vs. 
Chicago Bulls (31-37, 10-26 road) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (19-48, 14-20 home)
TV: FS Oklahoma HD (Cox 37, HD 722)
Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM)
Time: 7:00 CST
Offensive Rating: Thunder: 103.4 (28th), Chicago: 107.2 (18th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder: 109.2 (18th), Chicago: 108.4 (17th)
Pace: Thunder: 93.6 (8th), Chicago: 93.2 (9th)
Tired legs anyone?
The Bulls are coming off an exhausting 127-121 win over Boston last night in Chicago. It was a physically and mentally draining game for the Bulls who desperately needed it to hang on the eighth spot in the East. So common sports sense says, Chicago should come out flat against a “lesser” opponent. The Thunder’s already got one win over the Bulls (OKC is looking for a season saaweeep) and Chicago is mangled in the ever fascinating Eastern eighth spot playoff race. Where 10 games below .500 and still in the playoffs happens!
One matchup will have most everybody’s interest though. Brad Miller vs. Nenad Krstic Russell Westbrook vs. Derrick Rose. These two are separating themselves in the Rookie of the Year race as the two top candidates and a head-to-head win could be a nice swing vote in favor of either guy. Read more…
Other
So everyone had their bracket filled out three days and I know I’m late with this, but I wrote this column a couple years ago and I always make it a point to revise and re-share it with friends every year. And you guys are my friends, right? Since we’re all literally counting the seconds until the Madness tips tomorrow, how about another column to kill some time until the tournament?
It’s March, and that means madness is only minutes away. It also means that last Sunday night, everyone from Digger Phelps to my grandmother filled out an NCAA Tournament bracket. (And grandma has beat Digger three years running probably because she doesn’t think every single team is “salad” and also understands how the bracket actually works.)
Somehow, the filling out of brackets has become bigger than the tournament itself. Heck, the President took a step away from hope and change and saving the world to fill one out. The brackets have become so big, someone needs to define some Madness bracket etiquette, and I’m going to do just that.
1. Limit yourself to one bracket. There is a reason this rule is first. It’s the most important rule, and if you just follow one, please let it be this one. Even if you’re in 14 pools, fill out one bracket, and send it in 14 times. No one wants to hear some guy say, “Yeah, in one of my brackets I totally picked Bucknell over Kansas! I’m so smart!” That means you picked it wrong 13 other times, you dolt. You haven’t called anything, you aren’t smart and I hate you. By filling out 14 different brackets, you’ve just increased your odds of getting at least one lunatic upset right.
(The addendum here is that if you enter in ESPN’s bracket pool thing, you can do more than one because money is at stake and you increase your odds. Hey, we are in a recession you know. You’re just not allowed to talk about any of your extra brackets.) Read more…
Commentary
March Madness
Russell Westbrook back on top of SI’s rookie rankings: “Count Nuggets coach George Karl among those who believe 
Westbrook has caught up to Rose and warrants serious Rookie of the Year consideration. “I like his stride, his power, his courage to learn a new position,” Karl told the Denver Post. “I think by March and April, I’m going with Westbrook.” Westbrook, who is adjusting to playing full time as a point guard, committed a season-high eight turnovers in Saturday’s loss to Phoenix. Therein lies the obvious rub with the raw playmaker: His eye-popping 226 giveaways in 67 games (3.4 average) rank second only to Dwyane Wade.”
Is Jeff Green the NBA version of Evengi Malkin? (that’s a hockey player): “It really seems like he’s doing somethinguseful in every single play, and his mark on a game is singular and unmistakable for this Thunder team. There’s a definite Swiss-army-like quality of utter utility to the guy, but somehow- even given the flashes we’ve seen of his true potential thusfar- he remains an undefined specimen. It’s like he’s a secondary (or even tertiary) figure in a mythology he’s helping to build. Green’s game is like a Funk Brothers Motown track, or an unwritten gospel… I’ve been struggling to find a proper illustrative analog from within the Association, but it turns out that the athlete who most frequently comes to mind when I consider Green isn’t actually a basketball player at all. Jeff Green really reminds me most of Evengi Malkin, the NHL center for the Pittsburgh Penguins.”
Take 15 minutes (or 20, depending on how fast you read) and digest this fanpost from Sactown Royalty. It’s got a few ties to OKC and really kind of illuminates the lunacy and hypocrisy of so many people openly talking about moving franchises while still casting stones at Oklahoma City: “Longevity can’t be the only criteria, though. As we’ve all seen, a bedrock franchise with storied history, All-Star players, and established ties to the community can still be ripped from a city like Seattle, basically at the whim of ownership. When discussing the egregiousness of any potential move, fan support has to be considered as well. (Incidentally, you’ve been pretty vocal in opposition to the Sonics move to OKC–no friends at the Oklahoman, I guess?)”
I feel horrible about taking some kind of strange satisfaction in this: “New Orleans is 9-3 since his return. However, he has not played of late with the spark that led to his having three double-doubles in his first seven games back — when he averaged 9.9 points and 10.1 rebounds — and during the Hornets’ current two-game losing streak, Chandler has averaged four points and eight rebounds. “My ankle is banged up, but I’m going to continue to try and play through it, ” Chandler said. “But it’s definitely affecting me, because a lot of the stuff I get comes from energy and hustle, and I don’t feel like I’m able to do that.” Chandler and Hornets Coach Byron Scott said Chandler’s sprained left ankle, which forced him to miss 14 consecutive games in January and February, has not fully healed. And with the Hornets’ bench continuing to play ineffectively, Scott does not appear to have many options. However, he said if Chandler’s ankle continues to affect his mobility and performance, he would consider playing him fewer minutes, opting to use reserve Sean Marks.” Read more…
Bolts
Darnell Mayberry reports:
Forward D.J. White has been cleared by team doctors to participate in full-contact practices and play in games. With 15 games remaining on the season, however, it’s unclear if White will make his debut this year or if Thunder officials will hold him out of games until 2009-10.
White, the 29th overall pick in last year’s draft, has yet to play this season after undergoing surgery to repair a benign growth in his jaw. White underwent the first of two surgeries this season on Oct. 13 to remove the growth in his jaw. Doctors performed a second surgery on Jan. 4 to take a bone graft from the right side of his hip and mend the bone in his jaw. He had a routine check up Monday and received news that he has recovered enough to resume all basketball activities.
White still has visible swelling on the left side of his jaw but has been an active member of light practices and shoot-around sessions, doing everything but full-contact drills. Whenever White takes the court, he is expected to add depth to the Thunder’s frontcourt with interior toughness, a knack for rebounding and a polished offensive game that includes a consistent jump hook from the left block and shooting range out to 17 feet.
“He’s very athletic and he’s very active, especially on the boards,” said rookie Russell Westbrook, who teamed with White during the Orlando Summer League last July. “He can score and bring people out to the elbow. He’s going to be a good asset for us, especially rebounding and blocking shots.”
Great news not just for the Thunder, but even more for D.J. It’s got to be rough to be shelved for virtually your whole rookie season while you watch teammates grind it out and you’re sitting on the bench in a suit every night. Especially with something as random as a growth on your jaw. And this hopefully means he’s over this little issue.
He can do a lot for OKC off the bench. He makes the Thunder a lot deeper and can add a very good physical presence in the post, rebound and block shots. People kind of forgot about him, but he was the Big 10 player of the year last year and a second team All-American. Dude can play.
UPDATE: White has been assigned to the Tulsa 66ers and is expected to rejoin the team and make his debut with OKC before the end of the year.
News
Chris Tomasson of Pro Basketball News reflects on the big trade that wasn’t: “The Thunder will get a chance to use its 
ample salary-cap room this summer to try to bring in a player similar to Chander. But for now, each time Chandler yanks down another rebound for the Hornets, they’re just trying to forget in Oklahoma City. Thunder coach Scott Brooks sounds as if he would like a procedure done similar to the one in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which unhappy relationships are wiped from one’s mind.”
Henry Abbott commenting on the same story: “Is it better to be high or low-risk? It’s one of the great debates of the ages, and there are no easy answers. I have tremendous respect for both positions, and realize you have to have both in your arsenal, ready to deply with a nuanced sense of what’s called for, whether we’re talking about investing or anything else. Which brings us to Carlan Yates, M.D. He’s reportedly the doctor who cried foul on Tyson Chandler’s toe, and advised the honchos of the Thunder who then canceled the trade that would have moved the young big man from New Orleans to Oklahoma City. Yates also knows that toe well, having operated on it years before. The Thunder made a very conservative call: Paying big dollars to an injured player is one of the surest ways to ruin your NBA franchise. Assuring yourself of avoiding that scenario is admirable. This brand of conservatism allows that you’ll miss some opportunities, but in the long run you’ll look smart by avoiding catastrophe. But on the other hand — sooner or later, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, and Russell Westbrook will be in need of a top shelf big man, and there are precious few ways to get them. At some point, the team’s investment in that young squad will be so great that it would be insane not to unlock the teams’ full potential with a quality big man. And quality big men are so precious that they almost always come with caveats, worries, and excessive contracts. In other words, it’s a risky business, but it’s a risk champions take.
“Behind the Box Score, where the Thunder are quite fun: “This game was very entertaining. The Spurs kept turning it over, the Thunder kept taking advantage. The crowd rose to the occasion, the Spurs could string together a long enough run to keep the Thunder at bay, and the upset didn’t really seem like an upset by the fourth quarter. Tony Parker (28 points, seven assists, five turnovers) seemed unstoppable at times, Oklahoma City’s backcourt wasn’t exactly the most efficient, but Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha might be the most exciting pair of starting guards in the NBA, and Nenad (the Rebounding Machine) Krstic has been quite the pickup for da Thundah. Also, Tim Duncan is clearly not healthy, Ime Udoka has never been the defensive stopper mainstream media pegged him as (he’s good, but nowhere near Bruce Bowen; and Bruce Bowen hasn’t been Bruce Bowen-like all season), while Kevin Durant was a few spin-outs away from 40 points. He had to settle for 25 in the win. Oklahoma City is so fun to watch. Even when just putting up 78 points.” Read more…
Bolts
Box score
What are the odds of the Thunder beating one of the best teams in basketball, when they only shot 36% from the field, were out-rebounded, were down by 17 points at one point, and turned the ball over 6 times in the first quarter. Would you say a win was likely?
That’s what happened and if you didn’t see it you missed a very good and entertaining game. The Thunder came out against the Spurs and were flat offensively (even by tonight’s standards). Nobody not named Durant could hit a bucket. Meanwhile the Spurs were their usual efficient self mostly getting every shot to drop. They shot 13/23 in the opening quarter (56%), had 10 rebounds and 9 assists and only one turn. The Thunder were 6/18 (33%) with 8 boards and 6 turns. They were taking everything from outside and not getting into the paint.
In the second quarter the Thunder’s shooting didn’t improve much, but the defense began to take hold. They forced the Spurs into 9 turns in the quarter, and held them to 33% shooting. The Thunder began to get into the paint in the second and it paid off-getting to the line 13 times to cut the lead down to 4 by halftime. We also hang onto the ball better, only committing 3 turns. I began to think that maybe we might have a chance, but we still needed to shoot more efficiently.
In the third it was more of the same: defensive intensity by both teams, which produced poor shooting by both teams. The difference between the two teams seemed to be that we were getting to the line and they weren’t, and we crashed the boards hard in the third snagging 12 to the Spurs 9. The Spurs lead was down to two at 63-61 at the end of three. Read more…
Recap
vs. 
San Antonio Spurs (44-21, 21-12 road) vs. OKC Thunder (18-48, 13-20 home)
TV: FS Oklahoma HD (Cox 37, HD 722)
Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM)
Time: 7:00 CST
Offensive Rating: Thunder: 103.7 (28th), San Antonio: 108.4 (15th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder: 109.5 (20th), San Antonio: 104.0 (5th)
Pace: Thunder: 93.7 (8th), San Antonio: 88.7 (26th)
It’s the pupil versus the master. The understudy against the… study. The mentor and the protege. OKC has been said to be following the Spurs model to build a franchise and is off to a decent start building around a solid young nucleus. Now if we could only get Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili…
Hopefully the Thunder roster pays close attention to everything the Spurs do tonight – pre-game warmups, how they do their two-line layup drill, how they high-five – because if we’re going to copy the model, let’s do it right. Obviously something works for those guys because they’ve been the elite team in the league the last 10 years and just always seem to take care of business when they’re supposed to. They interchange parts but keep the core the same and just win. If we are going to plagiarize someone, we picked a good writer to copy.
The Spurs come in having won five of six and in their last 17 games, only four opponents have scored more than 100 points. That’s not a great sign seeing as OKC hasn’t topped the century mark in eight games. BUT, Oklahoma City has won three straight at home and is a pretty salty 10-6 at the Ford Center in 2009. Read more…
Preview
Update: Marc Stein’s power rankings: “No one would dare claim for a second that the Thunder are better without 
Durant or that the competition during their 5-2 surge without him was as good as February’s. OKC’s defense was stingier without him, though.”
The New York Daily News looks at draft slam dunks and potential misses: “Hasheem Thabeet, UConn, junior: The defensive force averages 13.6 points, 10.8 rebounds and 4.5 blocks. “He’s a lot like the Sene kid, but he’s already better,” said one scout, comparing him to the ex-Oklahoma City backup center, Mouhamed Sene. Like Sene, Thabeet is also limited at the offensive end. Listed at 7-3.”
Kevin Durant is using Twitter. Or at least it looks like someone pretending to be Kevin Durant is using Twitter: Highlights – “Any girls lookin for a 6’10 skinny dude???? holla at me.” “I need a Girlfriend.” “icing my ankle. hopefully i can bump tomorrow….shout out to everybody. much love.” “my brother from another russ westbrook had a triple dizzle….if he aint rookie of the year den its a travesty.” Maybe it’s him, maybe it’s not. Either way, it’s no Shaq Twitter.
HoopsWorld says Scott Brooks deserves to have the interim tag dropped: “When asked if he had talked to any other interim coaches about the challenges associated with the position, Brooks replied: “I just went with my gut. I believe you have to stick with who you are and what you’re about and coach with your heart. If you’re trying to do what other people do or coach how they coach, players can see that immediately and you don’t want to be looked at as a phony or a fraud. But if you’re true and authentic, players respect that. “Talking to some of the Thunder’s players both on and off the record, it sure seems like Brooks is winning the respect of the locker room. Don’t be surprised at all if Brooks has the interim tag removed and is the head coach of the Thunder moving forward. Thus far his performance very much warrants it.” Read more…
Bolts
Since I don’t have any great news about how we beat a top team, or we are fighting for playoff seeding, or anybody getting a triple double or something like that, satisfy yourself instead with the Dunk of the night on NBA.com, featuring our very own Uncle Jeff over Shaggy Robin Lopez.
About the third time I watched it I noticed it was a nice feed from Russell Westbrook. Check it out: as soon as he made the pass he started walking back to the other end of the court. HE KNEW that thing was going down!
Commentary
Box Score
Tonight the Thunder played the Slump Buster for the Suns, getting them off the shneid for a six game losing streak. The Thunder didn’t really lose this game or give it away, it was thoroughly taken from them by the Suns with their sheer hustle and grit-the best of it coming in the fourth quarter. The Thunder were completely outplayed in all areas of the game.
The Thunder opened up a nice lead nine point lead in the first quarter, which reached a high of thirteen at one point. It looked like the Defense that the Thunder had been displaying in the last 1/2 dozen games was going to continue into the Durant 2.0 era, but I think it was just a lot of spotty shooting by the Suns. The first quarter wound up being the only quarter we won of the four. We shot 51% in the first half but the Suns kept chipping away at our lead, aided by the Thunder’s 12 first half turnovers. Shaq picked up his 3rd foul just 3 1/2 minutes into the second quarter and I really thought we would get it done. At the half we still had a small lead, we were in charge of the boards, and the 12 turns only produced 8 points for the Suns. We were looking ok. Read more…
Recap
vs. 
Oklahoma City Thunder (18-47, 5-27 road) at Phoenix Suns (34-31, 19-13 home)
TV: KSBI (Cox 15)
Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM)
Time: 9:00 CST
Offensive Rating: Thunder: 103.7 (28th), Phoenix: 112.2 (4th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder: 109.5 (20th), Phoenix: 110.9 (24th)
Pace: Thunder: 93.7 (8th), Phoenix: 95.5 (4th)
A return to the desert to take on the Suns. You know, the team that scored 140 on OKC the last time they played. You know, scored 79 points on the Thunder in the first half. Yeah, that team.
But, luckily for OKC, the Suns aren’t in their “score 140 points on everybody” mode anymore. They’ve lost six in a row and allowed 118 points a game in that stretch. One thing to note about their losing streak – it was against the likes of Orlando, Miami, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Cleveland. Not exactly pushovers. In fact, since Alvin Gentry took over, the Suns haven’t really lost to anyone they shouldn’t have. They haven’t beat anybody they shouldn’t have, but still. Against sub-par opponents, they seem to really take care of business. But this doesn’t feel like the Nuggets game where a good team is desperate to get back on track. It feels more like a team is teetering on totally falling apart. So this is a big game for the Suns.
Kevin Durant is supposed to return, but I’m not sure how many minutes he’ll play. He’s said that more than anything, he’s concerned about his conditioning more than his ankle. And with the frenetic pace Phoenix plays at, KD may only see 25-30 minutes – which would probably be smart. Read more…
Preview
OK, I’m absolutely obsessed with NBA.com’s hotspots. Like a 14-year-old that just discovered Google images, I get started with it and I’ll spend an entire afternoon comparing and contrasting with them.
I wrote after the Sacramento game the recent phenomenon (maybe that’s not the right word), with Nenad Krstic and his home and away jumper. It seems lately, at home he’s been automatic with it, but on the road he’s struggling a bit. Overall, he’s 28-43 (65 percent) from the floor in the last three home games and 9-34 (26 percent) on the road. Pretty solid difference there. Maybe he’s was fatigued with the four games in five days. Maybe they were simply just off nights, which happen to shooters all the time.
But while for the season his overall field goal percentage numbers aren’t that different home vs. away (50 percent at home, 44 percent on the road), there is a pretty large difference on Krispy’s signature shot, the distance jumper.
HOME
Read more…
Commentary
It seems like every paragraph about the Thunder these days makes some reference to OKC winning games without Kevin Durant. And true, the Thunder’s put together their best stretch of the season with their best player on the bench. No denying that.
The Thunder is 5-2 in their last seven with a three-game winning streak squeezed in there. Needless to say, it has brought up talk of the Chewing Ewing Theory and people wondering if KD was the actually the problem. Maybe they’re joking or maybe they’re serious. Who knows. Oh, and keep in mind, for four of those games there was no Jeff Green either (and OKC went 3-1 without him). Double Ewing Theory? No. No! No no no no no no.
You make think the stats are there and it may make sense to say it. Yes, the Thunder’s defense has been night and day better with KD on the bench. It’s not secret that Durant isn’t a great defender, but he more than makes up for it by putting the ball in the basket – a lot.
Look, OKC really turned everything around New Year’s Eve. The team won that night against Golden State and then went 7-7 in January, shedding all that “worst team ever” jibberjabber. But February wasn’t as kind to OKC, with the team going 3-9 and 3-8 with KD in the lineup. Then he goes down with an ankle injury against Dallas and the Thunder pushes the Mavericks to overtime in Dallas and then goes 5-2 without their star.
But let’s be realistic here: The only game out of those five that OKC really shouldn’t have won was at home against Dallas. Other than that, wins against Memphis, Philly, Sacramento and Washington were kind of expected. In February, eight of the 12 opponents the Thunder played were above .500 and in playoff races. OKC played the Lakers twice, New Orleans, Portland twice, Denver, Dallas and Phoenix. Oh, and seven of those 12 were on the road. And you know, OKC’s kind of stinky on the road. Read more…
Commentary
Quite a Bedlam game last night. (Must….not….complain….about…. officiating….)
Russell Westbrook in this week’s SI: “While Westbrook sees himself as a point guard, Brooks still plays him off the ball at times. Defensively, Westbrook can handle both spots: His nearly 80-inch wingspan helps him pester two guards, and he has the lateral quickness to stay with ones. Brooks would like to see Westbrook, already a physical defender, cultivate an in-your-face style similar to that of the Hornets’ Chris Paul. “Paul will bump and bang with you,” Brooks says. “We want Russell to play like that.”
Another “what if the Blazers had drafted Durant?” story: “When I plug a straight Durant-for-Oden swap into the ESPN Trade Machine, it shows that the Blazers’ win total would increase by two while the Thunder’s wins would drop by five. Assuming those are for-the-rest-of-the-season numbers, that would equate to about nine additional Blazer wins over the course of the entire season. They’re projected to win 52 games at their current pace, but with Durant in the lineup that number would rise to 61. That would make the Blazers the fourth-best team in the NBA (behind the Cavs, Celtics and Lakers) and the second-best team in the West. And that’s without Bosh or Stoudemire.”
HoopsWorld on Russell Westbrook’s evolution: “A couple of months ago Denver Nuggets head coach George Karl had a twinkle in his eye when talking about some of the best rookies in this season’s draft class. And in typical Karl style, he took a position not many others were taking at the time. “I’m voting on (Russell) Westbrook,” said Karl. “His stride, his power and his courage to learn a new position. I think in March and April I’m going with Westbrook.” Turns out, Karl was on to something. While both Derrick Rose and O.J. Mayo have been impressive, Westbrook has quietly been just as good. An underrated part of Westbrook’s success has been interim head coach Scott Brooks. During his time in the league as a player Brooks was a smart and crafty point guard who relied more on his basketball I.Q. than his physical skills.” Read more…
Bolts
An excellent article in the Kansas City Star (hat tip: jk): “Here in Oklahoma City, where the Sooners and Cowboys have 
long ruled the sports landscape, it’s an NBA team with an underwhelming 17-46 record that’s capturing the time and attention of Oklahomans. And with the Ford Center sitting at the center of the Thunder’s ascension, the Big 12 tournament that’s rolling into town this week is no longer the only high-profile ticket in town. Take notice, Kansas City. This is the impact an NBA franchise can have in that time between the Super Bowl and the start of baseball.”
The Lost Ogle on the Swiss diff: “Before the trade deadline, most Oklahomans knew only that Switzerland produces good chocolate, helpful pocketknives, secretive banks, and hot blondes. Little did we know that the country could also provide difference making basketball players. An afterthought dealt by the Bulls after their “blockbuster” trade which netted them John Salmons overloaded the team at the wing, Thabo Sefolosha’s being moved was not picked up by the media until well after the league’s deadline had expired. Just mere weeks later, the Thunder’s acquisition of the Swiss national in return for a late first round pick in a weak draft class is already being billed as the steal of this year’s trade season.”
Dime had a Q&A with Nick Collison and Jeff Green: “Dime: So I was just talking to Nick about the move to Oklahoma City. How are you liking it so far? Jeff Green: Oklahoma is wonderful. Great people and the weather is lovely. Different from where I grew up in the Maryland/D.C. area. You know, everything is fast paced, a lot of buildings. Oklahoma is kind of relaxed and always willing to help and lend a hand. It’s a lot of space, ya know. It’s quiet. I think it’s good for us, gives us a lot of down time. Time to relax.” And you got to love the answer about going to eat after every game and going bowling with Russell and KD. I love that that these guys are best friends. Read more…
Bolts
