Michael Shapiro

But I think what we saw tonight, well, the three-point shooting didn't bounce back, but they did have a little bit more juice to get those 50-50 balls.

And they had 23 stocks.

So when you combine Kevin Durant with that level of effort, attention to detail defensively, Jordan Finney-Smith, Jay Sean Tate were big off the bench.

I mean, this team should have a chance.

And if you were worried about, you know, whatever happened or didn't happen with Kevin Durant over the All-Star break,

I think you can rest easy.

He's still Kevin Durant.

As far as what it will mean for the rest of the team, I mean, time will tell.

But through one game, so far so good.

I think you have to like beyond just, you know, it was predictable that Kevin, if anything, he's going to feed off of this.

He's been through this before.

with the Burners 2017.

If anything, the attention, the spotlight is going to get him to have something extra for these games.

I guess if there's any question, it's how does it affect the other players on the team, the guys he allegedly called out in the group chat, so to speak.

And so far, so good.

I mean, 23 steals and blocks.

There's no signs to me that the effort was lagging in any way.

I'm curious if either of you noticed it felt at least to me like KD was more demonstrative than usual during the games.

You mentioned the postgame interview, but during the game itself, you know, he was going out of his way to high five teammates to pump them up.

It felt like, you know, beyond obviously he wanted to have a great stat line after the PR beating he's taken the last few days.