OKLAHOMA CITY -- Kevin Durant

can do just about anything he wants to on a basketball court. He just can't do everything

.

Not for 48 minutes, anyway. Not without a little more help. Not against a Memphis Grizzlies team that's throwing wave upon wave of defenders in his way.

It is a testament to Durant's greatness that he has put the Oklahoma City Thunder in position to win each of the first four games of this series with Russell Westbrook sidelined for the rest of the playoffs with a knee injury

.

It is a crying shame he might go out in the second round anyway.

But that's where Durant and the Thunder find themselves, down 3-1 in this best-of-seven series entering Wednesday night's Game 5 at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

Durant has carried the Thunder in the two weeks since Westbrook went down. He's scored more, facilitated more and led more.

He's started to look like his good friend LeBron James used to look in Cleveland -- like the only star in the sky.

James had to leave Cleveland to find his supporting cast. What's so hard for Durant and the Thunder is that this franchise was built so neither Durant nor Westbrook ever has to go anywhere.

The Thunder have enough talent to win now and in the future. They have draft picks and salary-cap flexibility to tweak at the margins.

And then they had awful, awful luck.

"That's something I probably will reflect on after [the season]," Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks said Tuesday when asked if he's allowed himself to think how differently this series might have gone if Westbrook were healthy. "But that doesn't do us any good right now. ... That's so hypothetical; that's no fun to even think about. But I know we can do it. We just have to do it one game at a time."