Kendrick Perkins said he and Kevin Durant each lead in their own way.

“I'd never tell KD this, but I think he kind of set the bar high for me,” Perkins said. “Practice starts at 10, and he's there at 7:45 every morning. I'm looking at him like, ‘Dude, what are you doing?' Seriously, I'm used to getting my (extra) shots up after practice. He's before and after practice. So I'm like, ‘Man, you're setting the bar up pretty high for a guy who's got (two) kids.' I need every extra minute of my sleep.

“KD is a guy who leads by example. When I first got here, I had never seen a superstar work as hard as him, and that's the honest truth. Just watching him before practice, then he goes through practice hard, he's shooting again after practice. I'm like, ‘When do this dude ever get tired?' It was something like two weeks after the season was over with … he went to Rucker (Park in New York City) and dropped 60 (actually 66 points). I'm like, ‘When's your vacation time?'

“But that's the way he sets the bar for the team. He really leads by example by not even saying a word. So it's cool.”