It's not the fact that Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are such prolific scorers that make the Oklahoma City Thunder such a scary team in this year's NBA playoffs.
It's that they can be stifling defenders.
The Thunder completely shutdown the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of their Western Conference series and won 108-70 to take a 1-0 lead.
Westbrook had 24 and Durant 23 and they played 26:35 and 29:36 minutes, respectively. But the win was really achieved by holding the Mavericks to 29.8% shooting. Dirk Nowitzki scored 18 points and he was the only Dallas player to get into double figures.
Serge Ibaka had 17 points and nine rebounds, and Enes Kanter added 16 points and 13 rebounds for the Thunder.
It was Oklahoma City's largest victory margin in a playoff game since moving from Seattle before the 2008-09 season, and the lowest point total the franchise has allowed in a postseason game, in Seattle or Oklahoma City.
"That was a shellacking," Dallas guard Devin Harris said. "They came out and hit us. We couldn't make shots. It kind of affected our defense and we really couldn't recover."
Dallas scored its fewest points ever in a playoff game, and its .298 field-goal percentage was the worst ever in a postseason game for a franchise that has existed since 1980.
"We started off missing a couple shots, and we got a little discouraged, I think," Nowitzki said. "Instead of just playing through it, playing hard, getting back, picking up full court, just making life hard on them, we just went back in our shell a little bit. It's disappointing."
Game 2 is 8 p.m. Monday.
Contributing: The Associated Press
