On the morning of a must-win Game 6 and days before he’s expected to win the 2013-14 NBA MVP award, Kevin Durant is the subject of a front-page column in the Oklahoman headlined “Mr. Unreliable.”

That’s cold.

Berry Tremal’s column is entirely fair toward a presumptive MVP whose team is currently down 3-2 in a first-round series. (A loss would make Durant just the second MVP of the past 30 years to fail to win a playoff series.) Tremel makes reasonable points about Durant’s body language and how those frequent Michael Jordan comparisons are fine, except that Jordan was performing well in the playoff losses he suffered in his mid-20s.

The “unreliable” line that’s drawing so much attention today is hardly incendiary either.

Durant went to the foul line three times – and made just one of two on all three trips, including a miss after Crawford’s interruption, when the Thunder trailed 100-99 with 27.5 seconds left in overtime, a score that held up at the end. For six years, Durant has shot foul shots on a string. Mister Automatic. Now he’s unreliable.

Durant missed a crucial free throw in Game 5. That’s fair game. But that word, unreliable, blown up to a moon landing font and slapped across the front page of a section, is bound to draw attention.

For the most part, it’s rallied people around Durant. Twitter comments are running almost fully in favor of the Thunder superstar, with this picture from Oklahoma City’s News 9 team serving as a good proxy for most social media users.

Even Durant’s mother weighed in.

Typical Oklahoman on Kevin. UNBELIEVABLE!! KEVIN is RELIABLE!!! — Wanda Pratt (@MamaDurant) May 1, 2014

UPDATE: The Oklahoman’s sports editor Mike Sherman issued a statement on Thursday saying that the headline “missed the mark.”

We take great pride in our headlines about big sporting events and news in Oklahoma. Thursday’s headline in The Oklahoman on Kevin Durant’s performance in the Memphis series missed the mark. The words were overstated and unduly harsh. The headline and presentation left the impression that we were commenting on Durant’s season, career or even character. We were not. We were referring only to the Memphis series. The fact the headline and presentation left that impression with so many readers is proof that we failed.

But Durant himself on Thursday told reporters that he didn’t find the headline unfair: