“It’s really hard”. “You have to do what you can”. “It’s very difficult to have two bad games”. This is how some authoritative personalities like Khris Middleton, Jrue Holiday or Steve Nash spoke when asked in the past, how to defend Kevin Durant in the framework of Playoffs.
It has always been said that the play we see in the postseason has little or nothing to do with it normal phaseand there is truth in this assurance, at the same time that it is of justice they recognize the existence of true playoff specialists. Stars that alone force the opponent to build their entire game plan around how to stop them. It’s not just about being nice. not even being elite. To achieve such an estimate requires an additional. Which could be summed up by saying that it is about players who will score despite the opposition’s effort.
Kevin Durant belongs to this species.
Among all those players with more than 150 meetings of Playoffs played throughout history, only Michael Jordan (33.4) has a higher grade point average than Kevin Durant (29.4). What makes the difference between KD and the Bulls legend is in his offensive efficiencywhich tops the Phoenix Suns star thanks to a 59.8% in real shot (best among top 10 scorers), 35.6% on 3-pointers (best record) or 52.7% from two (fourth-highest).
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To talk about Durant in the playoffs is to name it terror of opposing defenses. Someone who will score the shot the opponent allows, without having to impose his own style, because His way of understanding the game is fluid, changing, flexible.
Faced with such a challenge, Mr LA Clippers, whose project is facing a critical moment. In the third season of existence around his figures Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, Californians had the worst possible pairing. The Suns are Western Conference bookies’ favorites, finalists in 2021, coming off a flop last year and adding one of the all-time greats. A very tough ballot to sort out in the context of a seven-game streak considering the defensive blunders of Ty Lue’s men.
However, a fleeting look back offers a glimmer of hope for the Clippers. Despite the player’s special aura, Kevin Durant showed in his last two playoff experiences that he was human. First the Milwaukee Bucks and later the Boston Celtics made their mark thanks to the edge defense.
If Durant is one in a million when it comes to putting the orange ball through the hoop in the playoffs, Kawhi Leonard would be his counterpart in trying to avoid that.
Despite his physical problems and coming off a serious injury, Kawhi is the only hope for the Clippers to surprise and defeat the great contender from the West.
How can they do it? It’s time to break it down.
More | Kevin Durant vs. Kawhi Leonard: The story behind the big duel of the First Round of the 2023 NBA Playoffs
Become Kevin Durant’s shadow
The Milwaukee Bucks took half the championship in 2021 thanks to defending that they composed around Kevin Durant, a work fruit of his effort PJ Tucker. Enter KD “only” 46.8% against the now 76ers player, but his performance dipped and took the star out of his comfort zone.
Kawhi Leonard, like Tucker, is an excellent individual off-ball defender. This means that Much of your success lies in all the things you need to do before you receive your pair: positioning, using the body, passing indirect blocks, covering and pressing passing lanes. Through constant pressure on Durant, it is possible to slow him down and make it difficult to hold onto the ball. That is, that he starts his drive to the basket further away from the basket or that he does not take advantage of an automatic advantage in motion.
PJ Tucker showed an interesting path to take in 2021 hand-in-hand with an almost morbid fixation on Durant:
Devoting all their efforts to limiting any active intervention by Durant on offense, Tucker what he got was create an unbreathable climate for the star.
The PJ Tucker example is also, to some extent, extrapolated to the 2022 Celtics. Grant Williams did a great job one-on-one with Durant, showing that a big frame and heavy matchup can have better result from someone light in comparison.
In a context that favors more, if possible, KD virtues such as playing without the ball, the role of Leonard as an intermediary between the passer and the star it takes on even more weight. Especially considering Kawhi’s nose for steals or interceptions on moving balls:
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Order from collective defense
In 2022, the Boston Celtics they did work unparalleled defensively up Kevin Durantso that they forced him to have the worst series -stats- of his entire playoff career. This, unlike the previous case, was not a matter of a particular player, but of an orchestrated collective plan that worked like a charm.
The Greens organized their plan on the basis of a high physical demand (many hands, contacts and bodies on the way), but also in a decision both risky and successful: “defense on offense”
In today’s basketball there are many defenses and they can all work, but the context and how they are applied is what makes the difference. Ime Udoka he realized that, with the personnel at his disposal, the best he could do was set very specific rules and lead them to the final consequences instead of a more flexible plan. This strategy was based on two pillars.
First, orient Durant to center. This meant that every time he accepted, his pair denied him the ability to go to the side, driving him in the opposite direction. From there on the other four green defenders took a step forward to make it difficult for him and especially to deny him the possibility to touch the paint. This explains why KD dropped his average percentage as his volume increased, going from 55.3% on 8.6 shots in 2021 against the Bucks to 39.6% on 12 attempts against the Celtics.
One could even go a little further by pointing out that Boston’s plan was to make him dribble with his non-dominant (left) hand and thus make him more human:
The second pillar of his defense lay in the work of aid, that is, in collective cooperation in the protection of the crown. If the first line of the ball broke, it was the others who had to come forward and thus make it difficult to go to the basket:
In that sense, the Clippers have a more than interesting team to play out both scenarios. They are versatile, big, and have a deep group with which to take risks in passing lanes and assists. Not all of the blame will fall on Kawhi Leonard, but a lot will depend on what the star can bounce back from, especially with the undetermined loss of Paul George.
However, unlike Bucks and CelticsThe Clippers they will face a team that has attacking figures such as Devin Booker, Chris Paul and DeAndre Aytonwho already know how to beat them in seven games.
The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the NBA or its organizations.
