NBA Playoff Memories: Russell Westbrook, Physicist

The critics of Russell Westbrook are their own breed, and though they are fewer in number than those of LeBron James, their spite has no less fervor. They, like LeBron's critics, do not need or deserve anyone's attention. But one of their fundamental tenets is probably worth examining, which is that Westbrook is only a fraction of what he could be because he does not pass like a point guard should.

Positional dogmatism aside, it definitely is true that Westbrook does not pass in many situations where he could, or at moments when someone like Chris Paul would. I think though that asking Westbrook to see the court the way Chris Paul does might change Westbrook's very essence. Were he to calculate perfectly how the defense collapsing on him in this area of the court might open up a shooter over there on that area of the court, he might average more assists per game. He might also be someone else entirely.

That's not to say that Westbrook does not have court vision, because saying that would be categorically stupid. Only that when he does make the really brilliant passes, they seem like they only just occurred to him. Westbrook frequently breaks the aphoristic "don't jump unless you have a reason" basketball rule, and just as often it works out. He thinks quickly enough and trusts his instincts enough that even in midair, when he really has no time to think or trust or do anything but make a decision, he makes a beautiful one.

Anyways, I say all this because one of the greatest things about Russell Westbrook is that he plays basketball like you or I decide what we want to eat. It's all subconscious craving and single-minded appetite. "YES. That is what I want." It works for us when we're about to go out to lunch, but it rarely works for anyone in the sports world. It takes a boundless athletic talent with an unchecked imagination. But that's who Russell Westbrook is, and that moves me.

Which makes this particular moment, my single favorite play of the 2014 playoffs, that much more unusual.

In Game 5 of the Thunder's series against the Grizzlies, with 15 seconds left on the shot clock and 10 in the game, Westbrook picked Mike Conley's pocket and returned it for a two-handed game-tying dunk. Of course, when it originally happened, I think I probably laughed. It seemed like quintessential Westbrook, like he wanted the ball in that moment, so he stepped forward and took it, which was just the kind of thing Westbrook would do and has done.

Except that the more I watch this clip, the more it looks like it was planned, set up, and executed, like nothing Westbrook's ever done. Maybe it says more about Scott Brooks than it does about Westbrook that I can imagine him in the huddle, brain exhausted, staring at a blank white board before looking up at his point guard and saying, "y'know Russ, you think you could just steal the ball?"

But even if that weren't the case (but judging by the way he calls plays on offense, there's no reason to doubt that it wasn't), I'm convinced this was premeditated theft. He lulls Conley into the drive, first fronting, then backing up a few steps, seeing the screen, and then, in the moment right before Conley starts his crossover, he's already leaning forward. He jumps him before he even sees Conley's move develop, like he knows what's coming.

But this is what really kills me. After he's baited Conley into showing him the ball, and after he steals it, and finally, after he's dunked it and essentially sent the game into overtime, he calmly trots back to the huddle like nothing ever happened. I've watched a lot of Russell Westbrook, and one of his trademarks is that his celebrations, after he's done something truly spectacular, always reflect a certain anger, as though he feels personally affronted that the sport of basketball even exists.

Here though, after stealing the ball from a professional point guard, whose only job it is—at that moment—to do anything but turn it over and who is normally very good at that, Westbrook acts unimpressed with himself. It's almost Duncan-esque—a job needed doing and Russ decided he might as well be the one to do it.

So that's what this is: This is the moment when the sci-fi imagination of the single most electrifying player on the planet meets the cold, practiced reality of an engineer.

This is when Russell Westbrook, who shatters dimensions and travels freely in time as if by accident, calmed down just long enough to sit down with a sheet of graph paper and design a machine to do it for him.

Fans of Gregg Popovich and the Spurs might have you believe they have a monopoly on this sort of thing—on the methodical precision of manufacturing beautiful basketball. Russell Westbrook would like you to know that they do not. He can do this too; he just chooses not to.