Film Study: A tale of two halves for Kevin Durant
Let’s take another bite into some film, shall we? This time, we’re going to look at what changed for Kevin Durant between the first half (where he scored 20 points) and the second half and overtime (where he scored just eight) Wednesday night against the Lakers. Roll the video! (As always, big props to Johnny for the video. Check out the shiny arrows and commentary he added!)
Some specific breakdowns after the jump.
For reference, the light blue arrows are OKC’s player movement and the purple are for the Lakers. Simple drive and dish here. Durant sucks in three Lakers and it leaves a deadly 3-point shooter on the wing. Nothing too complicated, just a smart basketball play by Durant.
Same idea as last time, but this time KD goes baseline. He makes a smart bounce pass to a good jump shooter in Krstic for the bucket. Durant knows he’s going to draw attention. He also knows if he attacks the rim, he’s going to get some calls. He’ll also score some. It’s just picking your battles. The key is, attack when YOU’RE the best scoring option at that moment. When there is a better option on the wing or cutting, find that. This is something Russell Westbrook struggled with and really still is.
This time, the three defenders collapse but KD goes ahead to the rim. You’ll also notice a fourth defender waiting to come and help as well. It’s easy to point these plays out now, but in that moment with the game moving so fast, it’s not easy to see for Durant. He’s trying to find a way to score, whether it’s him or someone else. But these are things he’ll learn. He’ll start sensing better when he can get to the rim for a less contested shot and when to dish.
As Johnny pointed out in the video, the difference between Durant’s last shot and the shot earlier is so important. The fact KD had the taller Bynum on him made all the difference in the world. Little things like that are so key in basketball and sometimes are hard to notice. The main reason I love watching this type of stuff is that while I like to see someone score, I also like to see HOW they scored. On both ends.
It’s going to get better for Durant as he begins to feel the collapsing defense and understand when to drive on and when to dish out.
I am loving this film study sections. Feels like I am part of the coaching team.
Great job guys, I don’t think we can get this sort of analysis on any other blog for any other team.
I think the tape really shows just how small the difference can be between good and bad play in the NBA.
It also says to me, that Durant is feeling too much pressure to perform at the moment. He found the open man early, but when it mattered, he got tunnel vision – as did Westbrook. As the “best player on the team” (a phrase I despise) he also felt undue pressure to make things happen on his own, which is never good.
The good news is, these are things that come with time and experience. He had a rough couple of games against two really good opponents when the whole world was holding its breath and watching, waiting for something amazing to happen.
The thing KD needs to realize is that this is not last year’s team. He doesn’t have to carry the load when everyone around him is playing at the level they did that night. He needs to understand that you don’t ALWAYS have to be the guy…. at least not for a couple more years.
I think all the great ones go through this same thing, the guy is barely 21 and everyone expects him to be Lebron or Kobe already. It’s too much for him right now, but eventually it will give him those icy veins that Kobe showed against the Thunder and again against Houston.
My sentiments exactly. These are excellent.
So far, I prefer the red highlight in Harden’s video to the arrows in KD’s video, but that’s just preference. It’s all well done.
Kudos again Johnny and Royce.
agreed…great work, fellas. I’ve never understood (or really cared, for that matter) the intricacies of basketball. I love me some Thunder and this stuff is getting pretty interesting!
I ditto the “loving it” sentiments, but also think that once blogged they should go into a separate menu item like the Modern Stats 101. You could call it “…to the tape” or something.
It would make a great central repository for those who are wanting to understand more about the game and the team.
Great job!
Durant is 6-10, he has no excuse . . . he has been driving all his life, and he almost always draws multiple defenders . . . truly, I think he lacks trust in his teammates to hit the open shot, and he wants to do it himself. He’s got to be more unselfish, and I think he will at some point – hopefully it is soon . . .
@Taz-Maniac
That’s a very good suggestion.
@Taz-Maniac
Full agreement
@kev
Somebody has been really poopy about Durant lately… but don’t think for a second that the Thunder would have kept pace with the Lakers without him. He’s not perfect (yet) but he’s just having growing pains.
“Film Study” is now a category, so you can select it in the drop down menu on the right.
I’m considering a re-design that will show all categories on a main menu type thing. We’ll see.
Great stuff as usual. I also like the Harden one a bit more.
@Dai
Every single film study will help show just how special Harden’s vision and feel for the game is, either by highlighting things he does himself or by comparing and contrasting him through the film study of another player.
I’m really eager for a Green one, too, as I expect Harden and Green will be better appreciated through film study (i.e. the fundamentals of basketball) than the run of play where we typically focus on where the ball goes, instead of what the players WITHOUT the ball are doing to make a play successful.
Durant had one assist to Thabo in the 4th quarter on a corner three, and he had another near-assist to Thabo on a pass to the corner only Thabo drove and got a layup instead thus depriving Durant an assist. This whole Durant thing is so overblown it’s getting ridiculous.
I rewatched tape from the 4th quarter. Westbrook was the problem way more than Durant was. Durant only used 2 or 3 posessions in the 4th quarter before the final play and to me, that final play was more a failure in coaching than a failure in Durant. Westbrook consistently forced shots and drove into traffic and turned the ball over in the 4th quarter. Durant didn’t see enough of the ball to do any of the things he’s accused of, because Westbrook went through at least 4 possessions where not a single pass occurred before he either shot or turned the ball over. Not trying to rip on Russ, but facts are facts.
KD had 5 assists, and passed to the open man plenty in the 4th quarter. He only took one shot in the 4th quarter. Some people are killing him for not trusting his teammates, others are killing him for not being assertive enough down the stretch. It can’t be both.
And besides that, a lot of stars drive into three players and force a layup expecting a foul call and the refs weren’t giving them that night. That happened to Kobe on a few occasions, too.
Also, play 2 was when Durant was “still passing” occurred with 8 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, play number 3, when apparently Durant decided to start forcing shots, occurred just 3 minutes later. Also, when you watch play number 3, watch Bynum hesitate before running up the court, looks like he’s waiting for a foul to be called then starts running once he realizes it won’t happen. Durant should have passed to Thabo on that one, but he probably also thought he’d get a call.
Seriously, people are trying to make it out like there’s some huge problem with Durant, probably because of the adjusted +/- thing and some of the other complaints about him. He’s a more willing passer and rebounder this year, he’s trying a lot harder on defense, the whole team is playing better, etc. If Durant were hitting a higher percentage on 3s (which we know he’ll do soon). But this post reads like something Jenni Carlson wishes she’d done.
@spike
It’s a shame I already posted the Smart Thoughts for this week. This one would have gotten the gold star.
@spike
Couldn’t agree more that Durant didn’t have an impact in the end of the fourth quarter because he didn’t see that much of the ball because of Westbrook’s decision making and some poor coaching…and that he’s been passing better and been playing more team ball.
But you can’t discount the fact that when he DID get the ball, did get the opportunity to make an impact…HE alone made the wrong decision to pull up for a 28 footer and HE alone shot those two air balls.
Now the caveat to all of this is, I unbelievably agree with you about this being blown way, way out of proportion. It’s one game people. Everyone goes through shooting slumps. This is a team in their third year of rebuilding who has NEVER had playoff experience to close out a game against great teams.
Get back to me if we hit double digit games and this stuff is still happening. I don’t know how we are more upset about the first 4 games of this season at 2-2 than we were last year at the 3-29 stage. Perspective, please.
This is another reason the Thunder need to get better jump shooters surrounding KD. If they had a three point sniper on the floor (such as, I don’t know, J.J. Redick) the defense would definitely hesitate to collapse on Durant like that.
@J.G.
I can discount that because he made two passes that set up baskets by Thabo, one at 2:32 remaning and one at 1:50 remaining in the 4th quarter. Check Thabo’s shot chart for the 4th, both those makes came off Durant passes in crunch time:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=291103025
I appreciate the work that went in to making the video, it is very helpful, but it also is selectively editing. Apparently Durant was too selfish in the 2nd half? Well he went 4-9 in the 3rd quarter and 0-1 in the 4th. He turned the ball over a couple times, one on a iffy strip from behind after he’d beaten Artest off the dribble, another when he drove into the lane and didn’t get a call on Bynum (again, Kobe did EXACTLY the same things, but because he used about 10 possessions in the 4th quarter, we remember his sweet up and under from the elbow and fadeaway from the baseline, and tend to forget his driving into 3 people and not getting a call, or his ridiculous fadeaway from 20 feet at the top of the key).
It’s a little shocking to see people on this blog of all places turn on KD and start talking about how he’ll never lead us to a championship because of a couple bad decisions and a couple missed shots in a November game in his 3rd season, going up against Ron Artest in a game when the officials notably decided to “let them play”.
@spike
I think you’re misinterpreting. The video isn’t to say KD was selfish in the second half. It’s just highlighting a few differences between the first half and the second half in KD’s game. The defenses collapsed in both ways but in one half, KD forced the issue on it and the other he didn’t. Personally, I thought KD was a little too passive in the second half, especially in the fourth quarter. But the video isn’t saying he was selfish or anything – it’s just showing a couple of plays and why they didn’t succeed.
And only one or two people out of MANY are being critical of KD. Don’t think a vocal minority speaks for the entire site. There are going to be many issues over the season where folks are going to disagree – with each other, with me, with whoever. Doesn’t mean we all aren’t wanting the same thing though.
You may be right about the overall tone. To me, I think the team has shown such tremendous improvement from last spring to this fall it’s almost impossible to believe so much could happen in 5 months.
Perhaps we’re all getting a little greedy
@spike
Absolutely. The level of expectation has risen to almost absurd levels for this team…around the country. I’ll say it again, 34 wins. Anything else and this team is WAY ahead of schedule.
And the people who are being critical (overly or appropriately) of KD will, I’m sure, be the same ones singing his praises when he gets out of his early season funk (he’s done it every year like clockwork) and starts putting up monster numbers like the first two games.