The Oklahoma City Thunder were heavy favorites to come out of the West when the playoffs started. The young guns out of the Western Conference just made it to the finals last year and seemed to be a little bit better despite trading away last year’s 6th man of the year and current all-star guard James Harden. I was on board with the trade because they couldn’t afford Harden for the long haul but I would’ve kept him until the end of this year but no matter what they still had Russell the Great.
The Thunder happened to get matched up with the Rockets in the first round, karma I guess. Everyone had the Thunder in a sweep or 5 games which made sense to anybody who watched basketball on a semi-normal basis. What people didn’t count on was the Thunder’s second in command to injure his knee. Russell Westbrook aka the mutant, because he hadn’t missed any games during his nba career. Westbrook tore his right meniscus during game 2 calling a timeout when Patrick Beverley banged knees with him. The play wasn’t dirty but it pointed a microscope at the feisty Beverley. Westbrook had surgery on his knee and is out for the rest of the playoffs.
The Thunder went on to beat the Rockets in 6 games and now are locked into a battle with the physical Grizzlies. After Westbrook went down two things went through my head man KD is going to have to show the world he can be a LeBron double or something similar and damn not having Harden is a big loss because it puts either Kevin Martin or Serge Ibaka as your second option. With Westbrook playing the trade was solid but with him out Martin isn’t a playoff tested player even though he’s a veteran so with that being said Durant has to go into super saiyan mode on a nightly basis for the Thunder to have a shot.
As far as picking up the slack of his Robin not being in action KD has done a great job and being a scorer, rebounder, defender and creator for his team. During the 7 games AW(After Westbrook) he has been filling up the stat sheet like people with their EBT cards do their carts on the 1st and 3rd. KD is averaging 34 ppg, 10.6 rpg, 6.1 apg and 1.6 spg AW.
Durant is putting up good numbers as I write this post. The Thunder and Grizzlies are battling as we speak by the end of the game it may be tied 2-2 heading to OKC or OKC could be down 1-3. Reggie Jackson is holding his own being thrust into action but they miss Westbrook a lot and with that being said KD has a lot of extra pressure on his shoulders without his 2nd in command around to help him with this heavy lifting.
