{"id":898,"date":"2015-10-23T15:03:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T20:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/?p=898"},"modified":"2015-12-15T14:42:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T20:42:47","slug":"why-oklahoma-city-will-beat-golden-state-in-a-playoff-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/?p=898","title":{"rendered":"Why Oklahoma City would beat Golden State in a Playoff Series"},"content":{"rendered":"
I was reading my weekly edition of Sports Illustrated<\/span> <\/em>today and the writer that did the piece on the Golden State Warriors<\/span> made an astute observation.\u00a0 The Warrior’s Stephen Curry did not have to face a strong starting point guard in their run to the NBA title in 2015.\u00a0 When GS came to\u00a0the Peak in Oklahoma City\u00a0on Jan 16\u00a0 in their final\u00a0regular season game between the\u00a0two, they faced a\u00a0Thunder<\/span>\u00a0team\u00a0complete\u00a0with the wunderkind Kevin Durant, a healthy\u00a0Serge Ibaka, and a full roster of Thunder players.\u00a0 \u00a0OKC\u00a0 dominated that game giving the Warriors their 7th loss in 39 games up to that point in the season. The only game last year the “complete Thunder” played the Warriors OKC punished them, \u00a0127-115.\u00a0 Durant 36 points, Ibaka 29, and Westbrook 17 and 16 assists overcame an outstanding game by Klay Thompson (36 points).\u00a0 Yes,\u00a0Curry had 19 points, but\u00a0was no match for Westbrook’s assists and the\u00a0offense came through\u00a0Westbrook that night against a “supposedly” great Warrior defense. The\u00a0Warriors gave up a season high 127 to<\/em> OKC<\/em>.\u00a0 Yes, GS won three previous game with OKC last\u00a0year, but even\u00a0in those games OKC’s Russell Westbrook\u00a0“owned” the little sharpshooter.\u00a0 Looking back into the history of the games between Curry and Westbrook, Westbrook has always had the better part of the play as\u00a0the Curry couldn’t handle Westbrook’s all-around performances.\u00a0 <\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

In my analysis, if the Warriors and Thunder meet in the 2016 playoffs, the Westbrook\/Curry match-up will be\u00a0a significant\u00a0determining factor for that series. As great as MVP Steph Curry\u00a0is, Westbook devastates the smaller less athletic guard when they match up (on either side of the ball.)<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
\u00a0\"russell-westbrook-11-620x400\"<\/a><\/h5>\n
<\/h5>\n
<\/h5>\n
Westbrook’s scoring, his assists to teammates KD and others wreck the GS defense.\u00a0 Of the two,\u00a0 Curry is the better shooter and\u00a0Westbrook is\u00a0the better basketball player.<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both photo Credits:\u00a0 http:\/\/bouncyorangeball.com\/russell-westbrook-mvp\/<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading my weekly edition of Sports Illustrated today and the writer that did…<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/path><\/svg><\/i> \"Loading\"<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[287,58,310,53,54,311],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-recent-posts","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba-finals","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-stephen-curry"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":155,"today_views":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":947,"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}