Kevin Durant Sees Silver Lining in Spite of Rockets' Recent Slide

Kevin Durant has always been a man of perspective. He seemingly always keeps his cool.

Even when being cursed out and singled out by the loquacious Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors several years back.

Durant just went about his merry way at the end of the season.

Even this season, after the Rockets dropped each of their first two games, despite being billed as a title contender.

He wasn't phased. Durant said as much, just two months ago.

“Adversity is tough. Losing is tough. But, it's gonna make us better.”

Fast forward 60 days and the Rockets find themselves in a much more significant slide. They’ve lost four of their last five games and have dropped to sixth in the Western Conference.

Remember, this is a team that was universally ranked as the third-best team in the West, behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets.

At least, heading into the season.

Durant still isn’t sweating it.

“I think losses are tough, don’t get me wrong. Especially now, when you got expectations on you as a team and you got the microscope on you, as a team. Every loss can feel bigger than what it is.

Every win can feel like you damn near won the championship. But that’s just the amount of pressure that comes with the expectations of us being a good team.

These losses are gonna make us better. They’re gonna help us grow character, help us continue to figure out what we need to do to be effective, as a group. Through the midst of it all, just keep grinding and keep figuring it out.”

Durant sought to remind the masses that it’s still relatively early in the season.

“With the expectations on us, it feels like this is bigger than what it really is. Of course we wanna win every game, but it’s 27 games in, we got a lot more basketball to play, so we keep grinding man. You never know, we might go win five in a row or six in a row.

The sense of urgency is there, but we don’t wanna feel like this is too big for us to control.”

The future Hall of Famer pinpointed the need for players to block out the external noise from the media and/or fans and remain focused.

That will help, for sure, but Houston needs to get their offensive strategy and defensive execution (which is what they’ve always hung their hat on) downpat, or they could find themselves in an even bigger hole.

Especially if they’re unable to beat the bottom-feeders of the conference this season, like the New Orleans Pelicans, Sacramento Kings and LA Clippers.