Do we need to re-evaluate our expectations?
Yes. And no. But mainly yes. We knew the team would be improved this year. We knew they wouldn’t be 4-29 through the first part of the calendar year. But I don’t think many expected to be 18-15 and in the Western playoff hunt. Most every Thunder prediction had the team winning around 35 games. But here’s what’s weird: If the Thunder wins 35 games now, the season goes as a major disappointment. That would mean they’d finish 17-32 from here on out and that would be a bummer.
Expectations are a weird thing because you set them prior to really knowing anything. You say, “If Oklahoma City finishes a win over 35, I’d be pumped.” But at this point, you’d be disappointed. Because of the team playing well, they’ve reset the expectations of the fanbase. It’s not like people are going completely insane and wanting the five-seed in the West and expecting a deep playoff run and if it doesn’t happen they’ll pull a refrigerator on top of themselves. But now 40-plus wins and competing for the eight-seed are within sight. A small taste of winning just brings a bigger desire for more of it. Winning feels good. And when it starts happening, people start thinking of how to win more and more and more… NOW.
So the answer is yes. Expectations have to be altered because anything under 35 wins would be an incredible downer, mainly because of the way the schedule softens. But at the same time, you have to understand the difference in overachieving and just exceeding expectation. Right now, this team is doing both. The talent is there to be good. It’s just a matter of keeping it together for three more months and taking another step ahead. Read more…
The Miami Herald said Scott Brooks was the NBA’s Coach of the Month for December: ”Scott Brooks, Thunder. Oklahoma City has been the most impressive young team in the league by far. What the Thunder has done under Brooks is proving to be no fluke, with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Jeff Green leading the way. The Thunder ended December with a victory against Utah on New Year’s Eve that pushed its record to 18-14, good for a third-place tie in the Northwest. And Oklahoma City’s nine road victories at the end of December were tied for third most in the conference.”
I don’t care about these sort of things, but some will. Evidently one of the contestants on the new season of The Bacheloris a member of the Thundergirls. Who? I don’t know: “Christina, a 25-year-old restaurant manager from San Diego and Valishia, a 32-year-old homemaker from Carlsbad, will compete for Pavelka’s affection against a member of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder dance team, a corporate flight attendant, a mortgage loan officer and a captain in the Air National Guard.” UPDATE: Here’s who it is (h/t Elegy444). Read more…
“If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.” – Elbert Hubbard
I just didn’t feel like they were going to be able to dodge yet another bullet last night. Call it pessimism or lowering my expectations so as to not be disappointed, but even with the ball in Durant’s hands for a last second shot and the ensuing overtime after the miss, I just never had that gut feeling that the Thunder would pull it out–like I did against the Jazz, Wizards, etc over the course of the winning streak.
But I was frustrated and despondent none the less (though not nearly as bad as I was after being forced to endure the debacle that was the Cotton Bowl).
And that disappointment is the problem with unexpected success and climbing new heights: We raise our expectations and start looking ahead at the calendar to check off future Wins and Losses with a new, adjusted sense of how good this team is and should be moving forward. Read more…
The 66ers have been playing pretty good basketball lately. Tulsa has won four of its last five, including two wins this past week over the Reno Bighorns and Sioux Falls Skyforce.
66ers 100, Skyforce 95: A big fourth quarter did the trick for Tulsa, as the 66ers outscored the Bighorns 29-19 in the final frame before being outscored 76-71 in the previous three. D.J. White has been very good in his short stint with Tulsa so far. Against Reno, White had 22 points (10-12 shooting), nine rebounds and three blocks in 40 minutes. Mustafa Shakur added 19 points and seven assists, Byron Mullens 16 points and eight rebounds and Zabian Dowdell had 25 on 10-11 shooting. USC product Desmon Farmer had 34 for the Bighorns in a losing effort. DeVon Hardin did not play.
66ers 126, Skyforce 100: Cecil Brown led the way for Tulsa with 24 (8-11 from the floor, 4-5 from 3), Larry Owens added 20 and D.J. White had 17 and 10 as the 66ers rolled Sioux Falls. Maybe the most impressive thing was that the 66ers shot 60.3 percent from the floor and went 13-23 from deep. Keith Brumbaugh had 30 and Reggie Williams 31 for the Skyforce.
Tulsa takes on the Skyforce again today at 4:00 CST (which you can watch here) and then plays the Flash Tuesday and then the Thunderbirds Thursday.
When you look at the box score you have to do more than just take a quick peek to see the story of the loss tonight against a scrappy, hungry Milwaukee Bucks team. If you just glance you might see that we out shot the Bucks both in FG% (42.9%-39.6%) and eFG% (44%-41.5%), yet we got out-shot in a manner of speaking. The Bucks used a lot of Guard play, a lot of quick feet, and a ton of drive and dish to manage to get up 106 field goal attempts tonight. That’s quite an accomplishment for a team that only averages 87 FGA’s a night.
The Bucks simply got off a butt load of shots tonight with their fast tempo and frequent three guard lineups. They just seemed to get back nearly every miss and have another shot at it. They figured out what was working for them and kept doing it. Check out the four factors in the bar graph. We took 3/4, but it wasn’t enough.
Potential letdown game? Maybe. And if it happens, so be it. But I expect a win. I’m convinced this team is good. It’s still young and nonsense losses are sure to happen, but regardless of that, every game against a sub-.500 squad should be a win. Until of course the Thunder loses three or four of these and I go back to being scared like Indiana Jones in a snake pit before each game. Read more…
(Good Saturday Thunder fans. I’m sure you’re out jogging and exercising and such to start your New Year’s resolutions, but take a break and watch a little video clip. Thanks for your support of Daily Thunder. Happy new decade.)
Get it? Huh huh? Get it? Thursday night may have been the biggest Thunder win to date and I planned on putting up a nice package of highlights from the game for today’s cartoon. The huge plays down the stretch – Westbrook’s steal and two-handed tomahawk, Collison’s free throws, the big stop to win it – but there aren’t any highlights to be found. Bummer sauce. So settle for a few KD specific highlights against Utah, in a game he tied a franchise record for most games with 30 or more points. And that sweet block. Don’t forget the sweet block.
ESPN is ranking the decade and KD was named to have the best college season of it: “I might have leaned toward Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin if he had hadn’t gotten hurt late in the season in a showdown at Texas. Instead, my best individual performance of the decade goes to the Longhorns’ Kevin Durant, who was the only freshman ever to be named national player of the year. Durant ended up averaging almost 27 points and 11 rebounds a game. Some of his performances were breathtaking, including a 25-point first half at KU’s Allen Fieldhouse.” Read more…
When you look at the box score you have to do more than just take a quick peek to see the story of the loss tonight against a scrappy, hungry Milwaukee Bucks team. If you just glance you might see that we out shot the Bucks both in FG% (42.9%-39.6%) and eFG% (44%-41.5%), yet we got out-shot in a manner of speaking. The Bucks used a lot of Guard play, a lot of quick feet, and a ton of drive and dish to manage to get up 106 field goal attempts tonight. That’s quite an accomplishment for a team that only averages 87 FGA’s a night.
