Kevin Durant: Slayer of Everything

Earlier this season, I saw Kevin Durant in person for the first time and watched him light up a badly overmatched Minnesota team for 47 points. No surprises there, right? The thing was, throughout most of the game, Durant was guarded by then-Timberwolves' forward Corey Brewer, an excellent long, athletic one-on-one defender. Durant was unaffected. He scored at will. As he fired away, and it seemed that every jumper that left his hands was destined to find the bottom of the net, I remember thinking to myself "Durant could conceivably become the single most unstoppable player in the NBA sometime in the next few years."

Despite the fact that I recently wrote an article that ridiculed sports writers who are so prone to hyperbole in their analysis, I feel as though I just witnessed a turning point. That time might be now. Playoff Durant is here, and he just made damn sure the Thunder moved on. 

(A quick tangent: tonight we nearly saw the utter demise of one of the most decorated dynasties in the NBA, the Tim Duncan era Spurs, at the hands of the 8th seeded Grizzlies, only to see rookie guard Gary Neal save their season and championship hopes at the buzzer with a long three to send the game into overtime. Despite all this drama, the Spurs/Grizzlies game was the second most fascinating game of the night. Is there anything in the world better than the NBA playoffs? Aside from Starburst jellybeans...? No. No there really isn't.)

I am squirming as I write this down.

On some nights, players are described as having scored a "quiet" 20 points. This usually means they hit some shots and contributed sufficiently to the game, but essentially just added points to the final box score; points that were necessary to get the win, but that didn't change the course of the contest.

This is the complete antithesis of what just occurred in Oklahoma City.

Yeah. Don't act like you didn't hear him.

Kevin Durant's 41 points were jet-engine-screaming, 11-year-old-girls-at-a-Justin-Bieber concert loud. With his team down 9, and the 4th quarter winding past the halfway point, Durant saw the situation was calling for a hero, and he took over.

A long two pointer. A big three. A falling, floating, off balance leaner which he sank as he was fouled on the way down. Another jumper. The closing free throws. And then blocking Aaron Afflalo's three point attempt out of bounds with 9 seconds left.

One thing he made abundantly clear: Durant was NOT about to let this series stretch to a Game 6.

What was so special about tonight's performance wasn't the 41 points, or even the 4th quarter explosion itself. It was seeing Durant demonstrating himself as a wise, mature-beyond-his-years player before our very eyes. He was aware of the stakes: if Denver won tonight, the Nuggets would have an opportunity to play at home in Game 6, and they would be dangerous molotov of confidence and desperation. Oklahoma City's confidence was visibly wavering. They had collapsed in the final seconds of Game 3. They weren't clicking for the first three quarters of Game 4. All the statistics and questions about teams who had never won a playoff series were swirling around their heads and it was starting to get to the young team.

So Durant made like Woody Harrelson.

He nutted up, demonstrating a sense of the Moment, the killer instinct, all the over-used cliches that are so deservedly bestowed upon Kobe Bryant. One has to wonder how much good leading the USA national team to a World Basketball Championship over the summer did for Durant's maturation, because as he took an entire franchise upon his slender, 22 year old shoulders, it felt as natural as breathing. Durant started elevating for jumpshot after unguardable jumpshot, pumping his fist after every basket, and gifting energy and confidence into the young Thunder, who followed his lead on offense, and chipped in an incredible six minute effort on defense, propelling themselves into the second round for the first time since the move to Oklahoma City.

The contrast between Games 3 and 4 is so obvious, it barely deserves mentioning, but I'll do it anyway. If there was any doubt (and there shouldn't have been) who the best player/alpha dog of this team is, consider it settled. When the Thunder need big plays late in the game on offense, Westbrook cannot be allowed to blunder the ball away; the offense needs to be in Durant's hands. Everyone knows he is going up with the shot, and it doesn't matter. He's supremely talented, impossible to guard, and now he has proven himself as winner. Oklahoma City is his team. Westbrook is nothing more than a very talented Robin, but as long as he embraces that role, the Thunder might be the best team in the playoffs.

In 2006, LeBron James had one of the greatest individual playoff performances in NBA history, dropping 48 points including 29 of his team's final 30 to drag the Cavaliers past the Detroit Pistons in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Durant's Game 5 doesn't touch LeBron's in terms of pure single-handed dominance, or even in postseason significance, since it was just a first round victory. But if the Thunder can make a push to the Finals, it certainly doesn't seem ridiculous to say that tonight's performance, the first playoff series victory in Durant's career and certainly a defining moment of the postseason so far, was a similar first step.

Welcome to the postseason, Mr. Durant. We've been expecting you.