Defensive assignments for PJ Tucker with the Miami Heat: Kevin Durant
Most people look at Kevin Durant’s stats during the Bucks vs Nets series last year and assume Tucker did a poor job defensively. However, that’s just not the case.
There’s only so much a player can do against one of the best scorers in NBA history. The best he can do is make Durant’s life as difficult as possible, and he did just that.
It was clear by the frustration on Durant’s face how well Tucker was playing him. Tucker was constantly getting under Durant’s skin and doing everything possible to throw him off.
Tucker guarded Durant for a total of 59:13 that series, holding him to 35-77 (45.5%) from the field and 8-26 (30.8%) from deep. He still got his buckets, but Tucker made it very hard for him to do so.
It’s unfair to solely look at how many points Durant scored and base Tucker’s defense off of that. In order to fully understand how well he played it’s important to watch the actual games.
He was always in Durant’s face and picking him up at halfcourt. By the end of the series Tucker had committed eight shooting fouls on Durant, but he did what he had to do to slow him down.
Putting Tucker on Durant would take a little bit of the load off of Butler and Adebayo. He could focus all of his energy on guarding Durant while they could focus on other areas of the game.