Warriors preparing for Russell Westbrook's ferocity

OAKLAND - Stephen Curry isn’t just great, he’s mesmerizing. You can’t take your eyes off of the guy, because you know that any moment he might do something you’ve never seen before on a basketball court.

There is only one Steph Curry, but there is another NBA player who routinely defies mortal ability. His name is Russell Westbrook, he plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder and he’s coming to Oracle Arena for the opener of the Western Conference Finals on Monday.

“They both have the ability to dominate games,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after practice Friday. “They have abilities that are exclusive to themselves. Nobody can simulate Russell Westbrook, and I don’t think anybody can simulate Steph.”

We all know Curry’s “exclusive” properties by now. The unprecedented range. The lightning-fast wrist-flick of a release.

What Curry is to shooting, Westbrook is to athletic burst. NBA players are among the most gifted athletes in the world, yet the Thunder point guard seems to own a gear of which his peers can only dream. His quickness to the basket, his coast-to-coast slams, his ability to elevate over taller opponents in a heartbeat - they are fearsome to behold.

A columnist for The Oklahoman, the Oklahoma City newspaper, recently asked Thunder players and supporters to describe Westbrook in action.

One fan likened Westbrook’s inimitability to Bob Dylan. Another put it this way: “It’s like watching something on the National Geographic Channel that you have never seen before. You think, ‘Well, that is very interesting and I can understand why that would do something along those lines.’ Then pow! You jump out of your seat and say, ‘You kidding me? No way will I ever see that again.’ Then it happens two days later, only way different than what you just saw the last time, only better!”

The Warriors, of course, are not strangers to the Westbrook Show.

“He’s obviously explosive and does some crazy stuff that I personally can’t do,” Curry said.

The two-time NBA most valuable player added: “At the point guard position, you don’t really see that kind of athleticism every night, so you gotta appreciate it.”

Curry is the best player in the NBA. Westbrook is not quite in that class. It would be hard to argue that he’s the all-around equal of LeBron James or Kawhi Leonard. Heck, Westbrook isn’t even the best player on his team. That distinction probably goes to Kevin Durant, whose length and shooting stroke make him virtually impossible to defend.

And yet Westbrook is the guy who draws your gaze like a magnet. That’s because when he isn’t driving the lane to throw down a windmill dunk, he may be bricking a rushed 28-footer or throwing the ball out of bounds.

For all of his superior skills, Westbrook remains a loose cannon with the basketball. It’s part of what makes him fun to watch, and also what holds him back from true greatness.

Westbrook’s strengths and weaknesses were on display against the Warriors this season. He averaged 25 points, 10.7 assists and 5.3 rebounds in three games against Golden State in 2015-16. Those are All-Star numbers. He also shot 34.7 percent from the floor, and 16.7 percent from 3-point range. The Warriors won all three of those games.

The only guarantee for Game 1 of the West final is that those numbers mean nothing to Westbrook. Like Curry, his supreme confidence does not waver. And like Curry, he goes into the next series on a roll. Westbrook averaged 25.5 points, 10.8 assists (best in the NBA this postseason) and 6.8 rebounds as the Thunder dispatched Dallas and upset San Antonio in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

In the three games they played this year, Curry usually started off guarding Westbrook. Klay Thompson rotated into the role, and backup Shaun Livingston got his cracks, too. Putting Curry, who returned from a knee injury just a week ago, on Westbrook in the playoffs seems like a lot to ask. Expect Thompson to draw that assignment this week.

No matter who is tasked with defending Westbrook, it will be a grind.

“He’s arguably the fastest player in the NBA,” Thompson said. “So you really can’t take a possession off, because anytime you relax and stand straight up he exposes you. So you just gotta be locked in every possession or he can get going.”

“You have to try to limit the easy ones,” Kerr said. “If you turn it over and he gets three or four dunks in transition, those are killers. Keep him off the glass; he’s one of the best offensive rebounding point guards in the league. If you can cut off penetration, you try to do that. But easier said than done.”

“Can never let your guard down,” was Curry’s advice. “You got to try to think one step ahead, get back in transition and don’t let him get a head of steam. And try as much as you can to make him play in a crowd. One guy is not gonna be able to stop him.”

It would be unfair to describe Westbrook purely as a physical marvel. Just as integral to his exploits is a tenuously leashed ferocity.

The Warriors have a fiery competitor of their own in power forward Draymond Green. But Green is just as likely to laugh and pump his fist when something goes right as he is to bark and frown when it goes wrong. Westbrook doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve in the same way. He seems to exist in a state of constant seething intensity.

Just ask the Mavericks players Westbrook pushed out of the way when he was trying to dance with a teammate in their first-round playoff series, or the reporters who frequently draw his ire. (“I just don’t like you,” he told a reporter from The Oklahoman in 2013, though apparently the two had no history of tension.)

Or ask Jeremy Lamb. During a fourth-quarter timeout in February of 2015, Lamb walked past his Thunder teammates doling out high fives - and made the mistake of missing Westbrook’s hand. NBA commissioner Adam Silver left Curry hanging last Wednesday when he presented the 2016 MVP award at Oracle Arena, and Curry responded by quietly making light of the awkward moment. Westbrook, on the other hand, wheeled around, glared at Lamb and demanded his high five.

“He plays like every game means something to him. He plays like it matters,” Curry said of Westbrook. “That’s what the great ones do. I mean, our demeanors might be different. But at the end of the day when you’re on the court, you have that kind of inner dog in you, (where) that 48 minutes is the most important 48 minutes that you have in front of you. That’s how I see him. Winning’s important to him.”

Curry and Westbrook might display it in different ways, but that’s one thing these unique point guards have in common.