Here's why you shouldn't blame Kevin Durant for his Game 2 performance
Going through Kevin Durant's Game 2 shooting nightmare against the Mavericks, we noticed he only had a handful of shots that qualify as bad shots.
By
Zach Harper
•
9 min read
FULL FIRST-ROUND SCHEDULE, RESULTS | EXPERT BRACKETS
Let's say you were busy Monday night when the Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder were playing Game 2, and you were going to watch it after it was over. You DVR'd the game and tried to avoid any spoilers. You wanted to go in fresh and experience as if it were real time viewing. The only thing you've heard about the game before you get a chance to turn it on is this:
"Kevin Durant tied a Michael Jordan playoff record."
You've just been set up for the biggest disappointment in NBA viewing history, aside from the 2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers season. The big takeaway from Game 2 was Durant tying the record for most misses in a playoff game (26), which left the door open for the Mavs to steal a game in OKC, and that's exactly what they did. Raymond Felton led Dallas to a victory. Durant missed shot after shot in going 7-of-33 and missing crucial game-winning attempts. After the game, Durant was the guy who lost that game for the Thunder.
So the question then becomes: did Kevin Durant have a bad game or did Kevin Durant just not make shots?
There's a difference in those two answers that either justifies the shots in which Durant took despite being off for the night or vilifying him for ruining what should be a 2-0 series lead for OKC. Some people during the game felt like Durant wasn't playing well enough and needed to move the ball if he was so off on his shot. But that's not what shooters do. Shooters shoot. And shooters believe that the last miss, five misses, 10 misses don't have anything to do with your next shot. They believe in the hot hand theory but not a cold hand theory. The next jumper will turn the tide in your favor.
Was Durant correct in continuing to shoot? Should the next shot have gone and ended his slump during the night? Let's take a look at some of these decisions and whether or not he should have kept letting it fly.
The Bad Shots by Durant
Durant didn't have an "aw shucks nothing's falling" game completely. KD turned the ball over seven times and the majority of those turnovers were bad decisions and him being out of control. Sometimes turnovers just happen because of a great play. This wasn't that type of game. But we're focusing on the shooting nightmare he had. Going through his misses, he only had a handful of shots that qualify as bad shots.
These seemed like troubleshooting attempts from him. Either the ball didn't feel good in his hands or he felt the need to rush into a bad shot due to pressing or the clock situation.
In two of the situations, he's trying to draw a foul. In fact in the first shot of the video, he screws up what would have been an open 3-point shot by trying to sell the contact from Justin Anderson. He took a crowded midrange jumper against two defenders. He took a Steph Curry-like pull-up instead of opting for a strong attack in the pick-and-roll. He drove wildly hunting contact in the paint.
And even if he is getting fouled and it's not being called, he's looking for a bailout instead of the best shot in the situation. Again, it's only a handful of these missed shots. The other 22 misses are high percentage looks for him and it's staggering to watch him miss all of these attempts from his sweet spots on the floor.
The Good Looks from 3-point Range
Durant was 2-of-11 from 3-point range, and you've already seen two poor attempts by him. The rest of these misses are shots in rhythm. He struggled a bit in the regular season from the left wing, making 35 percent of his 3-point attempts, per ShotAnalytics.com. That said, the league average on 3-point shooting this season was 35.4 percent, so having your worst spot around the arc register just a tick under league average makes it a decent probability.
Factor in the extra point and the effective field goal percentage on 35 percent from 3-point range turns it into a success rate of 52.5 percent. It's still a good shot.
Aside from maybe the final shot in the video, these are high quality, lowly contested shots from Durant. With shooters like Durant -- and we'll see more of this in a bit -- determining what is and isn't a contested shot can sometimes straddle blurred lines. Just because a defender is there doesn't mean a shot is well-contested or even decently contested. So many of these shots have a defender with their hand at chest height as he's already deep into his shooting motion.
Unless you're going to get away with touching his chest cavity and not have the refs call it, you're not contesting that shot. Imagine you're one of the best shooters in the world and you know with absolute certainty you can get your shot off against a defender and it won't be blocked. Now imagine you're 7-footer and you have that same shooting ability and that same certainty.
The comfort of that certainty makes the defender almost invisible to you. From there, it's just muscle memory as your only possible opponent, and you're typically on the same team as muscle memory.
The Good Ways Attacking the Paint
KD isn't just a spot-up jump shooter though. He attacks the paint like a panther looking for prey. Once he gets a first step on you, the only hopes available to you and your team is that you can cut him off from getting all the way to the hoop and that he misses his pull-up jumper in the paint. Dallas did a good job at both of those hopes. It was rare he got all the way to the basket, and their prayers were answered with mildly contested jumpers in and around the lane caroming off the iron.
All of these attempts are from spots on the floor in which he shoots, at worst, 50 percent from the field. Durant's shots inside the arc are often a coin flip. A lot of the time it feels like two-headed coin. And aside from maybe one attempt in here, the rest of these are shots he uses as torture tools against NBA defenses.
After the Charlotte Hornets' Game 2 loss to the Miami Heat, Steve Clifford had a great quote about adjustments:
"Not to be disrespectful, but you guys, you watch these games, you just come up like something's got to change. Or sometimes, you just have to do the basic things better, which is what basketball... Jeff Van Gundy likes to say, 'Writers like to say they made an adjustment.' Usually, the adjustment is some guy that went 1-for-8 went 6-for-8."
That rings so true in watching Durant takes these shots. Our natural inclination is something is wrong and it has to be fixed because we see what he's doing not work. So we assume he has to go play defense harder to make up for it or start making plays for others because we're seeing failure in the result but ignoring the process. The process of Durant getting these shots was sound and shouldn't have deviated at all. In reality, he probably should've taken even more shots because of the high percentage probability they had.
The Good Opportunities in the Post
Not many people know that Durant is the best post scorer in the NBA. He was this season and he's often at the top. This year, he shot 60.9 percent on attempts from post-ups. He scores a ridiculous 123.5 points per 100 possessions when he posts up. When he's on the right block, turns over his right shoulder, and gets into a jumper he shoots 53.7 percent. He almost never attacks the basket turning over his right shoulder.
Throw him on the left block and have him turn over that right shoulder and he shoots 52.9 percent. That's why defending him with smaller guys is so difficult. We can pretend the heart and work ethic of Wes Matthews forced him into misses, but randomness of the ball not falling into the hoop is what did it. For the most part in this video, he is cooking the opposition. The only problem is he forgot to turn the stove on.
That last shot in there -- the one-legged Dirk Nowitzki fadeaway -- was the worst shot he took in that sequence and he actually hits that pretty regularly. Defenders are giving up six inches of height to Durant, so the only hope they have is pushing him off balance without actually fouling him. You live with these shot attempts out of the post and the shot attempts from all over the floor because you've thrived off of them all season long. He shouldn't have broken the process in which he gets shots just because he had several attempts going in and out.
Regardless, it could've all been avoided on that crazy final sequence in which Durant missed three clutch, great looks in the final 26.5 seconds of the game.
The Final Sequence of Improbability
This was the craziest moment because it felt like redemption was headed Durant's way. All the misses prior to this point were random, but him throwing a dagger into an injury-riddled, gasses Mavericks' squad was probable. Here's a reminder of just how good these looks were:
With the help of an illegal screen from Steven Adams, Durant gets a wide-open spot-up jumper from an area where he shoots 48 percent. Matthews is on the ground and Raymond Felton has his back to Durant as he face-guards Russell Westbrook. He misses long.
In a poor man's attempt to recreate the Game 6 Ray Allen 3-pointer from 2013, Steven Adams corrals the rebound and immediately finds Durant a couple steps back in the left corner. He shoots 43 percent from that corner and the effective field goal percentage from that spot bumps it up to 64.5 percent. A decent closeout from Matthews makes it look like better defense than it really was, but Durant still comes up way short on the shot and can't grab the loose ball.
Then, after making a 3-pointer and Felton missing two free throws, Durant gets a layup attempt against Nowitzki and can't finish against some mild contact. Thunder lose. Durant scapegoated. Panic in OKC.
But there shouldn't be panic. Those are all good looks you want Durant taking the next game and the game after that and the game after that. Shooters shoot.
| CBSSports.com Experts' NBA Playoff predictions | ||||||
 Ken Berger @KBergCBS |
 Bill Reiter @sportsreiter |
 Zach Harper @TalkHoops |
 James Herbert @outsidethenba |
 Matt Moore @MattMooreCBS |
 Ananth Pandian @Ananth_Pandian |
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| Western Conference | ||||||
| Thunder vs. Mavericks |
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SERIES SCHEDULE, RESULTS:
| Western Conference First Round | ||||||
| Game | Date/Series | Location | Time | TV | ||
| Game 1: Thunder 108, Mavericks 70 | OKC leads 1-0 | Chesapeake Energy Arena | 9:30 p.m. ET | ESPN | ||
| Game 2: Mavericks 85, Thunder 84 | Series tied 1-1 | Chesapeake Energy Arena | 8:00 p.m. ET | TNT | ||
| Game 3: Thunder at Mavericks | Thursday, April 21 | American Airlines Center | 7:00 p.m. ET | TNT | ||
| Game 4: Thunder at Mavericks | Saturday, April 23 | American Airlines Center | 8:00 p.m. ET | ESPN | ||
| Game 5: Mavericks at Thunder | Monday, April 25 | Chesapeake Energy Arena | 8:00 p.m. ET | TNT | ||
| Game 6: Thunder at Mavericks | Thursday, April 28 | American Airlines Center | TBD | TBD | ||
| Game 7: Mavericks at Thunder | Saturday, April 30 | Chesapeake Energy Arena | TBD | TBD | ||
