In recent years, the Bruins have slipped from national relevance at the college basketball level. At the pro level, though, the impact of the UCLA program is as clear as ever, especially as the NBA playoffs reach their latter stages.
Atop the postseason leaderboards in double-doubles is a pair of ex-Bruins in Oklahoma City point guard Russell Westbrook and Cleveland power forward Kevin Love, each of whom is a key component in their teams’ march toward the NBA Finals.
Raptors rookie guard Norman Powell hasn’t produced the same gaudy numbers as Westbrook and Love, but he has emerged as a key piece for Toronto and played a crucial role in his teams’ first-round series win over Indiana.
And forward Kevon Looney, though he’s out for the season after surgery on his hip, is on the roster for the Golden State Warriors, giving UCLA the most players of any college on the rosters of the four remaining teams in the playoffs.
Daily Bruin Sports broke down the performances of the three ex-Bruins still playing in the postseason.
Russell Westbrook
During the early years of the partnership of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, the Thunder was clearly Durant’s team. Westbrook was a star, but Durant was a superstar.
Then Durant got hurt. While Durant was out for much of last year, Westbrook morphed into a superstar in his own right, tallying up more triple-doubles in a single season – 18 – than anyone since Magic Johnson in 1981-1982.
With Durant back this season, Westbrook continued to play at an elite level – his scoring output decreased, but he shot the ball more efficiently and upped his rebounds and assists.
Now, as they tear through the NBA Playoffs, the Thunder is a team with two superstars. Durant said as much a couple weeks ago when a reporter asked Westbrook about Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s assertion that the Thunder guard was “an All-Star but not a superstar.”
The question was directed at Westbrook, but Durant reached out his hand toward Westbrook’s microphone and said, “Hold up.”
“He’s an idiot,” Durant said of Cuban. “He’s an idiot … Don’t listen to … he’s an idiot. That’s what we’ve got to say about that. He’s an idiot. Next question.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atLcaZsuQL8
As firmly as Durant dismissed the idea that Westbrook was not a superstar, Westbrook has perhaps done so even more emphatically with his own play.
In Game 5 against Cuban’s Mavericks, right after Cuban had made the comment about Westbrook, the UCLA product tallied up 36 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists as Oklahoma City closed out Dallas.
That might not have even been his most impressive performance of the playoffs. In Game 1 of the Conference Finals against the Warriors on Monday, Westbrook rebounded from a poor first half to carry the Thunder to a comeback victory on the road.
In the third quarter, the explosive point guard scored 19 of Oklahoma City’s 38 points, cutting a 13-point halftime deficit to just three points by the end of the period. He finished with 27 points, 12 assists, six rebounds and a whopping seven steals.
“He’s probably the quickest guard in the league in terms of getting his hands on loose balls, long rebounds, getting his hand in on a steal or whatever,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr after the game.
Kevin Love
Eight-straight games, eight-straight wins and eight-straight double-doubles from Kevin Love.
Two years after they acquired Love to complement LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, the Cleveland Cavaliers are finally seeing their Big Three find its stride.
After sweeping two consecutive playoff opponents, the Cavaliers look poised to do the same to the Toronto Raptors and could reach the NBA Finals unbeaten in the playoffs.
Love’s scoring might be lower than James’ or Irving’s, but the power forward’s ability to shoot the three-pointer has helped spread the floor for his fellow stars to attack the basket. He has also been attacking the glass like he did during his time in Minnesota.
“Kev is just being Kev,” James said after Cleveland finished off its second sweep. “He’s a workhorse, a guy who is giving us 19 and 12 in the postseason and has eight straight double-doubles. No, he’s not the Kev in Minnesota. He’s the Kev in Cleveland.”
The Kev in Cleveland has had to come to terms with a reduced role compared to what he grew accustomed to in Minnesota.
After he averaged a double-double in five-straight seasons with the Timberwolves, Love’s numbers took a huge hit in his first season with the Cavaliers. His scoring dropped by almost ten points a game and his rebounding dipped into the single digits for the first time since his rookie year.
The team took some time to click, too, starting the season 19-20.
Eventually, Cleveland started rolling, winning 34 of its final 43 regular-season games and sweeping Boston in the first round of the playoffs. In the final game of that series, though, Love suffered a season-ending dislocated shoulder when he got tangled up with the Celtics’ Kelly Olynyk.
With another chance at the playoffs this year, Love has seized the opportunity.
“Kevin is a great player, I believe a top-10 player in this league and he knows it,” said Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. “When you have a team with three All-Stars, sometimes you don’t get to play the role you’re capable of playing. That’s what’s been hurting Kevin over this last year and a half, but now we’re using him the right way. He’s comfortable and things are great.”
Norman Powell
Standing in the Cavaliers’ path to the championship round are the Toronto Raptors, who have received a strong boost from rookie guard and ex-Bruin Norman Powell.
Powell, a second-round pick, started the season as a minor contributor but earned more playing time throughout the season, eventually averaging over 30 minutes and 15 points a game in April, when he won the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month.
By the end of the year, the young guard, relatively unknown and undervalued at the start of the season, was catching the eye of established NBA opponents like the Spurs’ Tim Duncan and the Grizzlies’ Zach Randolph, as CBS Sports’ James Herbert described in an excellent late-season profile of Powell.
Duncan, during a matchup with the Raptors in April, caught the attention of Toronto forward Patrick Patterson to ask about Powell. “Yo Pat, he’s a rookie?” Duncan asked, according to Herbert.
Randolph expressed a similar sentiment the night before when Memphis faced Toronto. “He’s a rookie?” Randolph exclaimed after hearing from Raptor guard Kyle Lowry that Powell was, in fact, a rookie.
Before the Raptors’ first-round series against the Pacers, then-Indiana coach Frank Vogel described Powell as “definitely someone that can hurt you.”
Powell proved that throughout the series, averaging 18 minutes, scoring in double-digits three times and often guarding Pacers superstar Paul George on defense during the Raptors’ seven-game series win.
Powell was one of the most crucial Toronto players in a critical Game 5 comeback victory over Indiana – during his 28 minutes on the floor, the Raptors outscored the Pacers by 16 points. He guarded George for much of the fourth quarter, holding the All-Star to just two points in the final period.
The rookie also delivered the best highlight of the night when he capped a 15-2 fourth-quarter game-tying run with a steal and a thunderous breakaway dunk that sent the Air Canada Centre crowd into a frenzy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv9yiPtUs8A
“When you’re in a fast break like that, you have a lot of time and a lot of things are going through your head about what play, what style of dunk you want to do,” Powell said afterwards. “I just tried to finish it and throw it down with authority to get the crowd going.”