Ken Berger on KD’s MVP hopes: “Durant keeps downplaying his own and the Thunder’s success, but the arrival of a legit center in Kendrick Perkins means Oklahoma City is ready to compete with the heavy hitters. If Durant didn’t think he was MVP material before, he will be now if the Thunder finish as strong as I think they will.”
Shoals for ESPN.com on the least significant free agents: “Especially after Wednesday night’s win over the Miami Heat, no team’s rise is as eagerly anticipated as that of the young, fresh, and oh-so-chummy Oklahoma City Thunder. With all due respect to Cook, who once won the 3-point contest (which could be considered more of a career-killer than a badge of honor), he might be left by the side of the road. Russell Westbrook deserves an extension; Kendrick Perkins needs to be worked into the team. Serge Ibaka and James Harden are growing up fast. General manager Sam Presti must hoard more talent. We hope Cook knows that self-worth begins within, and no one can take that from him.” Read more…
Well, now we know which late-season game people can point to if a single loss costs Oklahoma City a better playoff seed. I guess the bright side is that the Thunder would probably prefer the No. 5 seed Nuggets over the No. 6 seed Trail Blazers in the first round, assuming those teams stay in those spots and OKC stays at No. 4.
Oklahoma City dropped its first game since March 7 on Sunday with a 95-93 loss at home to the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors snapped a 14-game road losing streak and swept the season series against the Thunder in the process.
OKC tried to follow the same script it stuck to for much of the season before the (now-snapped) six-game win streak by lacking focus for three quarters before playing inspired offense in the final stanza. But, as it has been before and could be again, Oklahoma City’s charge was too little, too late and came back to bite the team.
The Thunder looked like it was going to escape with a win when it took a late three-point lead, but it just couldn’t hold on. Kendrick Perkins had two free throws late that could have pushed it to a two-possession lead, but he missed both of them and Toronto capitalized. A little hook shot by Amir Johnson with 1.4 seconds left doomed Oklahoma City, and Kevin Durant’s look at the buzzer wasn’t close. Read more…
Remember how the Raptors beat the Thunder? Yeah that probably shouldn’t have happened. So here’s a chance to remedy that. The Thunder of course are hot, winning six straight as they push for the division title. So just like Friday versus Charlotte, there’s no room to take a night off. And I don’t suspect the Thunder will. Read more…
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Morning citizens. Thank you for reading DT. Have a happy Saturday.
“The Association” has been absolutely terrific, but it’s become a bit more interesting to Thunder fans the past few weeks because now two of the players featured are in Oklahoma City. In the most recent episode, Kendrick Perkins was asked about the prospect of being traded one day. He says, “When you get close to the deadline, you think, ‘Man, I hope it’s not me.’ Because you’ve developed a relationship with a bunch of guys and you want to follow through.”
For a second there, this game was close. Then everyone blinked and the Thunder was up 15 with two minutes left.
That’s what outstanding defense does for you. The longer you play it, the longer you give your offense a chance to catch up and eventually break out. It’s not that the Thunder ever was bad offensively in this one, it’s just they couldn’t get things rolling for more than three or four minutes at a time. The only way Charlotte was beating Oklahoma City was if it could keep the Thunder from scoring. But eventually after a bunch of bending it all broke as OKC went on a 9-0 run after Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins checked back in the game.
You could almost see the looks of confusion and frustration on the Bobcat players as they searched for a way through the Thunder’s defense. Try here… no. Over here? No. How about on the block. Oh crap, there’s No. 5 and HERE COMES NO. 9 FLYING AT ME!! Breaking through the Thunder right now isn’t an easy task, especially for a team like the Bobcats who don’t have a reliable go to scorer on the roster. Read more…
Potential for a letdown here? Maybe. The Bobcats aren’t good, don’t have any high profile players and the Thunder just notched a big win. But then again, this is the first time home in a week, Kendrick Perkins’ official introduction to Oklahoma City and this team typically doesn’t struggle getting up for teams. So this one comes down to execution and intensity on the defensive end, two things I don’t think they’ll have a bunch of trouble with. Read more…
A friend sent me a YouTube clip of Michael Jordan the other day — from a game I saw live as a youngster, mind you, but still — that reminded me of how mean he was. He was a bully, even to his own teammates. I grew up idolizing Jordan, begging my parents (unsuccessfully) for his shoes and hanging his posters on my wall. But because most of the bullying was only detailed in lengthy books while he was actually still playing and I was mostly reading Calvin and Hobbes anthologies at that point, I didn’t really know much about it at the time. I don’t know if my opinion of him would have changed if I knew.
But I do know he and the Bulls won six championships. And it would have been eight if it weren’t for his baseball experiment.
That got me to thinking about recent NBA championship teams. We know that, with only the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons as an exception, it takes at least one transcendent player. But does it also take some meanness? Maybe even a little meanness off the court as well? A look back at most of the recent champs suggests that’s the case. Not only did most of them have a mean player or two, in many cases the meanest was the best or one of the best guys on the team. Read more…
Michael Falgoust of USA Today on Perk’s impact: “The smile across Serge Ibaka’s face can’t be controlled. Not because the power forward is finally starting for the Oklahoma City Thunder, but because he’s talking about playing alongside newly acquired center Kendrick Perkins. “I just need to play off him. He’s just a good, good defensive player,” Ibaka says. “When he (holds) down his guy, it’s easy for me to come block every shot.”
Andy Kamenetzky of Land O’Lakers looking at Perk’s trash talk: “Also, am I the only person disappointed by Perk’s dependence on the most played out of cliches as trash talk? Can’t you even vary the parlance and call Pau “weak?” A “marshmallow?” “Baby giraffe,” as Lakers Late Night refers to those occasional moments when Pau does appear contact-averse? Must we run with the most dead obvious? Should Perk decide to expand his targets, I’m guessing Kobe Bryant is a ball hog obsessed with scoring and imitating Michael Jordan’s mannerisms, Derek Fisher is old, Lamar Odom has no right hand, and Ron Artest is pretty out there.” Read more…
I’ve reflected. I’ve thought about it. Last night, I said I wasn’t sure if the Thunder’s win over the Heat was the biggest of the season. Today, I’m positive it is.
Three reasons:
1) This was the roster that will go into the postseason with the Thunder. We’ve seen this group win (8-3 since the trade), but haven’t really seen them do it against an elite unit. We weren’t entirely sure where they stood. After the 96-85 win over the Heat that was pretty close to dominant, I think we have a sense. Kendrick Perkins has changed things, but more than that, Serge Ibaka has changed things. I think in getting caught up in what Perk adds, we’ve overlooked the maybe the best part of the trade — Ibaka is a starter and is consistently seeing 30-35 minutes a game. That’s huge.
2) OKC was just 2-7 against the top teams in each conference so far this season. The Thunder had only beaten Boston (without Durant) and Chicago (first game of the season). The Thunder has been missing some signature wins. Read more…
ESPN’s future rankings has OKC at No. 2: “Of course, the Thunder remain behind the Bulls in the Market category. Chicago and the Bulls franchise are much greater lures, and — as with San Antonio and the Spurs organization — it’s going to take certain types of players to adapt to the culture of the Oklahoma City locale and the Thunder franchise. As a result, Oklahoma City might lose out on free agents that could round out its roster. Fortunately, Presti seemed to know that all along, which one reason he traded for Perkins and extended Nick Collison, and why even with cap space the past two summers, the Thunder never dove headlong into the free-agent market. Instead, Presti has built his team from the bottom up, and over the next three years we rate them the most dangerous bunch in the West.”
Ken Berger of CBSSports.com on OKC’s big win: “Perkins’ partner in crime is no longer Garnett, but Serge Ibaka, who has been able to slide back to his natural power forward position with Perkins’ arrival. Ibaka had 12 rebounds, three blocks, two steals, and one earful from Perkins on Wednesday night. He better get used to it. On the play in question, there was a miscommunication between Perkins and Ibaka, and Erick Dampier got free for a layup under the basket. Perkins blasted him, using one of his six fouls and getting into it with Ibaka afterward. “We have a rule: no layups,” Perkins said. “So I had to take one for the team.” Read more…
Pretty sure this is what Sam Presti had in mind when he pushed the big red button on that trade three weeks ago.
This team had a look tonight. It was unmistakable. It was clear. They may not be officially ready this year, but try and tell them that.
Oklahoma City needed a big statement win in Miami and the Thunder got it, basically controlling the game from the first quarter on and beating the Heat 96-85. OKC was just nasty defensively, holding Miami 38.5 percent shooting and the vaunted Big Three to a 4-24 effort in the second half. Serge Ibaka protected the rim (three blocks), Kendrick Perkins and Nazr Mohammed plugged the lane (10 points, 14 rebounds between them) and Durant did the scoring (29 on 12-21 shooting). It basically all went according to plan.
Things started to get a little tighter as the Heat made a strong push in the fourth, but a crucial non-call on a Dwyane Wade run-out that turned into a big James Harden 3 as the Heat stood and yelled at the official swung the game entirely in OKC’s way and basically sealed the deal. The game went from 85-78 with three minutes left to 88-78 just like that. It was a sequence for the Thunder. And one of those moments where it really looked like OKC had that killer instinct to put away a game. Read more…
In truth, this game has no more meaning than the last two against the Wizards and Cavs. It’s against an Eastern opponent that won’t pick up or lose ground on the Thunder because of tonight’s result. In reality, it counts the exact same in the standings as anything else. Read more…
A recap of Thunder-Wizards from Andrew Sharp of SB Nation: “Monday night I had two tickets to the Wizards-Thunder at the Verizon Center, and while waiting for my roommate to get there, I found myself entranced by the Thunder’s ridiculously elaborate pregame routines. There was a three-part handshake between Russell Westbrook and James Harden, some backhanded high-fives between Kevin Durant and Royal Ivey, some chest bumps, and that move where two players jump up and touch hips. Basically, they just looked really cool. And two things were clear: these guys really like playing together, and they were totally pumped to go kick ass together. Pretty cool to watch. Then I shifted my eyes over to the Wizards sideline, and saw Javale McGee, furiously puffing his inhaler at the scorer’s table. Then the game started. The Wizards lost by 30.
All their answers were really interesting, but of course I found KD’s just fascinating. And awesome.
I did see it, I watched the whole thing, and it was just crazy how they were able to change the game and be so confident and good at such a young age. The best part about it to me was that they were family. They stuck behind each other when Webber called the timeout, when folks criticized their game and their coach through all that. That’s a lesson that can be applied on the professional level. You stand behind your team, your coach, your brothers no matter what. That’s family, that’s love, and I admired that.
I was really too young to know about their game and who they were when I was growing up initially. But as I played in middle school and high school, I knew who they were, and I started to read up on the history a little bit. Plus, we had five freshmen on Texas, and we wanted to be just like them. We did everything together, we wore the same shoes, same socks, all that type of stuff. I think they are still influential for people going to college and playing ball today.
They definitely remind me of what we got going on here [with the Thunder], because we’re all so young, we do everything together, and we call each other family. Plus most of us, except for Perk [Kendrick Perkins], have never really won anything on this level, so we’re all going through this together just like the Fab Five.
Ken Berger on KD’s MVP hopes: “Durant keeps downplaying his own and the Thunder’s success, but the arrival of a legit center in Kendrick Perkins means Oklahoma City is ready to compete with the heavy hitters. If Durant didn’t think he was MVP material before, he will be now if the Thunder finish as strong as I think they will.”
