2014 NBA Playoffs: Oklahoma City Thunder's wild ride
"Mr. Unreliable"
All season, the sports world searched for an appropriate nickname to bestow upon Kevin Durant.
And the morning of a must-win Game 6, following an uncharacteristic Game 5 performance, Durant woke up and saw the headline in his hometown paper: "Mr. Unreliable."
Durant has near-sainthood status in OKC, so the response to the ill-advised headline was swift, eventually leading to The Oklahoman's sports editor, Mike Sherman, apologizing for it. The damage was done, though, and I'm not talking about to Durant.
Added motivation was probably unnecessary with the Thunder backed into a corner, but Durant snapped out of his funk and torched the Grizzlies for 36 points as OKC forced a Game 7.
"I'm not going to give them credit for nothing," Durant said of the headline following the game. "We were down 3-2. We needed to win this game."
But he came clean a few days later after the Thunder advanced.
"You guys motivated me a little bit even though I told you that you didn't."
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