BNM, Did you watch OKC in the playoffs? Westbrook makes that whole engine run. Without him causing havoc opposing defense can stay in position and play Durant straight up. The Thunder score far more points per possession with Westbrook in the game and tonights low score is a good indicator. When Westbrook gets the defense out of position, it allows Durant to have awesome scoring efficiency. Its similar to our team, if you look at LaMarcus he has vastly inferior efficency numbers compared to Batum, Matthews, and Lopez. Does that mean those players can create offense as well as LMA? No, they are taking high quality shots as a result of LMA putting the defense in poor positions. Plus now instead of having Reggie Jackson on the bench as a backup combo guard they will have to play extensive minutes of Fisher at PG. Westbrook is a far superior player to Fisher. We will get to see how this plays out over the next 20+ games. The defensive stats you highlighted are mostly meaningless since they are for individual players when NBA teams defend the oppositions as a team. Its not five games of 1vs1. Its one game of 5vs5.
Bump... It took a couple games for Reggie Jackson to figure out he's not Russell Westbrook and that the team plays MUCH better when he doesn't try to be. Without Westbrook freezing him out, as I predicted, Durant is playing the best ball of his career and the Thunder are no longer struggling to close out games in the 4th quarter. The only bad thing about this, is when Westbrook does come back, OKC will have a valuable trade piece they can use to finally get a serviceable big to replace the rotting carcass of Kendrick Perkins. BNM
