Kevin Durant: Unleashed

Game 3 of the 2018 NBA Finals was a game that the Golden State Warriors should have lost. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson combined for just 21 points on 3 of 15 shooting from 3-point range. It was a game in Cleveland, where the Cavaliers have been almost invincible this postseason. Yet, the Golden State Warriors still left Game 3 with a win, giving them a 3–0 series lead and an opportunity to sweep the Cavs in Cleveland.

Now, part of the reason for the win was 20 points combined from Jordan Bell and JaVale McGee. And the 16 points from Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston. And only turning the ball over 10 times. But one reason looms above all the others: Kevin Durant was unleashed.

Game 3 for Durant was a side of him, the basketball player, that we haven’t really seen before. We’ve seen flashes, most notably in last year’s NBA Finals where he averaged 35.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game over the course of the Warriors five-game evisceration of Cleveland. But nothing like Game 3.

Durant posted an absurd stat line of 43/13/7 to go +15 in his 43 minutes. As you may have seen floating around, he joined Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, and LeBron, as the only four players to go 40+/10+/5+ in an NBA Finals game. That’s rarefied air. The two greatest basketball players ever and arguably the most dominant center to ever play the game. Plus Kevin Durant, who is one of the best scorers of this generation, and maybe the entire NBA.

Durant’s performance in Game 3, 43/13/7 and a win on the road, is impressive no matter how you look at it. What makes it, and Durant himself, so special is how efficient he was. Durant shot 15 of 23 from the field, 7 for 7 on free throw attempts, and went 6 of 9 on 3-pointers. Efficiency has always been Durant’s greatest skill.

In 2012–2013, KD posted a 50–40–90 shooting percentage season; that is, 50%+ on all field goals, 40%+ on 3 pointers, and 90%+ on free throw attempts. Durant shot 51%, 41.6%, and 90.5% on his way to averaging 28 points per game. Durant hasn’t quite accomplished the feat a second time, but got extremely close in 2013–2014, 2015–2016, and 2017–2018. Please note: every one of these seasons is within the last five years.

As good as each one of those seasons was, 2017–2018 might have been Durant’s best. He *only* averaged 26.4 points/game (the fifth lowest on his career), but did so on just 18.0 shots/game. A big part of that otherworldly efficiency has been Durant’s increasing reliance on the 3-ball and feeling more comfortable with the Warriors.

The Warriors’ ethos has been ball, and player, movement to create open looks at the basket and from three point range. The Houston Rockets and the Cavaliers both approach basketball games with that same mindset albeit they attack in dramatically different fashions. With James Harden and Chris Paul or LeBron James, the Rockets and Cavs have three of the best isolation basketball players in the NBA. The winning formula for the Rockets and Cavs has been having as much 3-point shooting on the floor as possible to allow for maximum space for their respective creators.

For the Warriors, however, many of those same principles still apply. The 3-point shooting and spacing are both important for Golden State, but in significantly different ways from Houston and Cleveland. In Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, the Warriors already had two of the greatest 3-point shooters in NBA history. Kevin Durant just makes it three of the best 3-point shooters in NBA history. Having them 3 gives the Warriors the luxury of playing Draymond Green, an objectively bad shooter, and Andre Iguodala, a sometimes bad, sometimes mediocre shooter. The shooting liabilities of Draymond and Iguodala are covered up due to Steph, Klay, and KD, but also because of how cerebral they are and how good they are at passing the ball and off-ball movement.

That’s what makes Golden State’s offense unique and almost un-replicable. They creating space through off-ball screens and dribble handoffs and make it a goal to always keep the ball moving. It’s a very good strategy, one that younger, rebuilding teams that are usually bad, have tried to repurpose. For them, it’s about the passing and getting involved and learning how to be effective as an off-ball player; Golden State is a champion, hunting their third title in four years, their strategy works because of their personnel. Having Steph and Klay affords head coach Steve Kerr so many tactical opportunities.

When Durant arrived for the 2016–2017 season, everyone knew it should work. Put 3 of the best shooters/scorers in NBA history together and you should get a historic offense, even if it’s because of the sheer amount of talent present. And that’s what happened. It wasn’t always easy or perfect. At times Durant looked out of place off-ball or he would stop it for a possession to break someone down one-on-one.

That’s the way he and Russell Westbrook played in Oklahoma City. And every team, even the Warriors, needs that at times. You need a player who can go one-on-one and get you an important basket. In 2017–2018 though, KD’s second season with Golden State, we saw that happen a lot less unless he was called upon.

Personally, I think it “helped” that Steph got hurt and missed almost 30 games between the regular season and the playoffs combined. I mean that in a sense that KD got to be the unquestioned #1 again. He started initiating more offense, which I think helps because once Steph cam back, KD had more of an understanding of roles and what to do. Not that he didn’t before, but playing a different role, and from a different perspective, can sometimes help with an understanding of a different aspect of the game plus Durant has had two full seasons in Golden State and after almost 200 games, there is more of an understanding than after game 15 for example.

What truly amazed me about Durant’s 2017–2018 efficiency, was his three-point shooting. He’s become deadly from behind the arc. His 41.9% shooting from downtown is 0.3 percentage points below his career high in 2008–2009, 42.2%. That 42.2% mark came on 3.1 attempts and 1.3 makes per game. In 2017–2018, Durant average 6.1 3-point attempts and 2.5 makes per game. In other words, he just about doubled his volume and almost equaled his career-high in efficiency.

Another area in which Durant made significant strides in has been his playmaking. He nearly tied his career-high in assists per game from 2013–2014 (5.5) with 5.4 this year (By the way, in 2013–2014, Durant also average 32 ppg on damn near 50/40/90 shooting and won MVP). That an increase of just over 0.5 assists per game from 4.8 in his first Warriors season, 2016–2017. Not to mention that KD also had his fifth-lowest turnover/game averages in his career, with just 3.0 compared to his Oklahoma City average of 3.2 over 9 seasons.

This is the reason that Durant chose to go to Golden State as a free agent. He’s also cited in multiple podcasts/interviews that he believes that there is a higher level of basketball for him to reach and, for now at least, Golden State is the place for him to do that. The Golden State Warriors’ offensive style is reminiscent of the “beautiful basketball” of the Gregg Popovich Spurs. It’s a system that encourages scoring and sharing and being great at all facets of the game, on both the offensive and defensive ends of the court.

Kevin Durant is a 4-time NBA scoring champ and an MVP winner. He’s scored 50+ points in a game 5 times. He’s scored 32.0 and 30.1 points per game in two of his scoring title years; those seasons, 2009–2010 and 2013–2014, are the only two times that Durant has ever averaged more than 20 field goal attempts per game. He average 20.3 and 20.8, respectively. Five years apart, shooting one half more field goals per game equaled 1.9 more points per game.

The 20 highest scoring games of KD’s career are 43 points and above. In those 20 games, he shot less than 50% from the field just 7 seven times. We knew that Durant was a special scorer. We’ve seen it before. But something just felt different about that Game 3 at Cleveland.

Durant is playing with a chip on his shoulder, which seems odd to think about given his standing within the NBA. But think about it, another reason that he has cited as a motivating factor for leaving Oklahoma City was his desire to be judged by his peers. His decision got so much negative backlash from the public and the media that I think Durant still feels almost disrespected. LeBron James is the King and for good reason. He’s been the best player in the NBA for at least 8 years. He’s been Durant’s nemesis, but also the one that Durant gets compared to the most frequently.

I think that these Finals game are huge to Durant, even beyond the normal pressure of competing for a title. A large part of the basketball world views their matchups as a referendum on who the best player in the NBA is. After 2017, a title, and a Finals MVP award it seemed like Durant had closed the gap. But in 2018, we’ve seen that LeBron has somehow gotten better (again).

Durant is the ultimate ‘unicorn’. He’s the final evolution of what we want Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kristaps Porzingis, and others to be, at least offensively. He’s 7 feet tall, can dribble like a guard and shoots 30+ footers with ease.

Game 3 felt like a reminder to everyone, “I can still do this. I am the best scorer. I can carry this team if needed”. And the play that cemented it all was just a one-upping of his highlight reel 3 over LeBron. This time from way behind the arc, Durant let it fly and buried the Cavs with that one shot. That shot, coupled with an all-time great all-around game, feels like the epitome of what brought Durant to Golden State. He wanted to play basketball at a higher level. Well, on the biggest stage of all, he’s proved that he can play an astoundingly complete game. The Golden State Warriors, and LeBron James, have brought out the best of Kevin Durant that we’ve ever seen.