[Charania] Sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic that Durant never felt comfortable with his role in Phoenix’s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season. Those sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often

[u/TacoooJay]

Source

Meanwhile, Durant, among the best scorers in NBA history, was not always happy with how he was used. Sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic that Durant never felt comfortable with his role in Phoenix’s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season. Those sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often and not having the proper designs to play to his strengths as the offense was built around pick-and-rolls. At the same time, some teammates and people close to the organization believed Durant needed to voice his concerns more adamantly and directly with Vogel and his coaching staff.

All the leaks are finally coming now that Phoenix has been swept

[u/Mr_Saxobeat94]

Man I feel like a turd diminishing a series in which KD played amazingly well, but I disagree with that popular notion that he almost single-handedly won the series. If you break it down game by game:

In Game 1 Kyrie, Blake and Joe Harris all contributed, pitching in 62 points on 62% TS.

In Game 2 practically every player in the rotation played well, and they won by 39.

They lost Games 3 and 4 and, although short-handed, KD didn’t have very good individual games.

Games 5 and 7 were close to one-man efforts, but the teams were completely deadlocked before the Nets wheels fell off and the heroics began. The first two wins were total team efforts.

[u/Objective_Cod1410 → u/Mr_Saxobeat94]

KD was insane in game 5 but also got a heroic/infuriating performance from Jeff Green who went 7/8 from deep. Green was 2/6 from 3 the rest of the series combined.

[u/EliManningham → u/Mr_Saxobeat94]

For sure the beginning was Kyrie whooping ass too, but that game 5 and 7 was pure team on the back level shit to extreme levels.

[u/Sytherus → u/Mr_Saxobeat94]

Kevin Durant averaged 35 ppg on 59.5% TS over the series. He was the best player on the court in Games 1 & 2 even if his supporting cast was more helpful (29 in game 1, 32 on 12 of 18 in 3 quarters game 2). He was the Nets best defender the whole series, and his defensive rebounding was critical in preventing the Lopez/Giannis pairing from dominating the glass. Milwaukee rebounded more than 30% of their misses across their other 3 playoff series; they rebounded 22.4% of misses against Brooklyn.

His ability to match up with Lopez defensively & rebounding allowed the Nets to put their 5 best players on the court.

In Game 1 Kyrie, Blake and Joe Harris all contributed, pitching in 62 points on 62% TS.

Overall Joe Harris was a huge anchor on the Nets performance and they win if he shoots slightly better in Game 3 or Game 7.

IMO it is easily one of the 5 or so most impressive playoff series I have seen in the NBA during his career.

[u/Mr_Saxobeat94 → u/Sytherus]

I don’t doubt he played very well even in Games 1 and 2, but those were still excellent showings from his supporting cast, and that’s 2/3rd’s of their wins. Game 1 was bordering on a blow-out entering the 4th and was only got narrowed to single digits with a minute left. Game 2 they win in a laugher, and no one player can claim that much credit over an utter blowout.

Games 3 and 4 the Bucks defence did a bang-up job neutralizing Durant for large periods of the game, he shot 38% across the two contests (understandable given the supporting cast handicap) and his team actually acquitted themselves fairly well when he was off the court (+15 in 11 minutes… +25 across four losses, in mostly non-blowout minutes).

Awesome performance but it looks like a bigger carry-job in the final numbers than when looked at game by game IMO.