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The first round of the 2019 NBA Playoffs have been fraught with interpersonal drama and petty feuds, all of which have provided a whimsical backdrop for a few series that weren’t all that competitive.
The first round of the 2019 NBA Playoffs have been fraught with interpersonal drama and petty feuds, all of which have provided a whimsical backdrop for a few series that weren’t all that competitive.
Jared Dudley told the blunt truth about Ben Simmons’ offensive constraints, prompting Simmons and Joel Embiid to dismiss his comments by roasting his relevancy. Embiid was also caught peeking at a teammate’s cell phone mid-game while D’Angelo Russell’s team secured an upset victory, which might have been the most poetic moment of the season. Patrick Beverley has been tugging at Kevin Durant’s shorts and come dangerously close to blowing in his ear (and, well, it kind of worked in the first two games of the series). Blake Griffin revived his rivalry with the officials by (quietly) joining in on a “ref you suck” chant.
Even though such trivial novellas are fun to watch, the one first round soap opera pitting two franchise cornerstones against one another was the battle between Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook.
The two alpha dogs had been growling at each other dating back to the regular season when Westbrook famously barked at Lillard that he’s “been busting his ass for years.” Once this series began, Westbrook didn’t wait long to bust out his rock the baby taunt any time he scored against the smaller Lillard, swinging his arms more demonstratively than ever before.
Lillard and Westbrook went back-and-forth in Game 3, which the Thunder won thanks to Westbrook’s 33 points (50 percent shooting) and 11 assists. The star No. 0s were jawing at each other in animated fashion in crunch time, and Westbrook earned the last word of the night with a game-icing 3 right in Lillard’s face. After burying the shot, Westbrook looked right at Lillard, beat his chest and unleashed an undoubtedly profane tirade. Even Denis Schroder got in on the act, cradling a towel baby on the sidelines and lampooning Lillard’s “Dame Time” gesture in the final minutes.
It is important to note how little was expected of Portland entering this series. The Blazers were facing off against a team that swept them 4-0 in the regular season without Jusuf Nurkic, who had been their second best player this season and was a linchpin of their schemes on both ends. When making postseason predictions, analysts used refrains like “OKC is my upset pick, but it isn’t really an upset.” There was a genuine feeling that the Thunder were the better team, if not just a bad matchup for a wounded Blazers team.
Then there was the elephant in the room, the fact that the Blazers soiled themselves in the 3-6 matchup last postseason as the underdog Pelicans swept them with impunity. Anthony Davis emerged from the series looking like a true superstar after averaging 33 points and 12 rebounds per game while Lillard shrunk when faced with a claustrophobic defensive scheme.
When the Blazers protected homecourt and won the first two games of this series (they were the only Western team to do so), it came as a surprise. Lillard (and McCollum, who had an incredible series himself) was bombing away, Enes Kanter inflicted damage on the interior against his former teammates and Oklahoma City’s offense was anemic.
While Kevin Durant has taken a massive amount of criticism for winning two championships and earning two Finals MVPs since departing the Thunder, Westbrook has mostly gotten a free pass for his lack of playoff success in the same stretch. Westbrook’s sudden infatuation with triple-doubles produced some ludicrous regular season numbers, the totality of which will surely pave his path to the Hall-of-Fame, and earned him an MVP award in 2016, but his postseason play has toggled between average and disastrous.
Westbrook is now 4-12 in the playoffs in the post-Durant era. Paul George wasn’t around in 2016 (and Victor Oladipo wasn’t the player he is today back then), but James Harden was lacking a star companion as well, and he led the Rockets to a gentleman’s sweep against the franchise that ostensibly chose Westbrook instead of him.
Last season Westbrook was not entirely to blame for OKC’s elimination at the hands of the Jazz – he scored 45 points in Game 5 and 46 points in Game 6 as George and Carmelo Anthony wilted – but his efficiency and recklessness remained glaring roadblocks to collective success.
Facing elimination against Portland, Westbrook shot 11-of-31, and on Oklahoma City’s final possession of the season, Al-Farouq Aminu stonewalled him on the drive before he tossed up an off-balance layup that rolled off the rim.
Thus, when Lillard’s game-winning buzzer beater dropped into the net, it felt like a seismic shift in the NBA’s lead guard hierarchy.
A second series-winning walk off shot. 50 points. 10 3-pointers. 33 points per game for the series on 47 percent shooting from deep. Lillard was embarrassed and erased from the postseason last year. The Pelicans hit the mute button on his game. So Lillard spent the offseason refining his craft, diversifying his palette and picking himself off the mat. His series against OKC was him smashing the remote, denying any influence the defense could have over him. He was in control.
Meanwhile, Westbrook’s failures were emblematic of a player who has failed to develop his game in any meaningful way during the past few seasons. Yes, his counting stats and triple-double tally continue to rise, but the gameplan for stopping Westbrook remains the same, and will only become easier to execute as his athleticism wanes.
In fact, the gameplan isn’t necessarily designed to stop Westbrook, it’s merely designed to beat him. Because often times trying to stop him is a detrimental effort considering his self-destructive tendencies.
Take, for example, how Portland defended Westbrook. The Blazers broke out the 2010 Rajon Rondo treatment (or are we calling it the Ben Simmons treatment now?), offering him as many shots as he could take in the in between areas, and who wouldn’t considering Westbrook was the worst pull-up shooter in the league this season.
So what did Westbrook do? He shot 27 percent on pull up shots while taking eight of them per game, falling dutifully into the trap (Lillard, on the other hand, knocked down a staggering 51 percent of his pull up 3s on seven attempts per game).
For a player whose legacy leans so heavily upon his historic night-to-night averages, it is impossible to ignore just how atrocious Westbrook’s numbers were in this series. 23 points per game on 22 shots, 36 percent shooting from the floor and 30 percent shooting from 3. 10 assists per game, but also five turnovers.
And it isn’t just the numbers that depict Westbrook’s woeful series. Four years ago, having a big man like Kanter guarding Westbrook in the pick-and-roll was suicidal; that’s like putting a lamb in front of a lion. But there Kanter was, standing his ground in the paint as Westbrook struggled to finish through him time and time again.
From a perception standpoint, that this series coincided with Westbrook’s “next question” barrage getting national attention only accentuated Westbrook’s struggles. Westbrook was garrulous and gesticulating on the court but tight-lipped and vulnerable on the microphone.
In that sense, it is hard not to notice the stark contrast in personality and performance between these two stars. Lillard is eloquent and measured while Westbrook is narcissistic and surly. Lillard’s game is effervescent and efficient; Westbrook’s is rigid and increasingly futile. When Lillard’s buzzer-beating bomb left his hands, the Thunder knew they were beat. When Westbrook kept pulling up for jumpers, the Blazers knew the Thunder were beat.
Lillard dominated this series like a player who was eminently aware of what was at stake for himself and his franchise. Another first round exit as the higher seed probably would have meant the end for this Blazers group, and it might have put the notion of Lillard as a franchise player to bed. He was focused, effective, mellifluous.
The same perils faced Westbrook and the Thunder, who will now face an offseason full of questions about the future of Billy Donovan and the plausibility of trading a core piece like Steven Adams. Yet with all of that on the line, Westbrook showed neither urgency nor caution. He was stuck in the middle ground that has defined his career – equal parts audacious and predictable – and he threw away a season in which he had a legitimate MVP candidate by his side.
So when Lillard dismissed Westbrook from the postseason with his iconic wave, he wasn’t just sending him home for the summer, he was supplanting him as the best point guard in the league behind Steph Curry and carrying his Blazers to a place where Westbrook has never led the Thunder.∎
