Monday Bolts – 11.2.09
Darnell Mayberry’s thoughts on last night’s game: “Sunday’s shot selection was particularly alarming. Alarming 
because Durant continued to settle for jumpers. Good looks, no doubt, but not as good as layups. Alarming because this, his third season, is the one he was supposed to come back with an even more refined game. But he looked like strictly a jump shooter Sunday. There were occasions when he manufactured points and attempted to take it to the rack. His 14 free throw attempts were a good indicator that it wasn’t all long-range heaves.”
Some guy wrote something in the Daily Dime about the Thunder.
Kevin Durant is Dime’s starting small forward if it could create a team: “It’s kind of cheating since we all know he’ll be an All-Star in February, but for now it counts. Pure scorer on the wing, and a shooter who can spread the floor and open things up for Roy and Duncan.”
From the Weekend Dime, Marc Stein looks at next summer’s cap room players: “Still wondering why we’re always saying that the Thunder, for all the cracks about unfashionable Oklahoma City, are the envy of countless teams? On top of the wildly promising four-man core of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green and James Harden and the good crowds, OKC is poised to make its first significant foray into free agency. The Thunder still have to convince skeptics they can lure a big-name signing to their humble outpost and prove they’re willing to pull the trigger on big spending — it wouldn’t surprise anyone if they merely seek a quality piece or two and save some of the money to pay all the kids — but sunglasses are definitely required with an outlook this bright.”
Get your OKC Thunder specialized license plate. (h/t Craig)
Nick Collison was on fire with the Halloween tweets over the weekend: “Trick or treating with my lil girl tonight..looking online to find highest income/neighborhood in area to get the best candy … so many people have hit me with different neighborhoods…maybe we will get her extra costumes so we can hit the best houses multiple times … As my dog Mort looks at me with sad dead eyes while dressed as hotdog I quietly explain it wasnt my call & some battles arent worth fighting.”
Blazersedge recap of the game: “The Blazers continue to have trouble with individual defensive matchups and then trouble again covering. Turnovers aside, Russell Westbrook was doing some NSFW things to his defenders tonight. That would be Not Safe For Watching, at least if you’re a Portland fan. Had Kevin Durant had any kind of offensive evening (and he was brutal for most of it) Westbrook would have killed us and we likely would have lost. We have problems defensively at point guard still. We have problems covering for point guards. We have trouble when Greg Oden gets drawn into screen situations with a point guard. Back in the day opponents could break us down with half a move and any good pass. Nowadays it has to be a good move and it usually takes two passes, but we still get broken way too much.”
Oregon Live’s recap: ”At the heart of the Blazers’ success was their effort against Kevin Durant, the Thunder’s star forward who entered the night averaging 25.0 points. Durant finished with 16 points, but was dreadful from the field, making 3 of 21 shots. Martell Webster, who checked Durant most of the game, was the catalyst. Webster brought a physical presence and made it a point to harass Durant on every play, forcing him to take contested or fadeaway jumpers. One night after playing just 16 seconds in the fourth quarter because of defensive woes, Webster finished with four steals, five rebounds, one blocked shot — and praise from teammates.”
It’s interesting to me the perspective that comes from each side after every game. Oklahoma City fans see Durant’s night as an off night. Just a bad shooting performance. Portland fans see it as awesome defense by Martell Webster. I’m sure it’s a combination of both, but that always strikes me as interesting.
Video highlights from last night’s game.
Berry Tramel with great stuff on KD’s bad shooting night: ”Don’t laugh. You might see an 82-0 season before you see a superstar go 3-for-21 again. The last NBA player to take at least 20 shots and shoot worse than 14.3 percent was Detroit’s Rip Hamilton, who was 3-of-22 (against Portland) in December 2004. Tossing the ball through the hoop from every corner of Oklahoma County seems to come natural for Durant, but Sunday night he couldn’t have hit a Del Rancho chicken fry if you’d have spotted him the gravy. “It got to the point where I would shoot the ball, it would look like it was going in and bounce right out,” Durant said. “Seven or eight times in a row. Never happened to me before.” Never? “Nope,” he said. Not on the D.C. playgrounds or in Austin pickup games or in that rookie season in faraway Seattle? “Nope.”
Just one quick note: Kevin Durant was shooting 42 percent coming into last night’s game. But after it, he’s now 21 of 64 on the year for 33 percent clip. Keep in mind, it’s only been three games. If KD goes a very KD-like 10-18 Tuesday night, his percentage will jump to 38 percent. And another 10-18 will take him to 41 percent. So don’t freak. He’ll get those percentages sorted out.
Thunder-Lakers has been voted NBA TV’s Fan Night game: “NBA TV will take the court for its first week of Tuesday Fan Night with the Lakers @ Thunder match-up, as voted upon by fans on NBA.com. The game will air on Tues., Nov. 3 at 8 p.m. (ET) with host Ernie Johnson and analysts Chris Webber and Kevin McHale on-hand for studio coverage beginning at 7:30 p.m. (ET).”
Durant’s off night was definitely not just good defense. He had plenty of open looks, it was just one of those nights where nothing goes in. I’d say 10 of his shots were closely contested but so many were wide open.
wait.. wasn’t sundays game an nba fan night?
and as far as the good D vs KD being off… I would have to vote (he was icy cold) most of hte shots he took he normally makes…
its good to see thunder game on nba tv nationwide, im sure bc its against the lakers helps, but still its nice that 49 out of 50 states wanna watch our hoopers
Anytime we play the Blazers and Blake is their leading scorer, I am OK with it. It was a frustrating game to watch (especially in person) but these are the kind of nights lots of teams have.
I don’t like complaining about officials, because I really think they do well for the most part, but this was a fairly hard game to watch. It felt like they were making bad calls all over the floor. And it wasn’t just against us, the fouls at the end were almost identical, but they just seemed off or something. Maybe Roy and Durant shooting so poorly made the offcials off balance as much as it did everyone else?
It was a tough game last night, but it’s almost encouraging to see them play so poorly and hang with a very good, 50+ win team, right to the very end.
I know for a fact that I still have my rose-colored glasses on regarding basically everything that happens with this team (that’s what happens when you’re a lifetime NBA fan and you surprisingly get a team tossed onto your doorstep), but I’m going to look at just the silver lining.
@Lefty
Bad refs are not balanced… quirky wth refs (like the ones we had last night) make odd calls… but for both teams.. i didn’t LIKE the ref job but at least it wasn’t one sided.
Here’s my take on the Durant thing, and my response to Portland fans about Webster’s D:
While I will give Webster n company credit for harassing KD and getting pressure on him with the double team, they didn’t do anything to him that hasn’t been done before. KD didn’t get all that many open looks, but when he did, he missed them. And normally, for him, it doesn’t matter if you have no hands in his face, or six…. he just hits the shot anyway.
Last night, that was not the case.
There are, however, some important lessons to be learned for KD from last night’s game other than “bad nights happen.” There were plenty of times that KD was double and triple teamed with open men to pass to. And while Portland did a nice job playing the passing lanes, KD needs to understand that part of his role as the main scoring threat is to draw the defense and, if need be, help someone else make a play. I think it was Portland’s gameplan to force KD to pass the ball, knowing that 1) he’s not a very effective passer and 2) they could cheat off of players like Ollie and Thabo…. at least that’s how I would defend the Thunder.
Were I Brooks, I would have ran some plays designed specifically to get Durant passing the ball. Even after he missed his tenth shot, Portland was still doubling up on Durant as if he was the primary scoring threat. Instead, Brooks chose to have RW isolate and drive the ball, which worked well in some ways, but it would have been better to break the pressure on Durant and get some other people involved.
I also think, like Kev said on the other thread, that this would have been a good game to give Harden some extra minutes. Roy was not shooting well (credit to Thabo but also just a bad night for Roy who was even missing the freebies) so it would have been worth the defensive risk in my opinion to break try and break down Portland’s D.
The bottom line is that Durant must become a better passer so that on the those rare nights when he is not shooting well, he can still help his team win.
On NewsOK’s live blog last night – I share seats with a friend, so I wasn’t at the game – the occasional comment would come in from a Blazers fan about Oklahoma City thugging it up.
I don’t think the guys did anything particularly outrageous, but I love that non-Thunder fans are starting to see Oklahoma City as a physical team.
I’m heading to the tag agency immediately!
Last night was a weird night all around. The scores inthe 60s to start the 4th quarter. Both teams shooting err plying basketball poorly. RW was extremely frustrated at Steve Blake the entire game and it was really weird that when we wanted baskets, I found myself asking for RW to put the ball in the hoop with his jumper That was the strangest IMO. It’s hard to imagine our team playing that badly again. I just don’t see how it would be possible.
Prediction- Both kd and kobe are gonna go off for 40+ each on tuesday. How fun would that be? If we played like that last year we would have got blown out. Its just amazing to me that we were still in the game til the end which imo is much better than last year. But i would like to see some of the other guys get off the bench a little bit. I dont think it is good for their confidence. Because we are going to need them (livingston, dj, and ibaka) at some point this year. I would just like them to get some rust off b4 one of them has to play 15 on any given night.
dork, I kind of meant to get that point across. I definitely recognize the calls weren’t one sided, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t bad. Refs shouldn’t get off the hook just for calling an equal number of bad calls for both teams.
Again, I think the refs generally do a pretty good job, which is why it stood out to me last night. Just a bad all around game for everyone involved.
Including the guy sitting directly behind me. Yeesh. I’ve been to lots of sporting events, but that guy takes the “annoying guy who likes to yell but doesn’t really understand how the game is played” cake.
Another thought… If LMA didnt go down in the 1st do u all think brooks would have played dj or ibaka some?
Some guy huh…. congrats Royce. its nice to see them take stuff from here and post it on their site.
espns rankings have us at 19 now.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/powerranking?season=2010&week=1
and up to 16th at nba.com
http://www.nba.com/2009/news/powerrankings/11/02/week1/index.html
Why does Kevin Ollie play? I’d rather see James Harden run the point. Or a combo of Harden and Shaun Livingston
Here’s my analysis of KD’s performance last night:
Though majority of the people seem to be analyzing it as an off night where he had good looks that just happen to not fall, I have a very different take. What I saw was that pesky perimeter D got under his skin and instead of adjusting his game and trying to post up or drive, he instead chose to shoot more B.S. jumpers. So basically his solution to missing everything from the perimeter was to shoot some more and more and more from the perimeter. It’s as if he didn’t have ANY awareness of the option of posting up or driving.
As much as he is a great offensive talent, he does not have a very diverse arsenal. He is NOT that great at driving to the hoop and his post-up game is non-existent (terrible mis-use of his tools considering he is so tall and long and could easily shoot over most defenders in the post).
The was I see KD is just another Dirk, with all the great unique offensive tools, but unfortunately the same flaws. He is simply a very good shooter who is able to shoot over most defenders due to size. Like Dirk he is mobile for his size but not explosive. And like Dirk, physical defense can take him out of his game.
don’t forget that New Yorkers can also get a Thunder license plate:
http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/spobask.htm
@Snowflake
I don’t know. Ollie is definietly up in +/-, even if it is mostly Harden’s doing. I can only guess that Livingston is getting exposed somehow in practice, maybe a lack of lateral quickness or turnovers… something has got to be scaring the coaching staff. I almost wonder if they aren’t hiding an injury for fear of hurting his trade stock later down the road.
All know is that something is def wrong… because from what I saw of him last year, Livingston should be getting some palying time at the point.
@Snowflake
Are you a mind reader? Perhaps I posted that elsewhere? Anyway, I agree.
I told Royce last night that my prediction is that Etan Thomas gets a punch thrown at him before the all star break.
I think all NBA coaches should have an offensive set where when the jumpshots aren’t following, that everything, every single shot comes from the paint. No exceptions. When the shots aren’t falling it’s sort of lunacy to keep jacking them up. Take every single shot to and from the paint.
When that happens the opponent will clog the paint, and then you will have the defense on it’s heels and you will get some three second calls and plenty of trips to the line.
@Sheed
I have not read any where yet concerning KD being at the OSU Texas game Saturday night, and the possibility of partying with the Texas Alumni to the point of not being prepared for the game. This is his third year, and I see no sign of any maturing.
@Gary
KD was definitely at the OSU game but have definitely not heard anything about partying or lack of preparation.
If you can’t see signs of Durant’s maturation, then I don’t know what Kevin Durant you’re watching. In basketball terms, his FG%, Turnover Rate, etc have all improved since his rookie year and from a personal standpoint, he was named one of the team captains and be the face of a franchise and a city. But yeah, no signs whatsoever of maturing.
Good points by all – especially Joe, TheDon, and Bryan. KD has a predictable game. He gets away with it because most of the time he excels at it. Any loss exposes weaknesses. He HAS to be a better passer. ZERO assists is unacceptable for any star. RW has become a better passer, now it’s KD’s turn.
@Gary
Are you really speculating about that? I mean, I guess it could be true, but that’s pretty over-the-top if you ask me.
Also, third game of the season. Sheesh.
@Joe
I think they tried, KD, Green and RW all tried their best to drive to the paint, but Portland’s help defense was really solid and they were doing a nice job of playing the passing lanes. And I’m really not sure how they shut down the RW/Kirstic pic and roll because I didn’t really notice it was missing until late in the game. Maybe Kev has some insight on that from watching extra film.
As I stated above, the solution lied in running plays designed to get Durant passing the ball so that he could back the defense down a bit and get the team back into it’s usual mindset.
I noticed that – the weakside wing (Outlaw for example) pinched Krstic in the lane, denying that pass. When the ball rotated back out to the top, Outlaw retreated back toward his man. That was very good team defense.
We all know what the problems are – inconsistent outside shooting, questionable decision making, and almost no post game.
translation: until those problems are addressed, 40-42 games is as good as it gets . . .
And just to be clear… I’m not down on Durant AT ALL. He has clearly matured and improved in many ways, especially with turns and defense. All I’m saying is that it’s now time to work on that next wrinkle to his game. If he really wants to be on Kobe or Lebron’s level, it will come from his ability get others involved. Sure, you might shut down Lebron or Kobe to some extent on a given night, but they are both so good at adapting that it almost doen’t matter.
With KD’s talent and work ethic it is only a matter of time till he get’s to that level(IMO).
@kev
That’s the other thing… sure would have been nice to be able to be able to isolate on the post and just pound the ball… the Thunder is just one Blake Griffin away.
Poets can be bruisers. Who knew?
Poets can be bruisers. Who knew?
@Terry Totally. He had every big that was working against him in the post giving him long glaring looks. Those elbows were really swinging around. Did you notice that foul that was called against him where he had a whole handful of black jersey? Classic.
Etan is our Danny Fortson.
http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2006/06/danny-fortson-loses-thug-suit-against.html
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/teams/preview/SEA
In both of those power rankings, we are the lowest ranked team with a winning record.
O Rly? So we need to get a someone with a broken knee cap ASAP! j/k
tbh I think we have the peices just need to give them all time to develop. (and yes i’m hoping Iblocka turns out the way i think he will.)