Kevin Durant is the poster boy for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Even when Russell Westbrook or James Harden or Serge Ibaka is tearing it up on the court, fans still chant “GO KD!” Unfortunately for the Thunder, KD did not answer the fans calls in Oklahoma City on Saturday night and Dallas took a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals.
Kevin Durant only hit 7 of 22 shots on the night and did not hit a single 3 the entire game. The entire Thunder team failed behind the arch, only hitting one from long distance, but Kevin Durant was the one whose misses killed the Thunder. As a matter of fact, the NBA scoring leader only has one 3-pointer in his last 17 attempts.
"I was telling myself after the game, 'It's not like me to miss 12 or 13 threes in a row,'" Durant said after the game. "I get 'em up every day [in practice]. I work on it every day. It's just a matter of me being confident."
After scoring 40 and 24 in the first two games respectively, Kevin Durant finished Game 3 with another 24 point game but ten of those came on free throws and Durant even missed one of those.
"Frustrating," said Durant after the game. "It's tough to start a game, not make shots and you give teams easy baskets. That's like a backbreaker."
Russell Westbrook, on the other hand, rebounded from his ‘benching’ in Game 2 and scored 30 points with four assists and seven rebounds.
However, not all the blame can be laid at the feet of Kevin Durant. Scott Brooks should know by now that the Thunder need their bench to play strong to win games. In Game 3, Brooks played James Harden for 36 minutes and Nick Collison for 24 but that was it, save for short stints by Eric Maynor and Daequan Cook. After relying on the bench to pull out the win on Thursday, they only scored 16 points on Saturday.
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