Kevin Durant Explains Why Warriors' 2018 Postseason Is More Difficult Than 2017

The Golden State Warriors lost exactly one—one (!!!)—game the entire 2017 playoffs.

They've already dropped five times as many this postseason and were one legendary JR Smith mistake away from a sixth in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

So, what's changed? According to Kevin Durant, not much. Teams are just doing a better job of understanding how to limit the seemingly unstoppable force of their roster. 

“Usually the new thing is hard to stop,” Durant told Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports. “I don’t think it was easier. I just think it was new. The newness of it all threw a lot of opponents off guard sometimes, threw a lot of coaches off guard sometimes. Now, they’ve got a whole, full year to scout more, scheme more, build their team more. I think that’s what made it, not difficult, but more difficult than last season. I think that’s the beauty of a team coming together like this, trying to accomplish the ultimate goal, which is to win. Stuff is going to get harder and harder and it’s only going to make you better.”

Durant has been the focal point of some frustration among Warriors fans, particularly for his propensity to lean on isolation shots. His playoff averages (28.8 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 4.2 APG) are right in line with last season (28.5 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 4.3 APG), but he's shooting more than eight percent worse from the floor and hitting just 31.7 percent of his threes.

The Cavs held Durant to 26 points on 8-of-22 shooting in Game 1, lulling him into some bad isos much in the same way the Houston Rockets had a round prior.

“We’re all victims of our expectations that we’ve set,” Stephen Curry said. “I mean, the fact that they’re saying KD had a bad game is kind of funny, just with what you expect from him every single night. But we are all in this together.”

The luxury of the Warriors is they can play 75 percent of their best game and still run teams out of the gym. Throughout the postseason, Golden State has destroyed teams in the third quarter while playing pedestrian in all others. The Warriors have outscored opponents by 32.6 points per 100 possessions in the third quarter during the playoffs, per NBA.com. No other quarter has a net rating better than 5.2 per 100.

If anything, this playoff run may have taught Golden State that its dominant starting five might not be enough to skate through. All that likely means is an adjust and reload is happening this summer.