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Someone once told me that the NBA follows the narrative path more often than it should. For years, LeBron James was going to be left empty in the clutch. Kobe Bryant was going to hit the winner of the game. Draymond Green would galvanize his team and they’d have a great run to win the game, with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson missing zero shots down the stretch.
Heck, most of the narratives in this year’s playoffs have been true to form. Think about what people were excited about heading to the playoffs: Clutch Damian Lillard (he was awesome in Game 1), no-nonsense LeBron (he was awesome in the other games), Luka Doncic in his early playoffs (he was awesome against a team Clippers’ overpowered, including an OT game winner), Donovan Mitchell shows up when his team isn’t playing the Rockets (yes), and Giannis Antetokounmpo is useless at the decisive moment against teams that force him to create on his own (see: Game 1 against Orlando and Miami).
However, no series has been more about narratives than this one. I’m not going to repeat all the stories involved here, or how the legacies of James Harden and Russell Westbrook greatly influence the outcome of this game. You know, let’s move on.
There is a reason why I chose the image I made for this preview. It’s incredibly ironic that in the season that Daryl Morey and Mike D’Antoni threw their small-ball experiment, their first-round opponent was a team that had three point guards capable of scoring in groups who like to drive, one defender. built to slow down James Harden, and a stretch of great aim.
Games 7 are always a mud fight. There have only been a few blowouts in Game 7, and the Thunder (and let’s face it, the umpires) are going to do everything in their power to make this an ugly game. After all, OKC knows that if the game closes late, they have the NBA’s best decisive player in Chris Paul and the Rockets have two players who, according to the narratives, are choke artists.
That is why I choose OKC to win tonight. I can’t trust the Rockets to win a close game, nor can I trust Houston to prevent the game from being closed late. I think the Oklahoma City Thunder-Los Angeles Lakers series will be incredibly boring, but maybe the Thunder can steal a game. But hey, the NBA will have its Lakers-Clippers Western Conference Finals!
The announcement is at 8 p.m. CT on AT&T SportsNet Southwest and ESPN
