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Alright no name

Dont really think the end of game antics of Westbrook was all that bad. But it does just reiterates Russell's selfishness. Something he could improve on.

How come no one is talking about the 2 that ATLANTA scored with no time on the clock, hmmm? Psssh.

@DizzyDai
That was sort of what I thought also. When he fired it down there to Serge I didn't even realize there was so little time on the clock. You know how it is in the final minute of a game when a team's trying to come back (depending on how far behind they are), with 18 seconds to go its a game with 10 it isn't. Somewhere between it that switch/change occurs and it has to be hard to know precisely when if you're on the court in the heat of the moment. Given that he doesn't have a history of poor sportsmanship I think he deserves a pass on this one.

Just got back from the game.

Officiating crap.

Harden must start.

Traffic in downtown OKC with Thunder game ending, Flaming Lips concert starting + road construction = HOLY CRAP!

Also the game still had around 11 seconds and we were only up by 9. As silly as it sounds Jamal Crawford is dangerous. Remember Reggie Miller scored 8 within 8.9 seconds before. So anything was possible. I'm kinda glad Russ sealed the deal.

Plus it's not like we tried to block Horford's layup in the last 2 seconds.

I don't know why I'm waiting (with baited breath, no less) for the recap...

I mean, I watched the game -- I know what happened...

Still, I just need to read Royce's reassuring words to reach, um -- what's the word -- "completion" (yeah, that's it) of the whole event

:)

@Dylan

(LOL) Okay . . . just don't blame me when the Thunder lose the NBA championship series against the Hawks because Westbrook gets hospitalized by a Hawk retaliation foul on his first drive to the basket in game one.

DizzyDai :

Joshua G :
Where’s Royce? I’ve been waiting for his recap.

Hopefully celebrating the new year.

yeah... probably flew out to LA to party with Simmons -- that Royce has become such a big shot!
;)

@Dylan

*snicker*

@Joshua G
royce is still at the arena, dealing with the fallout from triple-doublegate 2k10. He's taking phone calls from people about the book deal right now.

Joshua G :
Where’s Royce? I’ve been waiting for his recap.

Hopefully celebrating the new year.

It's not like Westbrook was acting like the Mavs were earlier this week. Overall it's not a big deal.

WE SHOULD TRADE HIM TO THE NETS AND LET HIM THINK ABOUT WHAT HE DID

Where's Royce? I've been waiting for his recap.

@Sammy

Well, my idea is more about "remedy" than "punishment".

What do the Hawks get from merely hearing about a good chastising?

Westbrook admits he's wrong . . . and sits out a couple of minutes . . . and the Hawks hear about it.

Who cares if you're sorry, if you don't do something about it?

But okay, alternate remedy: Westbrook donates $$ to some Atlanta Hawks charity.

How's that?

Russell Westbrook hasn't made a habit of doing tasteless things, so what's there to complain about? Who cares? If this was a recurring situation, sure, but right now complaining about that seems like nit-picking after a victory... really? Let it go...

Whatever happened to Kevin's great defensive breakdowns. Did he die or something?

@arbiter
Seems extreme. I think a good chastising is punishment enough. Not like this has been a habit.

@justin

So what's the appropriate remedy?

I suggest: start Maynor instead of Westbrook until first timeout of the next game.

"When you've got the game won, you run the clock out," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "Russell knows how I feel about situations like that, and it was a mistake, but I'm not going to let a mistake at the end of the game ruin what we've done tonight. I thought the game was as well as we've played both ends of the floor against one of the best teams in basketball."

I'm glad Brooks acknowledged that it was a mistake.

Fear the beard!!!

James Harden is becoming... deadly!

When his swag is on... better watch out. How many games has he come out and just bang-bang-bang put up 6,8, even 10 points, just like that? What a great weapon for a team to have.

Oh, and, hey, happy new year, OKC Thunder. Pretty good year for us, I'd say.

and hey, wasn't it great to see Damien Wilkins again?
;)

Sure, we liked to diss him when he was on our roster because he shot a lot of game-time bricks, but Damien is a good guy. Real team guy -- always said nice things about OKC when he was here.

I wonder if he and Durant did some chatting on court between plays.

@Dylan
No one's saying this is a sign of why we can't win with this core or anything. All I'm saying is it was unsportsmanlike and immature. That's all.

@Sammy
what's the downside of the "way it looks"? People think bad things about our franchise? After the Hawks go get drunk at Roc Bar or whatever tonight and go to bed, literally no one on earth will give a shit.

I'm not going to waste time feeling bad because of a meaningless two points at the end of a game. Hopefully Scott Brooks will say something mean to them and they won't do it again or whatever, but there's no reason for us to give that a second thought.

It's not like Green chucking up 9 23-foot bricks where we can go "oh god, that's a bad sign." This is two points in the final seconds of a 9-point win. Who gives a shit "how it looks"

Ok, we ended the first quarter up by 9 points...

another 3 quarters go by and... we win by 9 points

Seems like we could have built upon the lead by the end of the game, but, hey... at least we didn't lose ground either.

The Hawks are a decent team. We pretty much had control the whole game. We never put them away, but we never let 'em fully back in either. It was a "good enough" effort (sounds kinda Laker-like, no?)

Not sure we can rely on our outside shots to bail us out consistenly though. We may be seeing endless amounts of zone from other teams for the remainder of the season.

ANYHOO, great win. KD, Harden, and Ibaka are continuing to make me super happy. Even Green played pretty smart in this one, at least in the first half. Maynor should shoot more threes.

@Dylan
It doesn't matter in the w/l column, but that's kind of the point of why it looks bad.

@justin
So what, what's the difference between if it had happened and if it hadn't? We won, they lost. All it does is give Jamal Crawford and the Hawks a soundbite to use the next time we play them, literally no one will care between now and the next time we play them. It's a meaningless thing to complain about.

I really don't care if we win nice or mean, I'm not russell westbrook's mother.

@Dylan
If the tables were turned and Russ did the same thing, I'd be pretty pissed. It's an obnoxious thing to do in a win, but it'd look super selfish and immature iif he did it in a loss. See: javale mcgee's dunk attempt from the free throw line earlier this season. Dude was laughed at by all the basketball writers for that one.

Anyone notice the new intro? Bout time they made a new one.

@Dylan

Of course it's a loser complaint. That's the whole idea of it. You're beating a team and you show boat them, it's like kicking someone when they're down. Like David said, it's the same in football when teams run up the score. Just bad sportsmanship.

I guess I'm just getting greedy -- wanting us to crush every non-elite team at home, heh

Now, if we grit out an ugly win tomorrow (even by 1 pt) then I'll be sh*tting bricks of happiness!

@justin
the only people that complain about it are on the losing side, and if you lost, you've got more to worry about than a couple of stat-stuffing garbage points after things have been decided.

I just don't like the concept of complaining about a meaningless dunk when the real reason you're mad is the fact that four or five meaningful ones gave you a loss. If the Hawks were up 9 and Russ did that, they would have just laughed at him. It's a loser complaint.

@David
ha, looks like my post was a response to yours, but it wasn't as I hadn't even seen it yet

yep, I know what you're saying. Although I don't think we should have won by 30 -- Hawks aren't that bad (in fact, they're pretty good). But I thought a 15 point win was going to happen during much of the game.

@Dylan

It's a sportsmanship thing. You run out the clock at the end of a basketball game like that, it's an unspoken rule. I can guarantee you the Thunder players and probably most of the fans who comment on this site would be angry if the tables were turned...

well, I'm happy for the win...

It was rather ugly -- Hawks defense really botched us up. Our offense didn't look particularly good on most possessions, but we really pulled it out by stroking the long shots (esp. Durant and Harden)

Not sure why I feel so blah about it. Definitely a good win. I think I just wanted the team to look sharper. Our game stats certainly aren't bad.

It was sort of ugly. We needed an unreal game from Durant to win, he hit a lot of three pointers. Our offense wasn't really working down the stretch and we got very few easy points. I thought Westbrook and Durant tried to do too much, but Durant was making them for the most part so we won.

Now,I dont care whether Harden is starter or gets more time,I just hope he can get more shots.Only 6 shots he got tonight.

Hmm. No responses on my comment that this is an ugly win due to all the turnovers. Sad day. I still think we should have won by 30.

@justin
I've always thought it was a loser complaint. Baseball players complain about that stupid shit all the time, it's pathetic. A guy got beaned this year for stealing a base while TRAILING 11-2. The Hawks lost regardless of that last play, and we won regardless of it. If you're going to walk and mope off the court with time left on the clock, shut up about what happens.

It was better because the guys on our team that 3pt shooters (Durant, Harden, and Maynor) shot the 3s

@ justin

You're right about the stat padding thing. It's like in football when you're up by 20 and keep airing it out instead of playing conservative.

Anyone think our 3pt% was better because Green was in foul trouble?

@Dylan

There's a general contempt in the sports world for stat padding, I guess you don't share that sentiment.

Kevin Durant and James Harden were terrific.

This seemed like an incredibly ugly win to me. We could have won by 30. I'll take any win against a great team, and maybe this gives them something to talk about/work on for tomorrow. Ibaka seems to have lost his midrange jumper. I think part of that last assist by Russ was to get Ibaka going as well. We need Ibaka to at least be closer to @ Utah Ibaka rather than last years, not allowed to shoot Ibaka. I'm loving me some James Harden.

@Anonymous

Ooops forgot to login

yikes, how long did our score stay at 99? thirty minutes? forty?

man, we had some great stops at the end there, but kept going down and missing. Every time I looked up, our score was still 99. Stop. Miss. still 99. Stop. miss. still 99. Stop. miss. still 99....

dang, dang, dang, we finally hit a shot (well, Serge putback)

if we had ended the game with 99 points, I would have... dunno