Oklahoma City Thunder: Durant, Westbrook & Thabo most efficient

The Thunder-Laker series is four games old. Play four games in six days against the same opponent, and you find all kinds of trends and revelations and questions. Here are my Thunder thoughts:

* The most efficient players in this series have been Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. A good way to measure efficiency is usage rates – shots taken, plus half of the foul shots taken, plus turnovers. That gives you a good gauge on how many possessions a certain player used. In this series, the usage rates compared with points scored:

Thunder

Kevin Durant 98/109.

Russell Westbrook 92/100.

James Harden 70/63.

Serge Ibaka 38/36.

Thabo Sefolosha 16/18.

Derek Fisher 21/17.

Kendrick Perkins 20/14.

Nick Collison 10/12.

Daequan Cook 9/10.

Lakers

Kobe Bryant 127/114.

Andrew Bynum 79/73.

Pau Gasol 53/46.

Metta World Chaos 50/44.

Ramon Sessions 38/26.

Steve Blake 26/22.

Jordan Hill 17/17.

Matt Barnes 14/8.

So check those lists. The only players in this series with more points than possessions used are Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha.

* The most underrated stat in in the playoffs is minutes played. You learn a lot by studying how much coaches play their players.

In this series, Harden has played 113 minutes, 23 seconds. Perkins has played 112:09. Ibaka has played 116:01.
Think about that. Harden is a budding all-star. A wondrous offensive player who is turning into a solid defender, too. Scotty Brooks wouldn’t think of not using Harden down the stretch.

Yet Perk has played virtually the same amount of time as Harden, and Ibaka has played a little more.

Ibaka was superb in Game 4 – 14 points on 7-of-11 shooting, with a couple of timely offensive rebounds, plus five blocks. Ibaka has 17 blocked shots in the four games. He’s got 13 offensive rebounds. Two of Ibaka’s baskets in Game 4 came on follow shots.

And Perkins, well, I know everyone gets tired of me ranting about his value. But it can’t be overstated. Bynum is playing at the top of his game in this series. He’s engaged, he’s mobile, he’s skilled, he’s not being a knucklehead. Just a total dominant center, at least offensively. During the regular season, Bynum was third in NBA field-goal percentage, .558. In this series, Bynum has made 26 of 59 shots – a .441 percentage. Bynum had 18 points in Game 4, but six came in just four minutes against Nazr Mohammed.