Daily Thunder.com

@anonymous, yes he doesn't average many minutes (7) but he is a key player in Pop's mind as a defensive enforcer, as evidenced by his playing time in the first quarter.

Schnide :
I enjoy reading the site and appreciate the hard work that goes into it, but it does sometimes seem that Royce’s number one concern is staying in Thunder management’s (and KD’s) good graces.

I do get that feeling too. Especially when KD tweeted him about why he was doubting him. Instead of saying "it is my job to evaluate games objectively" his response to KD was to praise him and reassure him he was on his side.

Thomas :
Last night was a bad loss but not completely surprising. The Thunder are an above average, not elite team. We’ll see stuff like this from time to time. Don’t let it get you down.

Our players are above average. Our teamwork is subpar.

@Dan

The single best post in this site's history

Last night was a bad loss but not completely surprising. The Thunder are an above average, not elite team. We'll see stuff like this from time to time. Don't let it get you down.

31 shots from 16-23 is a good way to have an awful shooting night...

Looking at the schedules I'd be surprised if Denver hasn't overtaken us in the next couple weeks.

really, for being the #1 rated offense, the Spurs didn't particular kill us with their offense last night

101 points
49.4% shooting

nothing outstanding there...

But their defense strangled us out of existence. That and just a bad shooting night for us.

Not sure how much was which. I'd say about 60% was Spurs defense and about 40% was bad shooting. But since the former causes the latter, it's hard to separate them. It becomes a kind of negative feedback loop -- the worse you shoot, the more you panic and take bad shots, thus leading to worse shooting, etc....

well presti has said we are not a finished product yet

oops, messed up the link above... here 'tis:

Hoopdata Advanced Box Score - Oklahoma City vs San Antonio Spurs 1/1/2011

looking at some hoopdata stats:

Mayberry's recap mentioned 60 points (!!!) in the paint for the Spurs. You can see a much more detailed break down of what took place in the hoopdata info.

One of the stats that jumped out at me was the effective field goal percentage at different shot locations -- particulary < 10 feet. At that distance we shot only 26.7% (holy crud) whereas SA shot 78.6%! That was Duncan/Blair/Hill for ya.

Strangely, at 10-15 feet and 16-23 feet we shot a better percentage than the Spurs. The 10-15 foot stat was the Durant effect. But 16-23 was a decent place for most of the team...hmmm.

Why does everyone keep putting the Lakers in the same group as the Spurs and Mavs? This year's Lakers team is NOT the same as last year's dominating squad. For those who say "they will turn it around for the playoffs", they turned it on and off last season while easily holding onto first place the whole while. This season they are fighting to stay in a 3-way fight for 3rd with the second-easiest schedule so far.

The last time I remember us getting stomped on this badly (if you overlook our first home game this season against the Jazz) was in March, late last season, against Denver.

An awful, awful game where the Nuggets blew us out by 29 points.
Yahoo Sports game recap

And the weird thing was, it was late in the season when we had been playing really well and it was becoming pretty clear that we were going to the playoffs. Then we went to Denver and played terrible in every way possible. Horrible and embarrassing.

Fortunately, we bounced back right away and destroyed the Clippers in our next game, 104-87.

Another thing I noticed from the game is how much I like Ivey. He is solid and can play both ends of the floor quite well. I think he should be used more often than for a few minutes of garbage time every fifth or sixth game.

He is a calming influence and can help show they young-uns how to retain their composure under fire. Sure, he can be a great locker room guy and in practice sessions. But you can also mentor on the floor during games where your words and your example help show the way. I think he is being under-utilized.

I think Kevin Durant should talk about the game, I'd be interested in how he feels about it. It doesn't seem like this team in general learns from losses like this, i.e. next time we face the Spurs we'll probably try the same ol' things.

DizzyDai :@innocent
bystander
I’m think a no lob to Ibaka policy should be in effect. Russ, KD, and Green usually have not issues catching the ball.

heh, well I dunno... I have seen Ibaka catch a few lobs and then slam down in previous games. But yeah, he does have trouble with holding the ball.

One bad example was when KD made a really nice bounce pass to Serge who was standing right next to the basket (in the 2nd quarter?). Spurs didn't steal this one -- Serge just bobbled the ball out of bounce. Ouch. I was cursing the screen. That would have an automatic dunk (or at least reverse-layup). KD was robbed of an assist right there.

@innocent bystander

I'm think a no lob to Ibaka policy should be in effect. Russ, KD, and Green usually have not issues catching the ball.

One thing that can be taken out of last night's game, as far as learning opportunities, is for the coaching staff to make a renewed emphasis on fundamentals. In particular, on taking care of the ball and making crisp passes.

Last night was an awful exhibition of lazy and/or circus-style passes that kept getting picked off. Against lesser and/or lazier teams that don't put much effort into defense, we might get away with those. But against a talented and hungry team like the Spurs who were defending extremely aggressively and constantly looking for the steal, such carelessness will bite you hard.

About two thirds into the 1st quarter, I was pleaded at the team "oh no, please no more bounce passes", I think every time we made a bounce pass in the first quarter, it was picked off. And all throughout the game we were lobbing risky passes to each other, Cmon guys, just make good, simple, clean (boring perhaps, but safe) passes. Certainly against savvy teams like SA. Save the circus stuff for when we're playing Sacramento or Warriors.

Not to mention all the blown/botched break-away buckets. Maybe Scottie should re-institute the "no lob" policy. At least when we're playing against great defensive teams.

The NBA season is so long. I think we get a bit too excited about great wins and a bit too down about devastating losses. We beat Boston on their court sans KD. When they are healthy, Boston is the best team in the league IMO. We lost to two terrible teams in the Clippers and the Raptors. We are not better than Boston and we are not as bad as the Clipps or Raptors. We are a young team that is going to make the playoffs and I think in at least the four seed and maybe the three, depending on if the Lakers keep laying eggs to bad teams. I don't think anyone has any illusions that we are better than the Mavs or Spurs or the Lakers, but I don't really understand the sentiment that we are unequivocally behind the Jazz. We have had almost identical records all year, and I would look forward to a 4/5 matchup with them in the first round.

Seems like if a guy is perceived to be "injury-prone" a la Tyson Chandler or DeJuan Blair, Presti just refuses to take a chance on him, regardless of talent. So I guess that means we can forget about stealing Greg Oden away from Portland next year. Haha.

Regarding Royce's recaps, I was the beat writer for the University of Hawaii men's basketball team in college and I must say it's pretty difficult writing new stuff for a team that you cover every single day for months on end.

I think Royce does a nice job with his bullet points and tries to be fair, for example, he did say the Thunder "laid an egg" last night.

As Scnide said, it does appear that Royce tries to stay in the Thunder players' and management's good graces, but that's natural for a young up-and-coming writer. You definitely don't want to ruffle any feathers.

Veteran writers and columnists like Bill Plaschke can be overly critical and get away with it, because they already have their reputations established. But Royce is just starting out, building relationships and I assume trying to cultivate sources from within the organization. He understandbly doesn't want to piss anyone off.

It would be one thing if Royce was just in the shadows, writing his blog and never having to see any of these guys. But now that he attends games and press conferences as a full-fledged member of the media, I can see why he would want to keep his nose clean.

If you publicly trash a player or coach in print, even if it's on a blog or website such as this one, they may not be so friendly the next time they see you. And that can make your life difficult when you're trying to land an interview or even just grab a quick quote from them. I wouldn't be surprised if the players come on here sometimes and read Royce's stuff. Now, don't get me wrong, not being able to get a quote from someone is a pretty silly reason not to write negative stuff, but I would understand if it does prevent him from jumping to the extremes that many of us, myself included, do quite frequently in the comments section.

I think Royce is still learning on the fly, but overall, he is doing a great job of maintaining this site and giving us all a chance to voice our opinions on our favorite team.

I'm not sure how much you can read into the loss. Obviously SA is a better team, but they're not THAT much better. We played them competively for three quarters about a month ago. Over at okcthunderdome.com, he suggests that both teams are better, but that SA's improvement is even greater. Not sure I buy that. It's too small of a time period. I think both teams are essentially the same as our last meeting -- they just had one of *those* nights.

hi royce i m very disappointed from the bad bad bad performance
i love the thunder dearley but no excuse for such a loss
i live in israel but my hurt belongs to the okc hope for better
days

zvi

just like Royce, I had a good feeling going into the game. We have done quite well on the second night of back-to-backs, seemingly had found some shooting rhythm recently, plus I thought SA might not take this as seriously as they should... oy, how wrong can you get?

I had no illusions about Spurs being the better team. Clearly they are. But sometimes better teams lose to lesser teams. Boston is a better team and yet we pulled out a win at their arena. It happens.

But not last night. SA came out breathing fire. It was like the opening of a boxing match where they landed an uppercut to the jaw in the first few seconds, landed us flat on our back, and then we spent the rest of the round trying to shake it off and gather a clear head while avoiding a flurry a blows coming at us. Only we never could.

with games like this, I don't envy Royce -- I wouldn't want to put together a recap

in my case, I just downed a load of sweets, watched a little mindless TV, and then went to bed

turrible game
:(

by the end of the third quarter, I felt like I had taken a couple of punches to the gut

ugh

It saddens me that in the battle of starting power forwards, Jeff Green was the 5th overall pick and DeJuan Blair was picked in the 2nd round. Yet, if given the chance, I would trade Green for Blair in a heartbeat.

Dan :
- bias towards Jeff Green. Look, I understand that alot of people like Jeff Green and want him to keep playing. But it seems like every recap of his bad performances highlights the few positive aspects. In this game, his rebounding gets highlighted.
- overlooking the lack of a defensive or offensive system. There’s often implicit criticism of systemic failures, but not much directed or continuing criticism.

Royce does a fine job balancing the negativity floating around here. Perhaps the perceived biased for Green stems from the fact that Green is bashed everyday in the comments. Royce is simply trying to point out some positive aspects of Green’s game. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not like Royce is saying Green deserves to play 40+ minutes a night.

Overall I get were you are coming from, but honestly who would want to read some sour grapes writer day in and day out. We are fans. We hope for the best for our team.

On a side note an analytical approach to the previews/reviews sorta like “48 Minutes of Hell” would be a nice addition to this blog. Just sayin’ :D

eore :
“why can’t the thunder get one of those guys?”
I don’t know if it’s players as much as it is the coaching. each player on the team understands their role.

I thought Serge Ibaka and Russell Westbrook was one of those guys. I'm still waiting to see if Tibor Pleiss is one as well.

At first I was bothered about the white flag at the beginning of the 4th quarter, but Brooks made the right call. Our starters need to learn how to control a game. There were silly turnovers and missed assignments all night long. So benching the big boys for their effort seems appropriate.

In Mayberry’s write up he gave a nice example of how the coaching was pointing out issues and the players would miss the assignment.

Brooks should have given Ibaka more time in the 3rd quarter. Instead Brooks went with the players who were responsible for putting us in the hole. In the very least he could have played Ibaka at the 4 since Krstic was providing a few good minutes at the 5.

Yeah we played like one of the worst in the league, period. Ibaka had lots of spark but needs Russ and KD to play as well as normal to win against a great team.

Harden would have contributed more IF WE EVER RAN AN OFFENSE EVER in the game-he gets a few plays on a good night, and tonight was "oh crap we are getting killed better let KD and Russ play YMCA ball"

And I HATE Brooks just giving up and benching the starters in games where the keen sting of getting outplayed might be good for our lead players to feel. I understand rest and injury-but I don't understand giving up like chumps.

I hope this can wake us up, as this will be a long month otherwise.

I enjoy reading the site and appreciate the hard work that goes into it, but it does sometimes seem that Royce's number one concern is staying in Thunder management's (and KD's) good graces.

@Dan

I agree with most of that. you can't expect a completely honest assessment in the recaps though. it's a fan site and tries to drive traffic by keeping the fan morale high.

wow dan i actually really like u, hope u post more often, sounds like u know basketball. i agree with you and i hope some of the changes u referenced are made

Look, this is a great site and this should be taken as no more than constructive criticism but I feel like the recaps for losses are becoming very predictable. They tend to avoid systemic issues with the team and focus on individual players and team effort. Looking back at past recaps, the defensive problems and strange lineups that plague the team were brought up in the early games during the slow start. Beyond that however, its hard to find reference to inherent problems in the recaps. Specific problematic tendencies include:

- excusing losses to good teams - X team is a great team and there is no shame in losing to them. This happens too often in my mind. I think the collapse of Greg Oden and Brandon Roy shows the necessity of competing for the title as soon as possible. These good teams are the ones the Thunder will have to beat in the playoffs. In a close game where both sides executed this excuse might hold some water. However, a blowout loss or losses where the team employs small lineups and bad offense and defense can't be excused as a mere loss to a good team.

- bias towards Jeff Green. Look, I understand that alot of people like Jeff Green and want him to keep playing. But it seems like every recap of his bad performances highlights the few positive aspects. In this game, his rebounding gets highlighted. The Nuggets win on Christmas, his assists get highlighted. He shoots 6/19 against the Knicks, but his defense was decent. It just seems like criticism comes faster to a player like Harden, who somehow ends up with a lot of bench responsibility for a 27 point loss despite playing 7 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, than Jeff Green, especially when most advanced stats indicate the team is better with Jeff Green off the court.

- overlooking the lack of a defensive or offensive system. There's often implicit criticism of systemic failures, but not much directed or continuing criticism. In one game the small lineups will be questioned. In another the bad defensive rotations. it just seems like each game becomes an entity unto itself, enabling the "good team" excuses by failing to criticize persistent problems that rear themselves against good teams.

- assuming improvement. This ties into the last point. Harden has improved this season and Durant is returning to form. In addition, the defense has returned from the abyss that it started in even if its still not that great. Beyond that though, what would lead fans to believe that the Thunder will be significantly better by the end of the season. They still lack a clear offensive or defensive system, refuse to use the 10th pick in the draft, are unequipped to deal with opposing big men, and employ small ball lineups in crucial situations.

I don't mean to impugn the work of this site. I could in no way watch, write previews for, and write recaps for every game in addition to the articles this site puts out regularly. I also hope that this doesn't come off as trying to force the editors to conform to my view of how the Thunder would be run. I just think that this team should be evaluated more impartially than it seems to be right now.

on average udoka plays 5 minutes a game.

@sathunder

true. a lot of that was garbage time though.

@anonymous, Thabo would probably be getting more minutes than Ime Udoka is (19 last night) as Pop loves defenders that have little offensive game.

@Mike Fletcher
The Lakers are clearly better than us, and the Jazz are probably better. Hell, going by point differential, the Nuggets are better, and even the Hornets aren't too far behind. We're in the middle of the pack, and the smart money is on a 7-game 1st round series which we find a way to lose.

Mike Fletcher :
Its clear after the past two to three weeks. The Thunder are the 3rd, 4th or 5th team in the West. There are two teams clearly better (Spurs, Mavs)…and two teams that MIGHT be better (Lakers, Jazz)

What an outrageous comment.

The Lakers "might" be better than us?

Ok Homer McHomerson.

how many minutes would sefolosha play if he was on the spurs? my guess is close to zero.

@andromeda

yeah. that too.

Utah really screwed up when they didn't resign offer Matthews a deal. He said he would have resigned for 4 mil a year. and right now he might be a top 10 SG

"why OKC can’t find itself a Gary Neal. Or Matt Bonner. Why/how do the Spurs always find those guys?"
The answer is simple: SA have low post presence, OKC doesn't. Bonner or Neal have a lot opportunities for open shots if Duncan is doubled (or if defense rotate to stop Ginobili or Parker). Those guys will have no open shots on OKC team. Any shooter will look good on SA team and none will be good on OKC team until low post presence that require doubling is there.

@Mike Fletcher
I think we're clearly behind the Spurs, Mavs, and Lakers. We're on par or slightly behind Utah.

"why can't the thunder get one of those guys?"

I don't know if it's players as much as it is the coaching. each player on the team understands their role.

@Mike Fletcher
Honestly, I don't think that's that bad. Picking OKC for the 2-seed in the West was a mistake by a lot of media members (nationally, I think). To improve from 8 to 5 and maybe even 4 or 3 without a single change to the roster is pretty darn good.

@Mike Fletcher
GREAT comment.

Glad I missed this one. Boomer Sooner.

Its clear after the past two to three weeks. The Thunder are the 3rd, 4th or 5th team in the West. There are two teams clearly better (Spurs, Mavs)...and two teams that MIGHT be better (Lakers, Jazz)