Why the Thunder aren’t going away
OAKLAND, Calif. – Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are coming for a moment they feel should've been theirs long ago, before that trade, before those injuries and before the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs appeared to make everyone forget all they had built in Oklahoma City.
The league has changed so much in the four years since the Thunder reached the NBA Finals for the first time and were seemingly destined for multiple champagne showers and parades. But don’t try to tell Durant and Westbrook that their time has come and gone. They’re still here, still brazenly demanding your attention, with a stunning 108-102 victory in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals on Monday at Oracle Arena.
The Thunder aren’t looking to just win a series, but they are also trying to avoid being the latest resident in that nebulous graveyard of supposed dynasties that never came to be – right next to the Orlando Magic of Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway. Oklahoma City refused to accept that the Spurs were going to hang around as some sort of forever impediment and turned this postseason on its head with the only upset of note. Now it is trying to hurdle a Warriors team that usurped the Thunder during their lagging championship quest as Golden State became the cute, fun darling oozing with upside and promise.
Easy to dismiss in April, the Thunder can no longer be ignored in May. And if it can win three of the next six games against Golden State, Oklahoma City stands a chance to stake its claim to the most remarkable run in playoff history – beating a 67-win team and a 73-win squad in the same postseason. The Spurs accepted their six-game defeat in the second round, acknowledged the overwhelming powers of Durant and Westbrook – a duo so determined to fulfill the promise of yesterday, so determined not to waste the splendor and the struggle of their eight-year partnership that it hasn’t taken the time to fully contemplate if this is their last run together.
“I don’t think it’s an urgency or hunger. I think we know we’re pretty good, we have the right pieces and we know that, in order for us to do it, we’re going to have to play the right way. That’s pretty much it,” Thunder veteran reserve Nazr Mohammed said. “It’s not like, ‘We have to do it, now.’ No, it’s ‘We want to do it now.’ There is no extra pressure or anything out of the ordinary.”
Mohammed – the only player on Oklahoma City’s roster with a championship ring, which was won with the Spurs in 2005 – left the Thunder after that 2012 Finals run but has come back this season following a brief retirement. He is now part of a team with two superstars who are more mature but also hardened by the comes-at-you-fast realities of life.
This season has been complicated by Durant’s pending free agency, but he has successfully kept the situation from becoming a distraction – even as the Thunder face postseason foes that want to beat him now so that they can acquire him this summer and win more later.
The Thunder didn’t have the kind of regular season that inspired much confidence. Too many late-game mental breakdowns. Too many stagnant offensive possessions serving as harsh reminders of past failings. Too many nights of Durant and Westbrook taking turns trying to be the hero. Add in a first-year NBA coach and a supporting cast of mostly youngsters unfamiliar with postseason success and, well, it’s easy to understand why Oklahoma City was discounted.
But this is where Oklahoma City is supposed to be. This is the team’s fourth trip to the conference finals in the past six seasons. The LeBron James-led Miami Heat – which beat the Thunder in the 2012 Finals – is the only other franchise that can make such a claim. But that success hasn’t come with any rings, and just one NBA Finals trip that continues to haunt a franchise that has been blocked from making a return by injuries to Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and Durant, respectively, in each of the previous three seasons.
“There is nothing you can do about that, but it does make you appreciate, when you’re healthy, the opportunity that you have in front of you. We have – knock on wood – for the most part, a healthy team and we’re trying to take advantage of it, because we have exceptional talent,” Mohammed said, as he tried to knock on wood in the locker room, looking around until he finally settled on the wooden hanger that held a sport coat in his stall.
Stephen Curry, the two-time MVP, is fighting through soreness in the right knee he sprained earlier this postseason. Draymond Green has been dealing with a sprained ankle, and Andrew Bogut returned from an adductor strain to provide little more than a hard elbow across Westbrook’s face in Game 1. But the Warriors certainly won’t find any sympathy from the Thunder, who have been waiting for something to finally break in their favor.
Steven Adams, the key remaining piece general manager Sam Presti acquired from the much-maligned and overly critiqued James Harden trade in 2012, is coming into his own as a brute, physical force. In the previous series against San Antonio, he made Tim Duncan, a future Hall of Famer, an afterthought. He is now doing his part to block off driving lanes and disrupt a Warriors offense that no team has figured out. Adams just has to make sure that his mouth doesn’t get him – or the Thunder – in trouble after the New Zealand native called the Warriors guards “quick little monkeys” in a postgame television interview. He later apologized for his “poor choice of words.”
Oklahoma City doesn’t want to rile up the Warriors, a team that trailed 2-1 in playoff series last season against Memphis and Cleveland and went on to win the next three games each time.
As Westbrook dribbled out the final seconds of the Game 1 victory, Dion Waiters, a playoff novice, rushed toward him, hands open as he begged for the ball. Westbrook let Waiters have it and stormed off without bothering to high-five anyone. He sped up to Durant, who untucked his jersey and walked off the court, staring down without even cracking a smile. The Thunder had done the unthinkable, winning its third straight road playoff game against two teams that went a combined 79-3 at home in the regular season, but Durant and Westbrook acted as if it were a February win in Milwaukee.
“I mean, what's to celebrate?” Durant said afterward. “We didn't win the championship. We're playing in the Western Conference finals against a great team. We can't be too excited. It was a good win for us, but we're not going to be jumping up and down, chest-bumping on the court. We've got a lot more basketball to play.”
Mohammed felt the measured response from Durant and Westbrook reflected how much they’ve grown from that time when the Thunder were considered the team of the future.
“I definitely remember what it was like. They were young and their skills were, of course, beyond anybody else, but they kind of took the cues from guys like [Kendrick Perkins], [Derek Fisher], myself. Nick [Collison]. Now, they’re not just taking cues, they’re the ones giving the cues and they’re the ones leading. They’ve learned and they just keep growing,” Mohammed said of Durant and Westbrook. “They just made the natural maturation that you go through, as far as being in this league. They’re great players and they keep getting better, they keep learning, they’re learning how to use their teammates. The ability to do whatever they want in the basketball court is amazing. But they’re just growing as men, and leaders and teammates.”
And they’re coming after what they believe belongs to them.
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