Durant explains the Thunder's tough defense isn't special treatment, but the hallmark of championship contenders playing cohesive, aggressive basketball.
If you've ever spent more than five minutes on any sort of NBA social media app, then you've almost certainly been bombarded with two prevailing narratives when it comes to the Oklahoma City Thunder and free throws.
The first one is that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a free throw merchant. I've already tackled that false discourse in my little neck of the RoundTable woods.
The second one is that the Thunder defenders are given a longer leash to play physical and aggressive without any whistle, all while opposing teams aren't allowed to touch OKC players. Never mind the fact Oklahoma City had one of the worst free throw differentials in the league during their championship campaign and are in the bottom half once again this season.
The question was posed to former Thunder superstar Kevin Durant after OKC's dismantling of the Houston Rockets on Thursday night. But the future Hall of Famer wasn't taking the bait.
"No, no, no different than any other group. They play with physicality for sure, but that’s what championships organizations do," Durant said when asked if OKC was more grabby or foul prone than other defenses. "I don’t think they toe the line or anything. I just think they just play swarming basketball; they all rush to the ball. They play physical off the ball. They got great hands. They got good block shot blocking center. I don’t think they do too much, anything extra. I just think they play together and know how to swarm the basketball.”
If I had any sort of tech savvy, this is where I'd insert the "Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point" meme for all Thunder fans.
Durant's point is a fresh of breath air in a time where hardnosed defense and physicality is too often misrepresented as some sort of ill-intended or physically malicious bending of the rules.
Despite the discourse that NBA social media may try to spread, there is no league-wide conspiracy to help one of the smallest markets in pro sports. Adam Silver is not hosting Zoom meetings with every referee to instruct them to swallow the whistle when Alex Caruso or Lu Dort get aggressive on the perimeter nor to immediately blow air into that whistle once Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drives to the rim.
So how can this Thunder defense possibly be so dominant if they aren't getting special treatment from the refs?
There's a principle that states the simplest explanation, the one that requires the fewest assumptions, is generally the most likely to be correct. And in this OKC free throw mystery, the Occam's razor is that this Thunder defense is just legitimately one of the best in league history.