Durant's defense cost the Suns

[bdonovan]

The Suns are gone. Just like the Nets before them. Or OKC before that.

Still some of you who are hooked on the dopamine of ISO will still never understand why. Meanwhile I called it years ago that KD wouldn't win on the Nets nor on the Suns, because basketball is a team sport and certain players like KD undercut the team in key ways.

A lot of you ball-watch and don't see what's going on on the defensive end. At best, you watch individual defense, which means you're missing most of it, in terms of missing team defense.

My critique on KD is that he break's the TEAM's defense, primarily (although their are cases of individual D lapses as well). I've illustrated this with countless examples.

Here are a few more from Game 6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4U3Z4I6ra8

0:52- Durant stays off Gordon; allows him to screen, Durant does NOT switch on to open man - giving up easy bucket.
https://youtu.be/P4U3Z4I6ra8?t=52

1:00- Durant refuses to guard Gordon, lets him screen, refuses to switch onto Jokic, allows Jokic to abuse a smaller Booker for easy score
https://youtu.be/P4U3Z4I6ra8?t=63

0:05- Durant refuses to guard Gordon; unable to switch, leaves the Nuggets wide open for an easy pass inside. You need to block the pass by being on someone.
https://youtu.be/P4U3Z4I6ra8?t=5

There are many more. Use these examples as a mental model for the rest of the video.

You have to carefully watch Durant where he is, and what's happening in terms of screens and switches. You might have to replay it a few times to see why the Nuggets get easy scores. Track where Durant is, what the Nuggets are doing to free up a player, and how Durant stays back instead of switching on to the open man. Durant instead is in no-mans land, pretending to guard the paint, but actually conserving energy. I call this an improvised zone as a joke because the Suns aren't playing zone defense, Durant just chooses to, for his own selfish purpose of conserving energy because he doesn't have the conditioning.

Example of Individual Defensive Lapse:

0:38- Durant refuses to contest fast-break
https://youtu.be/P4U3Z4I6ra8?t=38

1:13- if you want to know what a challenge looks like on a fast break- look at Booker here; that's exactly what you have to try to do, even if it didn't work this time.
https://youtu.be/P4U3Z4I6ra8?t=70

About 25% of you are 'permanent' casual-fans, I have nothing to say to you and am going to have to ignore your responses. I trust you will blame something else/change the subject, and not comment on the substance above.

For anyone examining the full dimension of the game, these mistakes are extremely costly and in the end, they cost as much as you benefit from his offensive production over your average forward. Durant's teams won't win for this reason. You can manufacture 101 excuses, cry out for "more help", blame others, but ultimately team defense isn't optional.

I've already spoken about Durant's weaknesses in team offense (not setting screens, taking plays off making Suns go 4 on 5, etc.). In the end, the NBA only has a limited number of players who have a complete game, bettering their teammates, contributing to team offense and team defense, and those are the ones that tend to have rings.

[Full Court]

Just shows how good Curry is to squeeze two titles out of this guy.

[Real Men Wear Green]

Denver might have been the worst opponent for them. They had no depth and had to contend with the the mile high air. The reason they had no depth is the same reason they thought they could win, trading for KD. Go figure.

[90sgoat]

Yeah I think this might explain why KD in his on-paper prime can't get it done anymore.

He was never a great defender, but he did try and could play help defense. Now he seems quite anonymous outside the half court game on offense.

[plowking]

KD is a flawed player in a lot of ways. Stats look pretty on paper - but the impact and lack of game in certain areas just doesn't translate to winning.

I had the chance to watch him play live at Brooklyn with Irving and team. I think he technically had the best stats the game I watched, but if you didn't know, you wouldn't have walked away thinking he was the best player on the court. Irving by far. Durant was just kinda invisible aside from his points here and there.

He could have two titles with GSW, but he ain't a better player than Barkley as an example. He just isn't, yet he is put above and beyond because he is a silky 7 footer who can shoot.

[Wardell Curry]

KD is a flawed player in a lot of ways. Stats look pretty on paper - but the impact and lack of game in certain areas just doesn't translate to winning.

I had the chance to watch him play live at Brooklyn with Irving and team. I think he technically had the best stats the game I watched, but if you didn't know, you wouldn't have walked away thinking he was the best player on the court. Irving by far. Durant was just kinda invisible aside from his points here and there.

He could have two titles with GSW, but he ain't a better player than Barkley as an example. He just isn't, yet he is put above and beyond because he is a silky 7 footer who can shoot.

Ok but did you just state that Irving is a better player by far than Durant? Maybe I misread that.

If I understood it correctly, I want you to imagine Kevin Durant in place of Kyrie Irving on those Cavs teams from 2015-2017 and imagine the outcome for the rest of the league.

[Wally450]

Denver might have been the worst opponent for them. They had no depth and had to contend with the the mile high air. The reason they had no depth is the same reason they thought they could win, trading for KD. Go figure.

I said about a week ago that I thought the Suns were better before the trade regardless of their record. The Nets could have some decent teams in the future if they can continue to build it right.

[90sgoat]

KD is a flawed player in a lot of ways. Stats look pretty on paper - but the impact and lack of game in certain areas just doesn't translate to winning.

I had the chance to watch him play live at Brooklyn with Irving and team. I think he technically had the best stats the game I watched, but if you didn't know, you wouldn't have walked away thinking he was the best player on the court. Irving by far. Durant was just kinda invisible aside from his points here and there.

He could have two titles with GSW, but he ain't a better player than Barkley as an example. He just isn't, yet he is put above and beyond because he is a silky 7 footer who can shoot.

People forget how active and aggressive he was on OKC. Playmaking, defense, running fastbreaks.

Now he just plays that Olympic role of pure scorer and that isn't as valuable.

[Overdrive]

You act like you found some secret intel most people don't understand. The criticism ever since he became a star player has always been his inability to understand the game as a whole.

Durant surely can help if a matchup requires it, but against a team that uses the whole court he's better kept on the bench - as weird as that sounds for a superstar player.

[ArbitraryWater]

You act like you found some secret intel most people don't understand. The criticism ever since he became a star player has always been his inability to understand the game as a whole.

Durant surely can help if a matchup requires it, but against a team that uses the whole court he's better kept on the bench - as weird as that sounds for a superstar player.

Its still nice to have it mapped out in detail like this dont you think?

There are many people who dont know it like this or deny it.

[highwhey]

this is one of the more stupidest takes. he had a bad defensive game, but for every video you posted, i can show examples of earlier games where he was blocking people's shit inward in the paint. he's not a center. suns as a team are extremely flawed on defense, anyone single person trying to play defense will look bad bc there is NO help. you can drop in JJJ and he'd look bad. he didn't have ayton to help out, which believe it or not, he does contribute some effort on defense even if its minimal, it's still significant in the sense that without ayton, we're even worse on defense.

what cost the suns this series was the lack of depth, running KD and Book into the ground by playing them 50 minutes a game, Monty Williams, and the role players just being plain garbage.

[Real Men Wear Green]

I said about a week ago that I thought the Suns were better before the trade regardless of their record. The Nets could have some decent teams in the future if they can continue to build it right.

If they had a proper offseason to fill out the roster or might have been good but, too bad

[dazzer87]

How about that homo Booker? No blame?

[FultzNationRISE]

OP is Giannis still bleaching?

[bdonovan]

Just shows how good Curry is to squeeze two titles out of this guy.

It was quite a feat. The Warriors were the second best defensive team in the league in 2015-6, the year before Durant joined (and #1 the year before that); they were remarkably sound, especially in team defense, switching, helping. They made up for Durant's shortcomings.

But it takes being an absolutely premier defensive team to cover up for Durant's shortcomings. Few except dedicated fans saw just how much extra work Draymond, Klay and the rest did to make up for the holes in the defense Durant caused, that the Suns clearly could not make up for.

Actually OKC had stellar defense as well with Steven Adams, Ibaka- which is the only reason Durant could compete there.

[bdonovan]

Yeah I think this might explain why KD in his on-paper prime can't get it done anymore.

He was never a great defender, but he did try and could play help defense. Now he seems quite anonymous outside the half court game on offense.

I think there has always been an element to him that it's important to him to prove to others on his team that he's the best offensive option.

That he can beat his man off the dribble in the way others cannot. It seemed there was an element of that maybe subconsciously when on the Warriors vis-a-vis Curry, but more evidently between him and Harden on the Nets. In order to do that, he needs fresh legs. You get fresh legs by taking plays off on defense.

Unfortunately as Durant's gotten on in his career, he hasn't matured but gotten worse in that regard, and at 34, he needs rest even more so to accomplish that. The other thing he's figured out is he can get away with it; 95% of people just care about flashy offense, esp. at end of games when he's well "rested" from skipping defensive assignments. The basketball media eats it up and can't do their one job of truly analyzing the game.

[tpols]

I just watched the replay link you provided and the Nuggets went on a run to extend their lead when kd exited the game with a couple minutes left in the 1st quarter for rest.

@2:41 the score was 26-28. With Durant out it ballooned to a big double digit lead in only a couple minutes.

OP is shortsighted in his Durant hatred. There's plenty of things to criticize about him but you're just dead wrong here. The sun's with ayton, Durant and Paul off the court are a loterry squad. And that's why they lost so bad.

[tpols]

Worst +/- on the sun's yesterday.

Booker -27
Ross -27
Biyombo -26
Craig -17

That's when the lead ballooned and became insurmountable ^^^

End of the 1stQ and beginning of the 2ndQ. Right after KD sat.

Durant didn't have a good game but the game was blown open after he left the game.

[ArbitraryWater]

Worst +/- on the sun's yesterday.

Booker -27
Ross -27
Biyombo -26
Craig -17

That's when the lead ballooned and became insurmountable ^^^

End of the 1stQ and beginning of the 2ndQ. Right after KD sat.

Durant didn't have a good game but the game was blown open after he left the game.



ok but they were still -13 with KD in just the first half cause he was 2/11 lol

[tpols]

ok but they were still -13 with KD in just the first half cause he was 2/11 lol

The point is OP has this weird fixation with blaming everything on Durant. It's almost pathological.

But if you watch the game you'd see that the floodgates only opened after KD sat. That's the moment they started. It's literally what happened.

[highwhey]

ok but they were still -13 with KD in just the first half cause he was 2/11 lol

ok but the title says "durants defense cost the suns"

[Manny98]

People get caught up into thinking he's a good defender because he's long and gets a couple of fancy blocks but the reality is Durant outside of his Golden State years has been a below average defender career wise.