Tuesday Bolts – 11.30.10
Kurt Helin of PBT: “One final thought: There was a lot of talk Monday about the Heat and how they are not meshing, how they seem to be standing around on offense, how there is no chemistry. How leadership from their big stars is lacking. Kevin Durant did not have a good scoring night Monday, but Durant is busting it, figuring out how he can help on the defense, taking a side role if that is best for the team. That, gentlemen is the opposite of Miami right now.”
Stein’s new batch of power rankings: “We’re down to two players averaging at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists: LeBron and Westbrook. Which means Durant, amazingly, wouldn’t even be voted the first-month MVP on his own team. Right?”
NBA.com’s rankings: “It doesn’t say here that Russell Westbrook is better than Kevin Durant. But it does say that Westbrook has played better than Durant this season. And, oh my, this is something KD could never do.”
Westbrook is in NBA.com’s MVP hunt: “Here again, as with the Lakers, Kevin Durant is the fellow on whom opponents primarily focus their defensive game plans. But Westbrook earned Western Conference player of the week honors through Sunday, then followed up with double-doubles as the Thunder went 1-1 vs. the Timberwolves and the Mavericks.”
Hornets 24/7: “[West] punished the hell out of Jeff Green all game long. 7 of his made shots were against Green. The problem was, with the game on the line, Green wasn’t guarding West. It was Kevin Durant, who is smarter, more athletic, and exactly the sort of player that has always given West problems – long and light on their feet. West’s biggest nemesis in the game is Lamar Odom. Durant isn’t that much different than him physically. So the Hornets force fed West five out of six possessions over a crucial four minutes from 5:00 to 1:00, and he got exactly no points. The score went from 81-75 in the Hornets favor to 81-88 against.”
Thabo and Serge have played a part in the NBA’s perfect month.
NBA Playbook looks closely at KD’s game-changing defense: “When you have a defensive strategy in place, the whole team needs to be on the same page, and this is a fantastic illustration of that. Durant knows that Ibaka and Westbrook are going to show hard as Paul comes off of the screen, and because he knows that, he knows that Okafor is going to be rolling uncovered to the basket. With Durant knowing all of this, he knows his job is to get over and protect the rim, and that is exactly what he does. Knowing what his teammates are doing and where he needs to be allows Durant to put himself in a position that lets his use his athletic ability to get the block.”
Hollinger’s finally have OKC moving up.
Hollinger was in the arena last night and had some thoughts, primarily on the Hornets though.
The Thunder likes NBA 2K11: “And according to Westbrook, everyone on the Thunder is loving getting to control Jordan in “NBA 2K11. ‘We’re all big into video games. Everyone on the team plays,’ he says. ‘We have tournaments sometimes on our off days. We’ll play ‘2K’ all day and just hang out and chill.’ As for Kevin Durant being on the cover of ‘2K’s’ competition, ‘NBA Elite,’ a game that has now been cancelled, all Westbrook can do is laugh. ‘I don’t even need to talk trash about it,’ he says. ‘He just plays whatever game makes him look better anyway.’ And this year, no game better captures the sport or its stars better than ‘NBA 2K11.’ A game where Westbrook, Durant, and the Thunder are currently the fourth most played team online (behind just the Heat, Lakers, and Celtics).”
The NBA Alphabetical from HP: “If I could have picked three things to improve about Russell Westbrook’s game at the end of the last season, I’d have gone with improving his midrange game, lowering his turnovers, and lowering his usage rate (to better coexist with Kevin Durant). One month into the new season, exactly none of those things have happened. After connecting on just 34% of his looks from 10 to 15 feet last year, he’s converting 29% this year. After turning it over on 17% of his possessions last year, he’s still right around that mark at 16% (neither of these rates is bad in the overall scheme of things, I should mention). And after using 26% of available possessions on the floor last year, he’s jumped to 31% this season. And yet, Russell Westbrook has been undeniably awesome this year. Top 5 in the NBA awesome.”
Fran Blinebury passes along this great quote from KD: “Ah, to be young and Kevin Durant. On his last-second 18-footer that missed in 99-98 loss to the Rockets: ‘It felt good. Of course, all my shots feel good.'”
