In a tense Oklahoma City locker room, broadcasted on TNT’s telecast just before Game 4 of the NBA's Western Conference Finals, Billy Donovan sits in a chair and stares at a semicircle of millionaires.
“If each team makes 100 shots tonight, and each team shoots 50 percent, that means there will be 50 loose balls,” Donovan says. “We have to win every single one of them.”
That was the former Florida coach’s message to his team before tipoff. That was his message right before Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook dismantled one of the best teams in NBA history, the Golden State Warriors, for the second time in three days.
That was his message, and it was received.
Suddenly, Donovan finds himself with a 3-1 series lead against the NBA’s MVP, Stephen Curry, who led his team to 73 wins during the regular season, a mark even Michael Jordan’s Bulls never reached.
That begs the question: What the hell is going on in Oklahoma City?
As I watched the game, I wondered, and I was shocked. All season, I had seen Golden State destroy its opponents, game after game, as Curry rested in the fourth quarter, usually because his team was already leading by at least 20 points and didn’t need his scoring.
I didn’t understand what was happening, so like any clueless millennial searching for answers to sports’ most burning questions, I turned to Twitter.
There, pundits were making the obvious appraisals: Durant and Westbrook are crazy good. Wesbrook may be the most athletic basketball player in the game's history and Durant, the former MVP and four-time scoring champion, is simply showing off the skillset that brought the Thunder to a Finals appearance in his fifth year in the league.
But then I stumbled across an anecdote that was making its way around social media, told by Tim Bontemps of the Washington Post.
He and other media members witnessed Westbrook, during the game, order Donovan to remove backup center Enes Kanter from the court. Westbrook didn’t agree with Donovan’s decision to have him in the game.
Donovan obliged.
Yes, the Thunder are led by their two megastars, catapulting them through the Western Conference as quickly as their team’s logo would suggest.
But give credit to Donovan. A first-year coach in the NBA, the former University of Florida legend has found success with an established team with an established culture and established egos, surprisingly guiding them past the NBA’s elite and through the postseason.
Give credit to Donovan, even understanding that the Thunder have been close to a Finals appearance in each of the three years before Donovan arrived, and that OKC has more talent on one team than most NBA teams compile in a decade.
Give credit to Donovan, who must be doing something right, even if I don’t fully understand what it is, as evidenced by me staring dumbfounded at my TV, game after game, and wondering how the Warriors are losing so laughably.
What the hell is going on in Oklahoma City?
Give credit to Donovan because, at the very least, he's had a large role in the Thunder's success.
Ian Cohen is the Sports Editor. Contact him at icohen@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @icohenb.
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant (35) and head coach Billy Donovan watch from the sideline against the Golden State Warriors second half in Game 3 of the NBA basketball Western Conference finals in Oklahoma City, Sunday, May 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
