In the latest of What the F Did He Say, we are featuring Kendrick Perkins. The ESPN talking head pulled up. The Road Trippin Podcast and one of the topics of discussion was his role on the 2012 Finals run of the Oklahoma City Thunder. He seems to have an inflated sense of his impact, saying :
“The Oklahoma City Thunder never went to the NBA Finals until Kendrick Perkins arrived on that team.”
Perkins said he locked up some guy “Dirk Nowinski” however another Mavericks player, Nowitzki, picked up the slack and averaged 26.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists in the lseries. Unfortunately Nowitski’s contributions were not enough as Dallas was swept 4-0 behind 26.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists from Kevin Durant.
According to Perk, Nowinski was not the only player to experience his defensive wrath were the Lakers big man duo of Andrew Bynum, and according to Perkins “Paul Kasol.” For the series, Bynum averaged 16.6 points and 9.4 These numbers are down from his regular season per game averages of 18.7 points and 11.8 rebounds during the regular season. However, Bynum’s production in the series in question was in line with his numbers in the previous round against the Denver Nuggets where he posted per-game averages of 16.7 points and 12.3 rebounds.
Gasol averaged just 12.0 points and 10.0 rebounds, but like Bynum, those numbers were not that far off from the 12.9 points and 9.1 rebounds, he put up in the series against the Nuggets. This means that any defensive impact Perkins may have had on Gasol was negligible at best.
Perkins says his defensive prowess was next unleashed on Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. Parker and Ginobili had their highest scoring series of the playoffs at 21.5 and 18.5 points per contest , while the 17.0 points per contest Tim Duncan averaged was his second highest scoring series of that playoff run.
Unfortunately for Perkins and the Thunder , his defensive stopper super meter was empty in the NBA Finals as LeBron James was able to lead the Miami Heat to a 4-1 victory over the Thunder for his first NBA championship.
