MINNEAPOLIS – Kevin Durant settled in on the right wing, with the emerging Minnesota Timberwolves star Andrew Wiggins squared up between him and the basket. Like he relentlessly practices each day, Durant snagged the ball with one hand, turned, rocked back and fired. Swish. With just 23.7 seconds left, Durant’s dagger put the Thunder back up by five, and ultimately was the final nail in the Thunder’s 101-96 road win.
A 16-point fourth quarter lead by the Thunder dwindled all the way down to just three points with 3:15 remaining, but that’s when Durant took over. After having missed five straight shots, the league’s third leading scorer buried a 20-foot pull-up jumper with 2:54 left. In response to a Timberwolves bucket, then Durant drained another jumper, this time from 22 feet.
After snagging a huge defensive rebound after a missed Wiggins free throw, Durant knocked down another one, from 17 feet to give the Thunder a 95-89 lead. After a Thunder turnover, however, Durant was the only man back on a 3-on-1 fast break, but he somehow managed to blow it up with a steal. Minnesota’s Zach LaVine made a three, but time was running short for the Timberwolves, and that’s when Durant went to work over Wiggins.
When it was all said and done and the Timberwolves had put Durant on the foul line four times in the final eight seconds, Durant had scored the Thunder’s final 12 points.
“I got every shot I wanted, just have to finish them,” Durant said. “I’m glad I made them tonight. Coach called some plays for me, and I just tried to finish and my teammates were excited for me.”
The Thunder used a 15-2 burst to start the game and then a 9-3 run out of the halftime locker room to maintain control of this game throughout the night, but the Timberwolves wouldn’t go away. In both the second, third and fourth quarters, Minnesota made runs and put pressure on the Thunder in key areas – turnovers, second chance points and at the three-point line.
“A lot of the times as these ebbs and flows in the course of the game where players on both teams are too good that they’re going to be able to make plays and do things to keep themselves in games,” Donovan described. “We had some plays that we weren’t able to finish and made some plays to allow them to kind of hang around.”
Even when things weren’t flowing perfectly for the Thunder on either end, Westbrook was able to help keep the scoreboard moving by feeding his big men, Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka and Enes Kanter. Adams and Ibaka did the lifting in the first half and scored eight points apiece on the night. Kanter was effective in the pick-and-roll with Westbrook in the second half, finishing the game with 18 points on a hyper-efficient 8-for-10 shooting.
“We got real, real good production from those two guys in the center spot,” Donovan said.
Durant Dominated with the Mid-Range Jumper
In the NBA, the most coveted shots are the three-pointer, particularly from the corner, and layups or shots in the paint. They’re also the two types of shots that team defenses are specifically designed to prevent opponents from taking. What’s left, then, is the mid-range jumper, and in the closing two minutes of Tuesday’s game, Durant knocked down four of them.
“That’s fundamental,” Durant said. “Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Clyde Drexler, that’s what those guys worked on, is the mid-range. I’ve got to have all three levels covered. At the rim, mid-range and three-point shot. I’m never going to take that out of my game.”
Getting layups against set defenses primed to defend in the closing minutes is extremely difficult in the NBA, especially against an athletic team like the Timberwolves. While three-pointers in general are a more efficient shot, in the closing minutes of a game, there’s an argument that getting the highest percentage shot is actually more important.
The critical element that makes Durant’s mid-range jumper so effective down the stretch is, well, that he hits a high percentage of them, and they’re usually open at that time in the game compared to others. It’s the shots that opponents want to give up because around the league, it’s a low efficiency and low percentage shot, but for Durant a shot from 15-to-19 feet has been a 50 percent look so far this season.
“At the end of the game, guys don’t usually make layups or threes,” Durant explained. “It’s usually mid-range shots to win the game. I just try to study that part of my game and always work on it. I think it’s a layup, I think it’s going in every time. It’s just as good as a layup to me, so I’m going to keep shooting it.”
By the Numbers
8-for-10 – Shooting numbers for Enes Kanter, who scored 18 points off the bench and added four rebounds
11 – Assists for Russell Westbrook on the night, who also added 22 points and seven rebounds as a part of his 24th double-double on the year
19 – Fast break points for the Thunder, thanks to 10 steals and 15 points scored off of 18 Timberwolves turnovers
