I’ve touched on Kevin Durant in articles before, but we’re seeing something remarkable from him this year in the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

After struggling through last season against the Lakers, Durant has left an indelible imprint on this year’s postseason with some incredible performances. Having shot about 35% FG% and 29% 3P% in last year’s postseason (despite scoring 25 ppg), Durant is currently leading the playoffs with a 29.8 ppg scoring average and in stark contrast to the 49.9% TS% he posted last year, this season he’s doing it on 60.8% TS. His other peripherals are similar; just under eight boards a game and around 2.5 assists per contest. His ratios for rebounding and passing remain similar but he’s even stingier than ever about giving up the ball, turning the ball on less than an estimated eight possessions per 100 played. He’s even touching the ball a lot less; Durant put up 20.5 FGA/g against the Lakers last year and this year is taking only 19.8. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but there’s a dramatic difference in his usage ratio, down to 28.9% from 34% last postseason. 

In any event, we’re witnessing Kevin Durant operating on a rather impressive level and the series against Dallas helps us see him with another stunning tall perimeter player in Dirk Nowitzki. Both of them are face-up forwards, though Durant is two inches shorter and theoretically a small forward while Nowitzki is a power forward. They exhibit stylistic differences (Nowitzki, for example, is a much better shooter who uses the post a lot more, while Durant is considerably more athletic and far more adept at getting to the line… usually), but watching them play, especially in a series against one another, one can’t help but appreciate how impressive are their respective offensive games.

Nowitzki is coming off of an historic scoring performance, but lost in the glamour of the win and that incredible efficiency is that Durant put up 40 points on excellent efficiency as well. Those two had a duel, one that had a feel to it that, to me at least, recalled Dominique Wilkins/Larry Bird back in 1988 in the Eastern Semis. It was the third time this postseason that Durant has registered 40+ points… and just the game before against Memphis, he put up 39. He’s in the middle of an offensive zone right now where just about no one can guard him. 

It’s terrifying, then, to note that Dirk is actually outplaying Durant. 

Scoring 28.5 ppg himself, while adding 8.2 rpg and 2.9 apg, Nowitzki is managing his points on 64.3% TS, leading the postseason with a 60% 3pt shooting rate, leading the playoffs in PER at 29.2 and in WS/48 at .289. It isn’t even a fluke, by the way; Dirk led the playoffs in WS/48 last year .291. He is an absolute playoff monster. The fact that Durant is even close to what Dirk is doing right now, especially in this specific season, is utterly amazing and represents the kind of staggering comeback performance people said he needed to have in order for his reputation to recover from his rather abysmal playoff debut against the Lakers. 

There’s a myth out there that Kevin Durant is an incredible shooter.

He isn’t; Dirk Nowitzki is an incredible shooter. Durant is simply a good shooter, and that skill is more impressive than normal because he’s 6’10" instead of 6’6". He’s shooting 46.5% FG right now in the playoffs, and 38.1% 3P% (up from 46.2% and 35% in the regular season).  Those are good numbers to see, but they aren’t transcendent. More importantly, he’s shooting about 40% from 16-23 feet, which is about the same as LeBron shot the two seasons prior to this and is 5% lower than James shot this season. It’s OK, but nothing incredible, unlike the 52% Dirk shot on a like number of attempts per game. That is a staggering number, Dirk’s percentage on those shots, the more so because it’s not the first time he’s done it, the volume of shots he takes from that distance is huge and that they are typically lower-percentage shots. 

Kevin Durant, then, cannot be fairly called a “shooter” in the sense one uses the term to describe players like Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Steve Nash and the legion of other players whose primary weapon is their perimeter jumper. Instead, it’d be fairer to call him an off-ball slasher. He shoots well, but he’s a demon going to the rack and when he gets there, he finishes at an incredible rate (over 77% FG at the rim in the regular season) and he typically gives you better than .400 FTA/FGA, which is quite good.

Durant is particularly adept at moving without the ball, and not just curling around screens to get jumpers, which is how most people think of that concept. No, more like Amare Stoudemire, he’s really good at using screens and cuts to get himself into position for passes that lead him to the basket. Against Memphis, more than once, he had some plays where he screened, then turned around and set a back pick, then rolled to the basket and was essentially wide open for a dunk. That kind of action makes him an incredibly dangerous player, because you know you have to defend him on iso plays, you know you can’t let him spot up and now you also have to worry that, if all else fails, he’s going to go out there and do big man things that will leave him open as your defense scrambles to contain the guys he’s freeing up with his screens. The only thing he does not bring to an offense is a great deal of on-ball shot creation for others. Which is fine, really; like Dirk, he has little need to be the primary on-ball player and can content himself with the types of offensive possessions he gets now. Like Kidd to Dirk, Russell Westbrook handles most of the on-ball action and the dynamic usually works out pretty well. 

We should appreciate this series a little more than most probably are at the moment; we’re watching two of the more unique talents this league has ever seen playing against one another. More than just that, not only are they playing against one another, but they playing in a dominating fashion that it truly is like watching a clash of titans.