Kevin Durant was the deciding factor in Game 4 against the Spurs, scoring 17 of his playoff career-high 41 in the final quarter. But the Kiwi half of Oklahoma City’s Stache Brothers played a crucial role in KD’s flame-thrower routine in the final frame, too.
The Thunder team helped spring Durant on Sunday night where a 111-97 Oklahoma City win on their home floor doubled as a formal announcement to the NBA-watching public: “We’re here, and all that talk of a Spurs-Warriors Western Conference Final is just that, talk.”
But Steven Adams is the example we’re going to use for the Thunder squad because his actions with Durant are ideal examples for the off-the-ball motions Billy Donovan implemented so the Spurs couldn’t gang up on KD like they have in the past.
All that movement, Westbrook’s pass-first mentality (15 dimes and only 18 shots), Durant’s superior shot-making ability, and the odd inability of the Spurs to execute down the stretch, is what led to a 34-16 Oklahoma City advantage in the last quarter and turned this Western semifinal into a best-of-three series heading into San Antonio for Game 5 on Tuesday night.
So let’s talk about the Steven Adams pin-down for the 2014 MVP. It’s simple, but because of how Adams rolled to the rim, the Spurs man defending him couldn’t just jump out at Durant while his man fought over the Adams pick. A seemingly simple action to defend turned muddy, and Durant — like superstar he is — took advantage.
Here are a couple of examples that won’t show up in the box score, but underpin how dangerous Adams made himself on an easy action the Thunder have been running since the Scott Brooks era. See how Steven slips this screen and cuts towards the basket. He’s wide open and, if Tony Parker doesn’t make an amazing play on the ball as he scooting along the baseline, that’s a layup.
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On this one in the fourth after the Thunder made a big run to take a surprising lead, Russ gets a little ahead of himself and throws the ball to the spot he thinks Adams should be on the cut. But Kawhi and David West switch it so quickly, and the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year is able to draw an offensive foul as Adams is trying to catch the pass on the roll.
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Still, it’s clear the Spurs are putting an increased emphasis on Adams after he sets the screen, which in turn helps alleviate the pressure on Durant as he pops out to receive the ball. We’re not really sure what caused this Adams dunk with under three minutes left in the first half, but it seems like it was from a pin-down because once the foolish camera operator cuts back to the action, Durant is right where he would be if he popped out on the screen, and how else do you explain a wide-open Adams alley-oop dunk after a timeout? (Note to Turner cameraman: please refrain from doing this in the future, we spent way too much time trying to track down footage of the play this morning — to no avail.)
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Regardless of the play we didn’t get to see, the threat of the Adams roll helped Durant more than once when he was going inferno in the fourth. And it was dunks like the above that pushed the Spurs to finally defend the New Zealand seven-footer when he did set the pin-down.
This is a hard shot Durant hit, but it’s easier because Kawhi isn’t draped all over him. Instead, it’s the less-nimble David West lunging to block the 6-foot-11 Durantula on a mid-range jumper.
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That doesn’t happen if Adams isn’t enough of a threat to score that Kawhi can’t just bump him before slithering towards Durant.
This next one was pretty much the dagger, and it wasn’t even that pin-down. The Spurs were so flustered by the crowd, and the different looks, Kawhi and LaMarcus Aldridge get caught up in a crude Adams baseline screen to free Durant in the near corner. Adams is still a threat, but just a minor one; this is more of a breakdown by the Spurs.
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Durant might have sunk an isolation three-pointer at the top of the key against a much smaller Manu Ginobili in the fourth, he was also getting sprung with all sorts of actions off the ball. He and Russ didn’t have to do it themselves, and he wasn’t getting looks solely on Adams pin-downs, either. On this late score, KD gets open in the far corner after a floppy screen with Russell Westbrook popping up on the near side as a decoy.
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There’s no way they run this without Dion Waiters in the game. Andre Roberson’s lack of shooting bends the half-court toward Russ and KD, but Waiters is a different matter.
Despite all this offensive ingenuity, sometimes it’s just Durant turning into an ungodly scoring dynamo. This is an impossibly difficult shot with the back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year right in his grill.
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The trick for the Thunder is limiting these types of impossible shots to one or two a game, and not the five or six fourth quarter isolations the Thunder will sometimes rely on. Durant and even Westbrook are good enough to sink some of these, but only some, and if they’re going to beat this Spurs team, they’ll need to continue to get him easier looks at the rim.
Adams turning himself into an offensive threat, not to mention all the other actions away from the ball, helped Durant more than anything in Game 4. Now it’ll be on Popovich and the Spurs to offer a counter.
Jab, counter, jab, counter — it’s the NBA Playoffs, and we can’t wait for Game 5.
