One NBA title through five seasons looks a lot better than zero NBA titles through nine seasons.
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Diversification is a concept with its own inherent value, regardless of the arena. This is true for the simple fact that high-value investment in one particular person, resource or area makes the investing party extremely vulnerable; it may seem logical to place all of one’s stock in the best possible option, but even great options—or in this case, great players—fail from time to time, and default back to their expected production.
It’s as true in basketball as in any other context. If a team merely has one brilliant scorer, an opposing defense can load ball pressure against that single opponent. If a team has only one quality shot creator, the opponent can swarm that player in the post or on pick and rolls. If a team has but one good interior defender, they can pull him out of the paint before attacking from the weak side. So on and so forth, as limited capability in any regard acts as a tremendous weakness in such a complex sport. All areas of production and performance need to be just right in order for a team to succeed, and the best way to ensure sufficiency is through an entire team operating to accomplish all objectives at once.
An offense hums when every player scores. And in the case of the Oklahoma City Thunder, a potential weakness is mitigated when everyone rebounds.
Rebounding isn’t by any means a Thunder strength, and with Scott Brooks opting to use small lineups more than ever, it became imperative Oklahoma City find ways to scrounge together a manageable rebounding total through somewhat unconventional means. The team’s best rebounders were often benched in favor of a more assertive defense and more balanced offense. The Thunder wings and guards responded in the Western Conference Finals with an amazingly diverse rebounding core.
Nick Collison (13.9), Kendrick Perkins (13.2 ) and Serge Ibaka (11.5) predictably led the way in terms of overall rebounding percentage, but trailing just behind them were Kevin Durant (10.4), James Harden (10.3), Thabo Sefolosha (10.2) and Russell Westbrook (9.1). Durant may be the man glorified with his 14 rebounds in the series-ending Game 6, but he was only one of many effective rebounding wings for the Thunder, who had little problem closing defensive possessions with tough, contested rebounds, and keeping their offensive possessions alive with their committed work on the glass.
There wasn’t one man for the Spurs to box out, but five; excluding Derek Fisher, every Thunder player on the floor was a threat to chase down a rebound, even if it was out of their immediate zone. OKC was hustling toward every bounce on the rim and converging on every board that managed to reach the floor. That may not have been enough to turn a point of weakness into a strength, but it was enough to mitigate the most troublesome caveat to a compelling strategy. It’s because of their gang rebounding that the Thunder were—and are—able to go small and shift seamlessly between lineups without fear of the bottom falling out.
Statistical support for this post was provided by NBA.com
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