We are only a month away from the All-Star Game and this weekend marks the halfway point of the NBA season as all teams will have played at least 41 of their 82 games by Monday. How fast the season is going, but rest assured, the best is yet to come. In the East, the Cavaliers (34-6) have a six-game lead over the defending champions Celtics. In the West, the Thunder (34-6) are seven games ahead of the second-place team and are on pace to surpass their best record of 60 wins since moving from Seattle to Oklahoma, a record they set the year James Harden left the team but Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were still there. The truth is that this Thunder has many similarities to that 2013 team, starting with the fact that Durant was the MVP that year and this year Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is the favorite so far.
Kevin Durant Reflects on His Toughest Playoff Series
That Thunder team, like this one, was very young but fearless when facing the best. In fact, they reached the 2012 NBA Finals, where they lost to the Miami Heat, led by LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. It was the first championship of LeBron’s career and the first of three Finals meetings with Durant. In Kevin Durant’s long career, the 2-time Finals MVP has played in over 30 playoff series, some more memorable and significant than others. But Durant himself decided which was the toughest playoff series he’s ever faced, all thanks to a question from a user on “X,” and the answer was undoubtedly unexpected.
That San Antonio Spurs team was truly remarkable, reaching two consecutive Finals against the Miami Heat after being eliminated by the Thunder in 2012. Durant knows what he’s talking about, and those Spurs were indeed on a 20-game winning streak, including the two wins to start that series. They finished the regular season with 10 straight wins, swept the Jazz in the first round and dominated the Clippers in the conference semifinals. The Spurs won the first two games at home against the Thunder, but a majestic Kevin Durant, along with Westbrook and Harden, had the hunger to defeat the best team of that season.
Durant’s Legendary Game 6 Performance
The Thunder’s path to those Finals deserves recognition. First, they swept the defending champion Dallas Mavericks and Dirk Nowitzki 4-0 in the first round. Then they defeated Kobe Bryant’s Lakers in five games before facing the Spurs. Speaking of that Game 6, which the Thunder won 107-99 and which Durant called “legendary,” it really was for him. In addition to his 34 points (a game high) and 14 rebounds (also a game high), Durant played all 48 minutes of the game! He didn’t miss a single second, with only one goal in mind: to reach his first Finals with the team that drafted him and try to win a championship. Unfortunately, they ran into LeBron James in his prime and a more experienced team in the Miami Heat.
After that, we all know Durant’s story: he went on to win championships with the Warriors. But since leaving the Bay Area, the closest he has come to returning to the Finals was with Brooklyn, and that heartbreaking loss to the Bucks by a foot as Milwaukee went on to win the championship. This year, after a strong start with Phoenix, the Suns have been on a downward trend. But with Durant and Booker, they can’t be counted out. They still have time, though not much, to turn things around and contend for a playoff spot in the ultra-competitive Western Conference, where the gap between the 4th and 12th seeds is only five games. The competition and level of play in today’s NBA is higher than ever.