When Russell Westbrook went down in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s first-round series against the Houston Rockets, it was clear that the Thunder no longer had a chance to come out of the West. While Kevin Durant gets more headlines, Russell Westbrook was definitely one of the 10 best players in the league last season and the argument can be made that he was a top-five player (I say top five with Chris Paul, LeBron James, James Harden and Durant filling it out).
Although we knew that the Thunder weren’t headed for a rematch against the Heat in the Finals, the hopeful part of us as fans thought “maybe KD is that one-of-a-kind superstar who can make this thing interesting.” Durant’s an amazing talent and his 2013 postseason stats of 30.8 points, 9.0 rebounds and 6.3 assists did nothing but reinforce that idea in our minds (if not strengthen it).
On the other hand, the performance of Serge Ibaka in the second-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies proved that his offensive success is strictly due to the quality of his teammates and his ability to shoot open jumpers. I’m not saying Ibaka doesn’t provide the Thunder with a lot at full strength (meaning with Westbrook) as his ability to protect the paint with his help defense, defend in the post and nail open jumpers does a lot for his squad, but against Memphis he needed to step up as an offensive player and he didn’t. Plain and simple. Should we have known that Ibaka didn’t have those capabilities? Maybe, but with a young player who had a clear-cut role on such a great team, it seemed feasible that he could provide a little more when called upon.
On the surface, seeing Ibaka’s numbers of 12.6 points, 8.4 rebounds and 3.2 blocks per game in the five games against the Grizzlies seem decent, but that’s where numbers can lie. In those five games, Ibaka shot an abysmal 38 percent and performed poorly in crunch time when Kevin Durant needed him to step up. When Memphis started sending defenders at Durant from every angle imaginable (making their stifling defense look like the defense you play against the kid on the in-town basketball team who should definitely be playing AAU) and he was forced to give up the ball, Ibaka couldn’t get it done.
When Oklahoma City entered that series, it knew it was going to be a struggle offensively. Memphis was the best defense in the game (yes, better than the Chicago Bulls without Rose) and the Thunder were missing their main playmaker (Durant’s the main scorer and clutch performer, but Westbrook is the main playmaker and anyone who argues that is unrealistic). Scott Brooks had to go into that series hoping to use Kevin Martin as a decoy because he had to know in his heart that Tony Allen wasn’t going to let him score in bunches (and he didn’t: 14.4 points on 42 percent shooting and just 18 free-throw attempts in five games). Also, Brooks had to know that Mike Conley would play Reggie Jackson evenly at worst, that Kendrick Perkins would do nothing on offense as usual and that Nick Collison and Thabo Sefolosha weren’t going to magically become offensive threats.
With all those preconceived notions already in place, it’s clear that it was up to Ibaka to take his game to a new level: Ibaka didn’t and now we know that he doesn’t possess those kind of skills. Zach Randolph outscored him, out-rebounded him, out-percentaged him (that’s definitely not a word but you get it) and outplayed him. Point blank. Although it shouldn’t come as a huge shock that Z-Bo outperformed Ibaka, for a Thunder fan, it had to be a little depressing to watch.
Now, it’s important to under that I’m not randomly hating on Ibaka, because I think he’s a wonderful player and although he gets left out of all the top power forward conversations, he’s an above-average starter for a top-three team in the NBA who protects the lane, hits open jumpers and changes the game’s momentum with his defensive antics (a.k.a. slapping shots into the fourth row). Take that statement for what it’s worth. Meanwhile, Kendrick Perkins once again proved that he’s the most overrated player in recent history, but by now we all know that, right? Just in case you didn’t know, the great post defender that is Kendrick Perkins was able to hold Marc Gasol to just 19.4 points, 8.4 rebounds, 3.0 blocks and 6.8 free-throw attempts per game (in case you didn’t catch the sarcasm, all of those numbers are improvements on his regular-season statistics of 14.1 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 4.0 free throw attempts per game).
With Westbrook back this season, Ibaka will be back into his comfort zone. However, if Jeremy Lamb and/or Reggie Jackson struggle to fill the shoes of Kevin Martin as the team’s consistent third scorer, we now know that it won’t be Ibaka that will fill those shoes.
[slider_pro id=”21″]