Top 5 moments from Kevin Durant’s NBA career
Kevin Durant is a great player. Kevin Durant is a unicorn. Kevin Durant is one of the all-time great scorers in NBA history.
All the above statements about Durant are true. KD is undoubtedly going to be a first-ballot hall-of-famer someday. He is an 11-time All-Star, four-time scoring champ, 2014 league MVP, two-time back-to-back Finals MVP (2017, 2018) and member of the 50-40-90 club (2012-13 season). He has made scoring look ridiculously easy ever since he first entered the league in 2008. Adjectives fall short in describing the real effect of watching Durant play, such is the extent of his virtuosity.
Over his 13-year NBA career, Kevin Durant has given fans a lot to cheer about. He has had one of the great NBA careers not just in the 21st century, but in all of NBA history. On the cusp of turning 33, though, Durant (birthday on Sep 29) is closer to the end of his basketball career than ever before. With all the highlights and memories that KD has given us, we look back at five great moments from his NBA career:
#5 Kevin Durant goes off for an efficient 43 points in Game 3 of the 2018 NBA Finals
The most efficient game of Kevin Durant’s Finals appearances. In Game 3 of the 2018 NBA Finals versus the Cleveland Cavaliers, Durant dropped 43 points on the Cavs, shooting a phenomenal 15-of-23 (65.2%) from the field. He was six-of-nine from downtown (66.7%). It is the third most efficient game in Durant’s playoff career when he has scored more than 40 points. Durant also had 13 boards and seven assists in the game.
The significance of this performance by Kevin Durant must also be seen in the context that Stephen Curry scored more points in each of the other 2018 Finals games. But with Curry struggling in Game 3 (only 11 points, 3-of-16 from the field), it meant that this was the game that won Durant his second successive Finals MVP.
#4 “You know who I am? Y’all know who I am?”
After Patrick Beverley limited Kevin Durant to just eight shot attempts (eight) while making him concede more turnovers (nine) in Game 2 of the Los Angeles Clippers versus Golden State Warriors 2019 Playoffs first-round matchup, Durant had this legendary remark to make to the media:
KEVN DURANT!!!!!
(via @anthonyVslater) https://t.co/nMQhCX6iRC
Incensed by the suggestion that Patrick Beverley could shut him down, Durant went onto drop 38, 33, 45 and a career-best 50 points against the Clippers in Games 3, 4, 5 and 6 to win the Golden State Warriors the series. Durant averaged 41.5 ppg on 57/40/95 splits over those four games to remind the world that he is and will always be “Kevin Durant”.