Durant ran from the weak side to the strong side and caught the ball in the low post on his back.
Hansen tried to steal the ball as Durant caught it, but he wasn’t successful.
However, he followed up by closing in to maintain defensive position.
Although Durant didn’t manage to pass the ball, his ball-handling in one-on-one situations, especially in the low post, had vastly improved compared to last season.
Durant turned and threatened with a triple threat; Hansen applied pressure on the lower route, but Durant went to the left side, shielding the ball while rapidly driving forward, quickly breaking past Hansen’s baseline.
In his furious state, his speed had significantly increased.
Then, Hansen was beaten, but he didn’t panic; instead, he blocked Durant’s passing angles and herded him towards the basket.
Previously, Hansen relied more on his individual talent for defense, but after playing against the Lakers, he preferred to cooperate with Little Gasol.
This not only increased the success of the defense but also greatly reduced the consumption of his energy.
Of course, this defensive approach was only targeted at players with poor passing abilities or average skills.
Durant happened to fall into this category.
Durant drove to the basket but, given the limited acceleration distance and facing Little Gasol, who was 2.16 meters tall with a wingspan of 2.30 meters, he couldn’t make the shot.
Seeing that Hansen had already blocked his route for an outward pass, he attempted a forceful layup against Little Gasol.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t Kobe, and his height became a disadvantage at that moment, resulting in a somewhat comical shot that hit the basket frame, leading to an out-of-bounds call.
Durant looked very frustrated.
That feeling of adopting a posture and then striking at thin air was too suffocating.
What made it even more infuriating for him was that Hansen, upon seeing the referee’s gesture, even started clapping in front of him!
Is this how you treat your brothers?
The Grizzlies continued with high-low positions, Little Gasol turned and broke through, then passed the ball to Guy.
After receiving the ball, Guy made a successful three-point fake shot, creating space against Durant, took a quick stop-and-shoot from mid-range, and scored.
Then, the difference in defensive quality between the two teams became apparent.
The Thunders were still relying on the defensive abilities of role players, without a mature defensive system.
With more offensive roles allocated, Westbrook and Durant’s defense had notably declined this season.
Once they were beaten, it was easy for the follow-up defense to lag behind.
Looking back, Durant continued to position against Hansen in the low post.
After losing points on both offense and defense, he wanted to regain control of the game.
However, he didn’t get such an opportunity because after being continuously scored upon, Westbrook decided to take matters into his own hands!
He opted for a stiff pull-up shot after a side pick-and-roll.
Unfortunately, lady luck wasn’t on his side this time, as the shot was clearly short.
He was aware of it and judged the landing spot of the basketball, quickly leaping to grab an offensive rebound for a second chance.
Although his shooting wasn’t very accurate, you could always trust his passion for the game.
But his layup was directly blocked by Little Gasol onto the backboard.
Scoring in the Grizzlies’ paint wasn’t going to be easy.
Little Gasol immediately grabbed the defensive rebound and passed it to Conley.
Conley suddenly increased the pace and pushed forward quickly.
Although using the same lineup, the Grizzlies’ current playstyle was clearly different from the ground-and-pound approach during Hollins’s era.
This change of pace caught the Thunders somewhat off-guard.
When they reached the frontcourt, Little Gasol, seizing the moment of unsteady Thunders’ defense, set up a screen wall for Conley.
Conley quickly accelerated, drove to the basket, and after drawing Ibaka’s help defense, jumped and passed the ball to Randolph, who had advanced to the frontcourt, scoring an unguarded two-pointer easily.
After the Thunders had a perfect start, the Grizzlies hit back with a 6-0 run!
During this surge, the Grizzlies exclusively scored from field goals, all assisted shots.
It’s worth mentioning that Hansen hadn’t even scored yet!
Team basketball might not always surpass talent basketball, but highly talented team basketball is indeed terrifying.
Apart from Hansen, the Grizzlies didn’t have that S-level talent, but their lineup of one S and four As was frightening enough.
At this moment, Joerger stood up and moved to the sidelines, motioning for Little Gasol to prepare to double-team Durant.
He had keenly observed the Thunders’ decline in form.
Westbrook responded quickly and passed to Ibaka, who took a mid-range jumper.
The opportunity was decent, but with Little Gasol’s defensive disruption during the retreat, the shot still missed the basket.
However, it resulted in a long rebound, reclaimed by Ibaka, who passed it back to Westbrook.
Westbrook confidently backed Conley down, turned around, and pulled up for another shot.
From a triple threat to double iron.
Kobe once said that Westbrook was the most like him in the league, which turned out to be a very accurate observation.
Little Gasol grabbed yet another defensive rebound.
And once again, the Grizzlies sped up, this time Hansen sprinted to the outside, received Little Gasol’s long pass from the backcourt, and broke away from Seferosa with a fast break glide and dunk, scoring his first points of the night.
The Grizzlies’ counterattack wave continued.
Brooks stood up and called for a timeout.
"How did they make it to the Western Conference Finals?" on the commentary side, Barkley started mouthing off. Orıginal content can be found at 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡~𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚~𝙣𝙚𝙩