The finals trip was bittersweet for the Thunder. The young trio of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden failed to make another appearance despite many assuming they would.
A combination of bad injury luck and the trade of Harden led to the Thunder not reaching the NBA Finals again despite making four Western Conference finals in a six-year span.
The Thunder were one of the most successful teams in the league during the 2010s, but the franchise never reaching the mountain top will leave a sour taste in the mouth of the fans.
It’s now been 10 years since the Thunder made the NBA Finals.
On this day in 2012, the Oklahoma City Thunder won its first Western Conference championship since relocation by defeating the San Antonio Spurs in six games.
The Thunder would go on to lose to the Miami Heat in five games in the 2012 NBA Finals.
This is a bittersweet memory for the fanbase as it’s the team’s first Finals trip in Oklahoma City and so far the only one despite rostering three MVPs in Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden. Various reasons — both in and out of their control — contributed to the Thunder never reaching the Finals again with his core.
With a new award comes hypothetical debates on who would’ve won it in previous seasons. FiveThirtyEight’s Mike Lynch tackled this thought exercise in a recent article by handing out a Conference Finals MVP winner for every Conference Finals series in league history by looking through the average game score of players throughout the entirety of the series.
“To award retroactive conference finals MVPs, I first needed to settle on a consistent metric. After some experimentation, John Hollinger’s Game Score seemed like the best fit in terms of matching voter intuition (by rewarding players who dominate the box score) and availability (it can be applied to any complete box score since player turnovers were first tracked in 1977-78 and can still provide useful direction when some less essential statistics are missing). One important thing to note about Game Score is that a score of 10 is indicative of an average, run-of-the-mill game, while 40 is legendary. Across a series, an average Game Score north of 20 is very good and 25 is great, while over 30 for a full series is nearly unheard of. “
The only Thunder player who would’ve won a Conference Finals MVP under this formula is Kevin Durant in 2012, with a 25.7 average score. The Thunder defeated the San Antonio Spurs in six games to make their way into the 2012 NBA Finals.
OTD Russ hit arguably his most famous shot of his career.
On this day in 2012, Oklahoma City Thunder budding superstar Russell Westbrook hit arguably his most memorable shot of his career with a wild and-one circuit shot against the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2012 NBA playoffs during the second round.
The shot erupted the home crowd as the Thunder would go on to win in five games before eventually making the NBA Finals. The shot is remembered for it being the young Thunder core’s “we’ve arrived” moment as momentum shifted with a Game 5 series-clinching win. The young Thunder beating the veteran Lakers were seen by some as a passing of the torch moment as the former would spend most of the 2010s being a constant title contender while the former entered a rebuild.
LeBron James has the best Finals game of his career but needs help from his teammates to survive late-game cramps and go up 3-1.
During the NBA’s indefinite hiatus, I will be rewatching every game of LeBron’s NBA Finals career. Every Finals game from the last 20 years is available to NBA League Pass subscribers on the NBA app or through apps like YouTube TV. We will be going chronologically through LeBron’s Finals career.Â
The Heat have a 2-1 lead for the second NBA Finals in a row but this time, they have their next two games at home rather than on the road. Also, after having Wade start the game on him, with LeBron sensing the kill, he is picking up Kevin Durant from the very start of the game rather than waiting until crunch time. And with LeBron on KD, trying some way to slow down Durant’s incredibly efficient play over the first three games, the onus in this game to create will fall on Russell Westbrook.
Now, we also have to note that LeBron took the challenge of guarding Durant more tightly from the start after Serge Ibaka suggested that he could not defend Durant for 48 minutes, as the ESPN crew shows on the screen. Westbrook has been up and down, becoming a point of controversy in the series. But that controversy would culminate in Game 4 with the best game of his career. He had some huge plays in Game 1 to win that game and some big plays down the stretch of Game 2 to give the Thunder a chance to win that one too. In Game 4, he leads the Thunder to a fast 13-3 start, making it matter very little what LeBron is doing on Durant early on.Â
Almost immediately, the Heat force a steal and get in transition in a way for a LeBron slam dunk, the signature play of that era. What was a 10-point lead is down to five, but that comfort doesn’t last long. After coming in for Ibaka, Nick Collison is turning in some major energy guy minutes with six points and six assists. Westbrook’s energy has been pacing them and now Harden and Durant are starting to heat up. Almost everything the Thunder are getting is coming at the rim as the Heat can’t take care of the ball. The lead gets up to 33-16 before a Mario Chalmers 3-pointer off a LeBron assist cuts the lead to 14 going into the second quarter. If the Heat are going to have a 3-1 lead, they are going to come back from a 17-point deficit.Â
After the Heat get a stop against the Thunder’s second unit to start the quarter, Derek Fisher decides to leave Norris Cole wide-open to double-team LeBron in the post and LeBron finds a wide-open Cole, who knocks it down. Combined with the 3-pointer from Chalmers, the Heat are on a little 6-0 run, with LeBron makes 8-0 after a driving lay-up. Then out of the timeout, James Jones hits a triple. 11-0 run, lead down to six. The Heat are once again showing the lesson that they learned in last year’s NBA Finals. Rather than being run out by the 3-point shot, the Heat are embracing it and it’s keeping them close in a game they’ve mostly played poorly offensively in. Another big reason the Heat are back in the game is that Cole is eating Derek Fisher’s lunch. It’s not Kobe’s NBA anymore, yet the Thunder are still going into that dry well.
The Heat have played the Thunder close all quarter but have yet to take a lead. James Jones, who is in the game for his 3-point shooting, has to pick up Westbrook on a switch and boy it is a cruel scene. Never has a crossover made my knees feel so sore. Yet because Jones is providing 3-point shooting and Spoelstra is riding with the hot hand. Westbrook comes through with a follow slam to keep the Thunder up by 3 as he is unleashing an inspired performance. The Thunder hold onto a 49-46 lead at halftime.
Wade himself has even said that in his final seasons in Miami, he was healthier and felt better than he did during the Heatles Era of four straight trips to the NBA Finals. When you see the beating that he took and what he played through, it’s not hard to understand why. Wade’s Finals greatness in 2006 as the Heat’s best player is often talked about, but his dedication to giving LeBron an aggressive No. 2 option, no matter the circumstances, was vital to the Heat. In this game, he goes from a gimpy second man to the final hero at the game all in one. Every NBA season is a war of attrition, whether it’s 2012 or 2019, and Wade is fighting like hell.Â
With James Harden at the free-throw line in the third quarter, the ESPN crew then focuses their camera on Sam Presti. We are only months away from Presti making a trade that would change the Thunder forever, sending Harden to Houston for Kevin Martin and a first-round draft pick that eventually became Steven Adams. While Adams was a centerpiece on a Thunder team that pushed the 73-win Warriors to a Game 7, the imagination of what would happen had they kept Harden is impossible to escape, especially in a re-watch. Wade gets a couple of free-throw to push the Heat lead to 68-64, their biggest lead of the game to that point. Then a Battier 3-pointer makes it 71-66. After a red-hot first two games, Battier was relatively quiet in Game 3 and for much of Game 4 until that triple. But even when he wasn’t making a lot of shots, Battier’s intangibles would save the Heat more than once.Â
Westbrook’s energy and the hot shooting of Durant are not enough to keep pace with a modern machine the Heat are working with, feeding off of the interior play of Wade and James to generate quality shots at the rim and on the 3-point line. The Thunder’s spacing, by comparison, is far too primitive and they clearly didn’t learn from also losing to Dallas in 2011. Durant alone is not enough to generate the 3-point looks they need, especially when Harden is cold like he is.
Last year, Game 4 was the worst game of LeBron’s Finals career. In this one, it may be his very best game in his first three NBA Finals, hitting a jumper over Durant to give him a 20-8-12 line going into the 4th quarter. And they needed LeBron to step-up, along with Wade’s big game, because Westbrook is possessed. But luckily for the Heat, whatever is possessing Westbrook seems to have taken away the secret stuff from James Harden. Harden bricked two wide-open 3-pointers in the 4th quarter and then Harden muffs a lay-up a few plays later after a steal. Miami 3, James Harden 0.Â
Westbrook’s fury is one of the most inspiring things about this game and it’s willing the Thunder to stay in this game and keep their Finals hopes alive. Perhaps more than anyone on the Thunder, Westbrook is aware of the threat of going down 3-1. But Wade hits another rare 3-pointer, as his gritty performance is creating the separation the Heat need to withstand what will be a Westbrook cyclone. It’s giving off young Michael Jordan against the ’86 Celtics vibes. The Thunder are overmatched but Westbrook is out there like a madman, making the incredibly athletic Heat look like they are playing at a slower speed.Â
But wait a minute! With the score 92-90, LeBron has stumbled and is stuck on the floor. For the first time in his Finals career, we see LeBron have a serious cramping problem, one that would rear its ugly head more in the Finals in future seasons. It would become one of the most difficult physical challenges of his career, in a career that has rarely been beset by injuries.
James is in the corner with longtime trainer Mike Manias as he tries to squat and stretch out. But LeBron, after playing his best Finals game, is being relegated to a spectator sitting on his knees from the sideline. 23 points, 12 assists, nine rebounds, and now debilitating cramps that have literally stopped his legs from working. Meanwhile, Durant has tied the game at 92 with under five minutes left and the drama of when LeBron will come back is mounting. Can you imagine what Skip Bayless will say if they don’t win this? James then stumbles to the scorer’s table and watches Durant give the Thunder a 94-92 lead. It’s an 11-2 run and now the LeChoke memes are getting prepared.
But a rare Westbrook misstep in this game, a dribble off his foot, swiftly gives the ball back to the Heat where they go Wade-Bosh pick and roll. Then James hits a pull-up 3, the biggest shot of his career up to this point, to make it 97-94 over Sefolosha with under three minutes left. With LeBron’s legs now compromised more than Wade’s back, Wade takes the challenge of guarding Durant, which leads to a Heat steal. Wade then drives the lane and his gritty night of heroics continues. LeBron played his best Finals game tonight and hit a huge shot to give the Heat a lead, but Wade’s heroics of playing hurt throughout the night helped give the Heat the push they needed when LeBron couldn’t even run.
However, Westbrook has one last run, and LeBron’s cramps are getting worse. A lay-up makes it 99-96 with 1:40 left. Juwan Howard and Mike Miller have to help LeBron get to the bench during the timeout. And now it looks like his legs are spasming. Mancias and another Heat trainer are trying to help him but he’s nearly convulsing on the bench and screaming in pain. It’s so bad that he literally can’t be in the game for a crucial possession. But Mario Chalmers, never afraid of the big moment, hits a huge driving lay-up to make it 101-98. A few plays later when the Heat have the ball again, the Thunder force a miss but can’t snag the rebound as Udonis Haslem and Harden end up tied up in a jump ball with 17.3 to go. But Haslem tips the ball and Battier perfectly read the trajectory, following the ball and tipping it to Chalmers who was fouled. Battier, the man who they signed after the lockout, once again comes to save the day.
LeBron has learned by now that you can’t win championships alone. And that lesson stuck even more true after he played the greatest game of his Finals career, only to have no choice but to rely on his teammates to close it out for him. And now he’s only 1 win away from his first championship.Â
Durant helped define a new era of basketball in Oklahoma City during which the Thunder became perennial postseason contenders.
The last decade saw the rise of the Oklahoma City Thunder as a legitimate contender for an NBA Championship.
Players like James Harden, Kevin Durant, and Russell Westbrook are forever etched in the organization’s history. Regardless of the circumstances under which they left, they will forever be responsible for the success that Oklahoma City enjoyed during the past decade, as well as the direction in which the organization is currently heading.
So with all the players that have put on an Oklahoma City Jersey Thunder jersey in the last ten years, which one was the top player of the decade?
Why Durant over Russell Westbrook? Bryan Kalbrosky explains.
The Oklahoma City Thunder somehow drafted three MVP winners who all hit their primes during the 2010s. While none of them is still with the team, the one who made the biggest splash was Kevin Durant. The former No. 2 overall pick put up 28.6 points, 7.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game while also shooting 38.6 percent from three-point range. Even though point guard Russell Westbrook was the player who had the longest tenure with the team, it was obvious that Oklahoma City was the most successful version of itself with Durant on the roster.
Westbrook’s contributions to the Thunder certainly warrant an honorable mention. He was an eight-time All-Star Selection, two-time scoring champion, and league MVP during his time in Oklahoma City. He was the face of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the better part of a decade.
The way in which Durant left has gone a long way to overshadow what he was able to accomplish with the Thunder. And recent comments haven’t won him any more fans in Oklahoma City. But his importance to the organization’s overall success during the last decade just can’t be overlooked.
