NBA Playoffs 2011: Are Kevin Durant and the OKC Thunder the Most Dangerous Team?

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the team no one wants to play at any point in the 2011 NBA playoffs. 

Even Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers are concerned about the possibility of meeting the Thunder on their way to a possible third straight NBA title, as evidenced by Bryant’s comments following a loss to the Thunder last Sunday. 

Led by superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, the Thunder are one of the youngest teams in the NBA, and have a roster as complete as any. 

The Thunder are not your usual young and inexperienced team. They play with the poise and confidence you’d expect to see from veteran teams like the Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs. 

Not only can OKC score the basketball from a number of different players in a multitude of ways, they can also defend both the perimeter and paint quite well. 

A midseason trade to acquire Celtics defensive-minded center Kendrick Perkins has allowed the Thunder to take the next step as a franchise and join the NBA’s elite. 

Perkins has given the Thunder a toughness and defensive presence in the paint that they sorely lacked last year against the Lakers in the first round of the Western playoffs. 

Going to Boston in the Perkins trade was Thunder forward Jeff Green, who had failed to take his game to newer heights each season. 

Green’s departure from the starting lineup allowed for young, athletic forward Serge Ibaka to take over the starting power forward position. 

On the offensive side of the coin, point guard Russell Westbrook has been one of the most improved players in the league this season. Westbrook has always been a top rebounding point guard, but his scoring ability rose to new heights in 2011. 

He was able to shoot the ball consistently from range, turning one of the weaker parts of his game—outside shooting—to a strength. 

Opposing defenses can no longer back off of Westbrook and dare him to shoot the ball from the outside, making the job of defending him much more difficult. 

With Westbrook’s emergence, teammate Kevin Durant’s stats have dipped a bit, and understandably so. However Durant still led the NBA in scoring, his second consecutive season as the scoring champ. 

So with all the needed weapons offensively, as well as the athletic and talented defenders OKC has, are they the NBA’s most dangerous playoff team? 

Well, yes, and here’s why. There’s no team that they matchup poorly against. 

One of the greatest attributes of the Thunder roster is that it’s so well-rounded that they don’t have any weaknesses that can be pinpointed by opposing teams that would cause OKC to lose a series.

Last year, their lack of muscle and height at the power forward and center positions was exploited by Phil Jackson and his Lakers team. 

But in 2011, Lakers big men Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum won’t have the same ease on both ends of the floor against Perkins and Ibaka that they had against Green and Nenad Krstic (also traded to Boston in Perkins deal) last season. 

In OKC’s only two games versus the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat this season after the Perkins trade, the Thunder won both games by at least 10 points. 

A late season win last Sunday night in Los Angeles against the Lakers was a huge confidence boost for the Thunder. They finally went into the Staples Center and defeated Kobe and the Lakers, an arena they lost three times versus L.A. in the playoffs last season. 

After a year of playoff experience, and the fixing of their most glaring weakness (lack of a defensive center), the Oklahoma City Thunder are the most dangerous team in the playoffs. 

They can beat any team playing any style of basketball. 

The Thunder can run the floor with their youth, defend with their size and athleticism in the paint and on the perimeter, and they can operate efficiently in the half-court with Kevin Durant’s offense. 

The Lakers are concerned about the Thunder this season, and soon, the rest of the NBA will be scared of them for a long time. 

This isn’t a typical young team. The Thunder aren’t satisfied to be a top team, they want to be THE top team in June.