“KD got cooked by a Twitter dude” – Kendrick Perkins mocks Kevin Durant after he was humiliated for tweeting ‘offense wins championships’
Kevin Durant recently found himself in the headlines as he went back and forth with NBA fans on Twitter regarding Carmelo Anthony. Durant defended his opinion by tweeting, "Offense wins championships," and got trolled by fans over it.
Durant's former OKC Thunder teammate, Kendrick Perkins, has now weighed in on the situation, taking the opposite side. As Perkins pointed out, the longstanding belief is that it's defense that wins championships.
The whole saga began when NBA veteran Will Barton said on the "BallDontStop" podcast that there aren't 15 players better than Anthony when using the eye test.
When a fan stated that 'bucket getters' are the most respected type of players, with the insinuation that the respect may be a bit much, Durant responded. As he pointed out, the object of the game is to score points in order to win games, something Carmelo Anthony has always done at an elite level.
Fans were quick to chime in, pointing out that Anthony has never won a ring and isn't exactly considered a two-way player. Despite that, Durant doubled down, saying teams that score more points usually win.
But with the debate raging on, Kendrick Perkins fired back on an episode of ESPN's "First Take" this week:
"KD got cooked by a Twitter dude. ... Listen, we all know that defense wins championships, and look, we can go back into history; majority of the teams that won NBA championships were top five defensively in the postseason. They upped their defensive tactics on both ends of the floor, and they had defensive prowlers on the floor."
"So, at the end of the day, I'm standing on that. Defense does win championships," Perkins added.
.@KendrickPerkins reacts to KD tweeting that offense wins championships 😂
"KD got cooked by a Twitter dude. ... We all know that defense wins championships." https://t.co/XrzzZw4Djq
Looking back at Kevin Durant's championship wins and how defenses played a crucial role
With Kendrick Perkins' claim that talented defensive teams are the ones to win championships, let's take a look back at Kevin Durant's championship wins.
When Durant joined the Golden State Warriors for the 2016-17 season, the team was fresh of the greatest statistical year in NBA history.
During the 2015-16 season, the Warriors posted a 73-9 record, beating out the Chicago Bulls' 72-10 record from years past. That season, the Warriors finished with the fifth-best defensive rating while coming up short in the NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The following season, with Kevin Durant, the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors won an NBA title, posting the second-best defensive rating in the league that year.
While they managed to go back-to-back the following season and capture another NBA title, their defensive rating wasn't nearly as good during the regular season. However, in the playoffs, the Warriors took their defense to the next level.
When it came time for the postseason, Golden State put up the second-best defensive rating of any team. Given that, Perkins' claim of teams that level up their defense in the postseason finding success seems to be true.