Why We’re Still Not Sure If the OKC Thunder Are Title Contenders

These aren’t the Oklahoma City Thunder you’re looking for—not if you’re expecting a bona fide NBA title contender, that is. The team that took a 3-1 lead on the Dallas Mavericks with a 119-108 win in Game 4 at American Airlines Center on Saturday seems to have a ways to go.

We’re still waiting for it to carve a championship-caliber identity out of an impressive collection of talent.

The Thunder couldn’t quite put away a threadbare Mavericks squad that lost Deron Williams in the first quarter and rookie Salah Mejri in the fourth, and had J.J. Barea (0-of-7 from the field with six assists) limping throughout.

OKC rode a 20-5 run, sparked by a flurry of buckets and dimes from Dion Waiters (12 points, four assists), to a 33-18 lead after the opening frame, but it never opened up a wider margin than that.

Dallas was helpless to stop Enes Kanter, who scored a game-high 28 points on 12-of-13 shooting. Nor could it slow down Russell Westbrook (25 points, 15 assists), whose barrage of drives and dishes not only spoon-fed OKC’s bigs—14 points on 5-of-7 shooting for Steven Adams, 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting for Serge Ibaka—but also made him the first player since 1992 to post at least 20 points and 15 helpers in back-to-back postseason games.

OKC, though, didn’t do much to slow down Dallas on the other end.

While Westbrook was busy accounting for four of the Thunder’s 12 field goals in the third quarter, the Mavericks were shooting the lights out at home (14-of-20).

Dirk Nowitzki, playing in his 144th playoff game and nearing his 38th birthday, somehow found more room to operate than did Kevin Durant, and it showed. Nowitzki hit his first four shots en route to a 27-point, 12-of-21 shooting evening that put him in 15th place, ahead of Elgin Baylor, on the NBA’s all-time postseason scoring list.

Durant, on the other hand, shot 7-of-20 from the floor, 1-of-4 from …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com