At some point, bad basketball just catches up to you.
The Thunder played a dismal offensive first half, shooting under 28 percent but hung in the game behind a strong effort at the free throw line. They battled back from 13 down in the third quarter to take a three-point lead going into the fourth, but there was just a feeling about this game. The kind where despite OKC clawing back into the game, it felt like the Suns still had things in hand.
It was like the Thunder was scrambling to figure things out all night. Kevin Durant did a nice little takeover job in the fourth quarter, hitting a number of jumpers to keep Oklahoma City close, but there were just too many costly defensive lapses and bad turnovers to overcome. For instance, with a little over a minute left after getting a big stop and trailing by three, instead of going back to an offensive set, Durant brought the ball up the floor for what I presume was going to be an isolation on Josh Childress.
Durant, who tends to have some issues in isolation with a defender picking and swiping at the ball, lost it to Childress. The Suns ended up capitalizing and went up five with 45 seconds left. That was a tough margin for the Thunder to work with at that point and they couldn’t ever get it tied. Read more…
The Thunder gets the pleasure of playing the Suns the day after basically half of their rotation was turned over in a pretty massive trade with the Magic. Gone is Earl Clark, Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu. In comes Vince Carter, Mickael Pietrus and Marcin Gortat. Read more…
TGR lucked out this week catching Michael Schwartz of Valley of the Suns in the midst of heavy trade speculation regarding
Turk, J-Rich and Vince Carter. We talk about the possible ramifications and also preview their game against the Thunder this Sunday. Combined with Deep Thoughts & The Thundies, it makes for a good listen.
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(Good weekend. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Merry Everything.)
For whatever reason, when Charles Barkley speaks, we all listen. When he says something, it becomes newsworthy. I have no idea why. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. But Thursday he was talking about the elite teams in the West and he said Oklahoma City would be there – if they just played some defense and rebounded. Kind of hard to argue, but I think the Thunder’s a bit better defensively than Chuck’s giving them credit for.
Some games, there’s just really nothing to get excited about. Or upset about. Some games really are just kind of meh. Or as Stringer Bell would put it, a 40 degree day. Ain’t nobody got nothing to say about a 40 degree day.
And that’s pretty much how the Thunder’s 102-87 wins over the Kings felt.
The Thunder played decent offense, decent defense, rebounded all right, everyone played relatively well and in the end, Oklahoma City beat a team that’s now 5-19 by 15 points. Wipe the hands and get ready for Sunday against the Suns. Read more…
All for another easy victory, a show of hands. Everyone? Everybody is good with that? Sounds good. The Kings come in as one of the worst teams in the league at 5-18 and losers of their last 15 of 17. Their best player is battling a painful foot injury, their rookie is already disgruntled and right now, they lack a go-to scorer. Read more…
John Schuhmann of NBA.com on what’s working for OKC: “No five-man unit played more minutes last season than the Thunder’s starting lineup of Russell Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic. But interestingly, that unit wasn’t all that strong (relative to those of other playoff teams), outscoring its opponents by just 1.2 points per 100 possessions. When he’s got his full complement of players, Scott Brooks has gone with the same starting unit this season. But injuries to Durant, Green and Krstic have forced him to change things up quite a bit. The Thunder have had more success with Serge Ibaka replacing either Green (creating a lineup that is plus-14.5 points per 100 possessions in 100 minutes together) or Krstic (plus-13.8 in 148 minutes). Oklahoma City’s original starting lineup has actually been outscored by 2.2 points per 100 possessions in 200 minutes together this season.”
The Thunder ranked second in ESPN’s Future Rankings behind the Heat: “Moreover, it’s not clear how many of them the Thunder can ultimately keep. Oklahoma City is still sitting on a hoard of cap space, so it ranks fifth in the money category, but it’ll need to be more careful than other franchises because it can’t afford to pay luxury tax in its tiny market. Oklahoma is not a highly desirable landing spot, either, but the team’s bright future should help the recruiting effort.” Read more…
With Bill Simmons’ paperback release of The Book of Basketball that included a new “What If?” section on Portland taking Kevin Durant instead of Greg Oden, let’s play the “What If?” game for the Thunder.
There are a number of good Thunder “What If’s?” out there like “What if Oklahoma City/Seattle had drafted Brook Lopez fourth overall in 2008?” or “What if Sam Presti hadn’t fired P.J. Carlesimo as early as he did?” or “What if Robert Swift hadn’t randomly tattooed his entire body?” We could go on for a while with those and the team’s only been here three years.
But really, the best “What If?” for the Thunder is about the big trade that wasn’t. Feb. 17, 2009 Tyson Chandler was traded to Oklahoma City from New Orleans for Chris Wilcox, Joe Smith and the rights to DeVon Hardin. I was excited. And then 24 hours later, the trade was off. Chandler didn’t pass a physical and suddenly Dr. Carlan Yates was the most famous NBA physician in the league. Read more…
Last season, it felt like a huge deal that Kevin Durant was an All-Star. This season, he’s well on his way to being a starter.
The first returns for the 2011 All-Star Teams are in and KD is second-leading vote getter in the West, period (470,881 votes). He’s only behind Kobe Bryant (722,682). But Durant leads all Western forwards, that includes Pau Gasol, Carmelo Anthony, Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan. Pretty impressive.
Russell Westbrook got a solid number of votes as he ranks seventh among Western guards. Westbrook (140,519 votes) trails Kobe, Chris Paul, Manu Ginobili, Steve Nash, Deron Williams and Jason Kidd.
The Thunder’s other All-Star candidates are Thabo Sefolosha and Jeff Green, and they aren’t, um, on the voting returns.
Remember, you can vote daily so be sure to stuff the box for KD and Russ (and Jeff and Thabo).
David Thorpe looks at the top 20 NBA sophomores, which includes three Thunderers: “But the story now is also about Ibaka’s offense. Watch him drain more than half his jumpers from beyond 16 feet, and you’ll see a nice shooting motion. The same can be said for his free throws, which he’s now making at an 80 percent clip. And best of all, Ibaka does not need to score or block shots to impact his team and the game, as his passion and energy alone infect his teammates. He’s a candidate for the league’s Most Improved Player award.”
The Thunder kind of sleepwalked through the first half, giving up 56 points tot he Rockets while turning it over nine times. But after Kevin Durant picked up his fourth foul halfway through the third, the Oklahoma City bench took over the game. The second unit (plus Jeff Green) closed the third on an 8-0 run, giving OKC an 11-point edge and after that, it was pretty much done and done.
But the fourth was even more impressive. KD returned and the Thunder just started rolling the Rockets. Running on misses, defending everything, moving the ball around and rebounding. It was exactly how you would want your team to close out a home game.
The Thunder shot nearly 58 percent on the night, went 7-11 from 3 and 27-28 from the line. It was pretty much a flawless offensive performance. Scott Brooks said after the game, outside of the 10 first half turnovers, it’s about as good as they can play offensively. Hard to disagree.
Durant is totally back in his unstoppable offensive rhythm as he dropped 32 on 12-18 shooting (2-2 from 3). (It would’ve been more had he not been in foul trouble. Like in the first half, he was in That Zone. He started the game 7-9 and totally looked prepared to score 50 points.) James Harden continues to rise to his potential, scoring 16 on 5-7 from the field. Russell Westbrook, Thabo, Jeff Green – everyone was really good. The Thunder offense was absolutely unstoppable and defensively, OKC picked things up a lot in the second half. Read more…
Really no reason to drop this one. The Rockets are playing better but this is an important homestand for the Thunder to stretch out with a few wins. And another comfortable edge would be pretty nice, actually. Read more…
Darnell Mayberry on OKC’s rebounding: “At worst, the latest cause for concern for the Oklahoma City Thunder evokes memories of Pau Gasol, his purple No. 16 Lakers jersey swooping in to steal the ball and the series-clinching victory in Game 6 of last season’s playoffs. At best, the trend can be written off as only somewhat troubling since the Thunder is 4-1 over its past five games and 17-8 overall. Either way you slice it, Oklahoma City’s defensive rebounding issues can’t go ignored. Opposing teams are toying with the Thunder on the offensive glass.”
Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld: “Russell Westbrook won’t come out and say it, but everyone in Oklahoma City knows why he pushes himself. They know why he’s the last player to leave the court after practices. They know why some of his best games have come in wins against Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Derrick Rose, and Rajon Rondo. “He wants to be the best point guard in the league,” Kevin Durant explains.” Read more…
If you weren’t aware, the Oklahoma City Thunder have some good dunkers on the team. Jeff Green is one of the best in the league using his off-hand. Russell Westbrook is one of the angriest, most powerful dunkers out there. Kevin Durant’s so freaking long that I think he could dunk on a 15-foot goal. And James Harden’s sneaky, which makes his so fun.
Lately, we’ve seen some serious Thunder dunks. Westbrook’s destruction of Shane Battier and then Sunday’s annihilation of J.J. Hickson by the bearded one, James Harden. So naturally, people started talking about ranking the dunks we’ve seen over the past couple years from this insanely athletic and fun team. Which of course means, list time!
Because I’m a team player, I spent all morning on YouTube, perusing great dunks, trying to separate what makes one poster just a little bit better than the other. I was trying to figure out what takes a stuff to the next level. Is it style? Is it power? Is it the importance of it? Is it what it sparked? All factors in my mind.
So here you go – the top 10 Thunder dunks… EVER: Read more…
John Rohde on OKC’s turnaround in sharing the ball: “The turnaround finally came when Brooks dangled some bait in front of his players before a Nov. 17 home game against Houston. Hand out 20 assists or more, Brooks said, and there would be no practice before flying to Boston the next day. The Thunder dished out a season-high 26 assists in a 17-point win against the Rockets and assembled a five-game winning streak during which it averaged 21.0 assists.”
Stein’s power rankings: “Friday’s courtside seat in New Orleans reminded the committee (of one) that all the fretting about OKC’s slippage on D/Westbrook’s ability to QB/Durant’s knee can’t change the fact that even KD’s misses are gorgeous.” Read more…
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