Daily Thunder.com

KD was the real Hero. Westbrook had good moments but he was saving himself alot

Our inside D and Perimeter D was bad.

Perk was pretty awful and Serge was better bet he was not up to par. Thats a good sign. Dont think they will continue to play like that

RECAP! RECAP! RECAP! We wants it Royce!

@Skeletor
think of it this way... Nuggets fans can say all they want to tonight... except "we won"
8)

@Skeletor
I'm convinced Nuggets fans are the dumbest fans in the NBA. At my minnesota college, I was watching in a room surrounded by nuggets fans and they honestly put themselves on the lakers and celtics level. "Andersen should be an all star, ty lawson is comparable to Rose/DWill in skill". That was one crazy fantasy world

Nugget fans are so annoying. If I hear one more time, "You guys don't have a third scorer" or "Nene always manhandles Ibaka and Perkins" I'm going to Denver and punching a Nugget fan in the face. They forget that the last 3 times we have played, Maynor has been in double figures, not counting tonight's game, so has Harden. Nazr even scored 15 pts in one of those games. We all acknowledge Nene had a good game tonight and Ibaka and Perk were mediocre, but the last two games, he was pretty average. And do they really want to call the league leader in block shots soft. Who are these people?

what is Russell doing up there?

Jammin Russell

theory:
he accidentally got the basketball lodged in his throat, so he jumped high and used the backboard to slam against his back and eject it forceably from his mouth (sort of a self-Heimlich manuever)
;)

@testikyle
The problem is that these first quarter and third quarter runs happen way too often because of the imbalance of the starting lineup. Sure we might be more talented, but that won't do a lick of good if the right people aren't playing at the right time. It's all about matchups in this league and it sux that a top contender has such an underperforming starting lineup

Im happy for the win, but this was a very poor game from our supporting cast, especially our starting bigs. But i guess we should regress to the mean in Game 2

Obviously KD had a great game, and his shooting percentages were great as well, I think its worth mentioning he did all that with very few if any dunks. Not to compare him to LJ again, but James's number often benefit from mucho dunks

@Daniel Plainview

Yep. Him and Mullens were suited up, but it was the kind that features a vest.

Was Aldrich on the bench? I saw he was absent from the Tulsa box score

Second half sorry.

Cook really wasn't given any run tonight. No play in the second quarter. I don't like that at all he's instrumental in what James Harden can do with the second unit. Really don't like that that was the one adjustment Brooks made.

Its wild that for some reason every other player gets the call when he gets held while running and cutting. KD takes it every possession

I read a bunch of people saying that Denver sandbagged it before the series... That we are in trouble... and a bunch of numbers.... Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah... Disgusting to read this BS. We started this game off in a pathetic fashion... If OKC would have played the first quarter like they played the last three quarters then they would have won by 15. I don't care what kind of stats Justin pumps out. They are moronic. OKC is in good shape. For 1) KD and Russ baled the rest of the team out and that wont have to be the case every night... The rest of the team will score. (2 The team won't come out completely flat every night. (3 OKC is the better team... PERIOD. I hate reading all the BS about the number that honestly do not matter anymore. I can't stad hearing how the Nuggets lost... They didn't lose it. The Thunder came back and won. Thanks.

Joel :
I LOVE Aussie women.. from personal experience.

I'm sorry, are we talking the stereotypical ones, or the ones that are essentially the exact same as everyone else in the world?

I LOVE Aussie women.. from personal experience. :)

I think it's absolutely insane how much mugging KD's defender gets away with off the ball.

Cpt. C-note :
Even when we were down 23-10, I didn’t feel like it was over or out of reach. Proud of these guys. Great win in our story.

man was that an ugly start

but after Denver hit its first seven shots, just told myself that they can't shot 100% all night long

So excited I got to go to the game tonight. Met a guy from St Louis who randomly got given tickets. He bought a couple people beer since he didn't have to pay for tickets. We totally made a new fan tonight.

It seemed like we should have had 15+ offensive rebounds but our guys couldn't handle it or got hacked with no call. Really frustrating to see all the effort with no results.

I don't know if its common for Kevin to get as pumped up as he did tonight, but I saw him yelling, beating his chest, and generally celebrating on the floor a lot tonight. It got me beyond pumped up.

Even when we were down 23-10, I didn't feel like it was over or out of reach. Proud of these guys. Great win in our story.

Like I've been saying, Thabo is a rough play against teams that don't have a wing player handling the ball. Thabo is a net negative on offense, but when the wings don't handle the ball, he doesn't have many opportunities to impact the game defensively.

Against teams like Denver (who doesn't have a ball dominant wing), every mistake he makes on defense is amplified (for example, he was super late on a couple close outs because he was playing too far off the ball over helping).

It's tough to watch him on offense. Seems like once a game, he's good for a horrible sequence of receive an open look on the perimeter, hesitate, slow pump fake and allow the defender to close, dribble in a step, pump fake again, and lamely pass the ball off.

@Mark!

-2 in 21 minutes sounds about right.

Starters played four separate times this game, beginning of the 1st (7 min), end of the 2nd (3 min), beginning of the 3rd (6.5 min), and to end the 4th (3.5 min). They went -11, +5, -2, +6 in those periods respectively.

Watching the game in person, there seemed to be an enormous amount of muggings that never were called, both ways. The crowd started off great, but the lack of offense and lack of defense just caused them to fizzle. When the Thunder started showing some life the crowd picked up, especially loud at the end of the half.
On Harden, my memory isn't great but didn't he do the same in the first game in LA? Seems he just wasn't himself. With Harden, Ibaka, Perkins, and Thabo playing much less than normal, I like our chances.

W

put it on the board!

@James Church

Well, that's my opinion based on how we were playing at the time. :)

Anyway, this should not take away from the game Durant had.

I cant believe we only play once between now and saturday. Its like the goddamn NFL.

justin :@James
Church
One minute left with the ball and up one has much higher percentage of winning than one minute left with the ball and down one. MUCH higher.

We've gone from you saying it won us the game to saying it changes the percentages. I'm fine with that. But don't say it won us the game.

we won Justin, you're gonna have to live with it buddy
:)

great game great win! time for sleep.Go Thunder!

@James Church

One minute left with the ball and up one has much higher percentage of winning than one minute left with the ball and down one. MUCH higher.

justin :
Australian women are really difficult in my experience. I wouldn’t go near that.

Okay, now I hate you. Leave our women alone. And to the previous point, you can't point at that call and say it was the difference. You just can't. It helped, but you have absolutely no idea how the game proceeds in that alternate timeline when OKC doesn't get the points.

In my experience, there are few women that are not difficult. NEVER, EVER, date a Russian Girl involved with the Russian mob

From the ESPn recap:

The Thunder franchise's last win in its first-round playoff opener was in 1998 against Minnesota. Oklahoma City lost Game 1 to the Los Angeles Lakers, and Seattle lost its first game in the 2005, 2002 and 2000 playoffs.

Seattle won game one against Sacramento in 2005.

justin :
Australian women are really difficult in my experience. I wouldn’t go near that.

Youre not Kevin Durant

Australian women are really difficult in my experience. I wouldn't go near that.

But it happens, and they played well enough to win. I'm totally not feeling the starting unit and offensive gameplan to close that game. George Karl will probably make adjustments, hopefully Brooks does.

dylan :
Calling it now, Durant is going to marry that Australian chick Tulsa drafted

he better shit!! it makes it even better because that gives him more reason to stay here for the rest of his career!!

@James Church

Denver would have had possession with a one point lead and possession. I think our odds of winning would have been less than 50% at that point. It was definitely a game changing call.

justin :

DJ 7 :
Denver fans trying to use the Refs as an excuse, yeah the Perkins basket was an interference but Denver out FTA us by 5, more like 9 if you don’t count OKC’s close of free throws,

They attacked the rim more it seemed.
That blown call probably won us this game, as poorly as the starting unit was playing.

if they didn't call Nene's And 1 like they should have it would have slowed down Denvers 9-0 run against us, and called Nene for the charge with 5 mins left in the game maybe we would have done better. How about the Push Anderson gave Nazr in the 3rd when OKC was making their run that ended up causing Denver to score and stop the run?

@justin
It didn't win us the game. Are we seriously going to play 'If we don't get this one basket we lose'?

Oh by the way, when we beat the tar out of the Nuggets twice in the last week of the regular season, I said that Denver was sand-bagging it....I think tonights game proves that... and that we're in for a hell of a battle with Denver in this series...probably the best NBA basketball in the first round match-ups..this was the most exciting game 1, other than than maybe the Chi/Ind game...also glad that the Griz beat the Spurs..love the Grizzlies as we'd get home court in round two...

this is what HCA gets you -- no way that we go into Denver and play the way we did tonight and still get a 'W'

gotta gotta gotta be sharper by the time we hit the road

Calling it now, Durant is going to marry that Australian chick Tulsa drafted

DJ 7 :
Denver fans trying to use the Refs as an excuse, yeah the Perkins basket was an interference but Denver out FTA us by 5, more like 9 if you don’t count OKC’s close of free throws,

They attacked the rim more it seemed.

That blown call probably won us this game, as poorly as the starting unit was playing.

Denver fans trying to use the Refs as an excuse, yeah the Perkins basket was an interference but Denver out FTA us by 5, more like 9 if you don't count OKC's close of free throws,

justin :@innocent
bystander
He was being sarcastic.

which tweet?
;)

Ibaka was so close to not goal tending. If it's going to roll out, you can tip it. If it's not touching the rim, you can tip it. You can eat the net for all the rule book cares, because it's about the rim. But it was going down, so it was goal tending >.>