The Top 3 reasons the Thunder lost out in the playoffs

Summer has finally begun, but one question remains: what is Taylor going to do with the rest of her summer now that the Thunder's 5th season has officially ended? The answer: dream about OU football, I guess. I'm writing this while watching "Coach Carter" because there aren't any games on tonight and I'm already having basketball withdrawals.

To say that the NBA playoffs were a disappointment for OKC this year is an understatement. After losing our star PG (Russ, if you didn't know) early in the Houston Rockets series, things were looking pretty bleak.

Those of you that know me know that I absolutely hate negativity when it comes to my sports teams. Like my mom always said, "If you don't have anything nice (positive) to say, then don't say it at all." If you're going to come at me like, "Oh the Thunder have no chance without Westbrook," or "Well, even if we made it past the next round, the Spurs would kill us in the Conference finals," then you just better be prepared for a swift kick in the face. Okay, I won't actually kick you in the face, but I'll be extremely annoyed. Anyway, after losing Russ, I stayed positive. I didn't lose complete hope. With that being said, I think that anyone still ignorant enough to say that Russell Westbrook isn't a vital part of this team should just never watch basketball again. I'm not saying that it's a good thing that Westbrook got hurt, but I do think that the doubters formed a new appreciation for him.

Our whole game looked off without Russ. The chemistry, the flow, the hustle. We just didn't look like ourselves. Here are the top 3 reasons (in my opinion) we couldn't pull it together in the end:

Marc Gasol for the Grizzlies with an offensive board over Serge Ibaka.

 1. OFFENSIVE REBOUNDS. OFFENSIVE REBOUNDS. OFFENSIVE REBOUNDS. Those of you that follow me on any form of social media are probably sick of hearing me talk about it. People who don't know basketball think that winning games is all about scoring points. It's actually a fact that the team that scores the most points wins the game, so I'll give you that. However, if the defense sucks, the other team is most likely going to score the most points. Am I right? It's also a fact that if you allow a good team 4-5 offensive rebounds, a.k.a. 4-5 chances to make a shot, they're most likely going to make one of them. Cut out those offensive rebounds, cut out a looottttt of points.

Doh! Stupid turnovers!

2. Turnovers. So many turnovers. In the final game, we had 14 turnovers, 7 of which were Kevin Durant. I'm not blaming him for the loss by any means, but nonetheless, the Grizzlies capitalized on those turnovers. If we could have cut those turnovers in half, we would have won that last game. We had 15 turnovers in Game 4, 14 turnovers in Game 3, etc. etc. Need I say more?

 3. Kevin Durant cannot do it all. As much as we KD lovers would like to believe so, it's simply not possible. Don't get me wrong, there were several players that pulled weight and did their part to help out, but after every game, Durant would say, "I can do more. I can do more." Maybe he can, but he shouldn't be expected to. One guy can only do so much, and I think he did his part and more. Without Westbrook and his additional 24 PPG, we needed someone to step up and fill that role. We looked to Reggie Jackson. Although I think he did well and I'm looking forward to watching him develop in the future, he didn't have the experience to be "a replacement Westbrook".

And there you have it, Thunder fans. I'm addressing you as Thunder fans because I'm assuming that if you're still reading, you must be a fan.

I would also like to add that I'm a huge Nick Collison fan. He's a hustler, which is something that I can really appreciate. He may not make a ton of points, but he gives 110% the whole time he's on the floor. I think he's one of the most underrated players in the NBA. If you don't like him, you can just keep your thoughts to yourself or be prepared for me to argue you into submission.

We have work to do in the off-season, but I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of. Our biggest mistakes were purely fundamental and easy to fix. If we work on that and if Russ focuses getting better, we'll be golden in the next season.

What do you think were our biggest NBA Playoff 2013 mistakes?