Kevin Durant. NBA Champion. NBA Finals Most Valuable Player. NBA MVP. 8x NBA All-Star. All-Star Game MVP in 2012. 5x All-NBA First Team. 2x All-NBA Second Team. 4x NBA Scoring Champion. 50-40-90 club in 2013. NBA Rookie of the Year in 2008. 3x USA Basketball Gold Medalist (2010 FIBA World Championships in Turkey, 2012 London Olympics, and 2016 Rio Olympics. In his first season with the Warriors, Kevin was hyper efficient with his lowest scoring output since his rookie year. The former Longhorn’s 25.1 points per game was still good for top 15 in the league, despite missing 20 games during the regular season. He shot a career best 53.7% from the field (along with LeBron James and his 54.8%, they were the only non-center/power forwards to make the top 15 in the league). Kevin also averaged a Player Efficiency Rating of 27.6, tied with Kawhi Leonard for 2nd best in the league behind the MVP, Russell Westbrook. Point being that Durant is dizzying to defend against on his own, but add in the Dubs’ dazzlingly dynamic offense, and you have the recipe to decimate defenses with a deftness that defies decency.

Here’s what we know: the Warriors wear down their opponents with a ton of small runs. I’ve heard it likened to death by a thousand paper cuts, and that’s exactly what it’s like to watch a team go against them, so I can’t imagine what it would be like to actually face them head on. One of the things they do better than anyone in the league is space the floor, with 3 of the all-time greatest shooters, capable of getting hot at any time, there is so much room to drive. What they do with almost awe-inspiring accuracy, however, is their split action. Whether it’s the high post or the low post, as soon as the ball is entered to that spot, there’s so much action right in front of where the ball is, it just creates so much chaos for the defense. Zaza Pachulia, David West, Draymond Green, Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, and especially Kevin Durant make for lethal post threats in this overpowering offense. When the ball is entered, it becomes a hub; guys can wait on the reads, and make a good play, or hold it themselves after the defense has been loosened up, for a great shot. The reason I’ve been waiting to do a video like this is because the Warriors’ split action is one of the most fun things to watch, for me anyway, in all of basketball. So with the arrival of Durant, they legitimately had a guy who you could throw the ball into and he would just kill defenses even if they were allowed to load up on him. Add all the things I mentioned, split action right in front of the post defender, or even just THE THREAT of some kind of action around the defender, and you can almost just put two on the board with KD down there.

Shout out to user Enesco Hunte for the “fatal faceup” suggestion. I knew I wanted to do a Durant postup video even before he had played his first game with the Warriors because of how valuable he would be making plays out of the post, but I struggled with how to get it done because of the fact that it’s not the traditional back to basket posting up. Getting the suggestion to incorporate faceups really unlocked what I was ultimately after when I first started.

The end of the video features a lot of elbow postups and some pinch post action. The reason I didn’t want to make it exclusively a video about the low block is because you can sort of see the progression in the offense, so it felt natural to at least tag that stuff on. Isn't the Triangle offense great?

*Description from October 2017

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