A couple notes on tonight’s game: Arron Afflalo is out for Games 1 and 2 for Denver… No injuries for the Thunder… It’s going to be a “Blue Out” in the arena… There is going to be seating outside of the arena with screens set up if you want to go downtown… If DT struggles during the game with crashing, just hold off on refreshing for about five minutes and it’ll come back.
The Thunder face more than the Nuggets beginning tonight at Oklahoma City Arena. For the first time in most of their playoff lives, Oklahoma City’s players face outsider’s expectations of victory.
A few have been there before, namely former champs Kendrick Perkins and Nazr Mohammed. And no doubt they’ve been imparting their wisdom to the Thunder’s youngsters and been voices of leadership at practice and in team huddles. But for most of the rest of the roster, this is the first playoff series that the players have been expected to win. And it will be the only series this season that they’re the true favorites, even if lots of folks might think Oklahoma City will beat San Antonio in a second-round series.
Any Thunder player who has done channel flipping or Internet clicking over the past few days — and color me shocked if none of them have, because despite protestations of ignorance, pro athletes always seem to know who is favored and who made what prediction — has seen and heard assertions that Oklahoma City-Denver should be one of the most exciting series of the first round. And they’ve also seen and heard that, for the most part, people have picked the Thunder to move on. A few dissenters picked the Nuggets to make the second round, but the Thunder is the consensus favorite. Read more…
This is what the Thunder wanted. This was the goal. But it’s pretty scary to go from happy to be here to you better win. The team had to deal with expectations from the beginning of the season and I think with 55 wins and a division title, they at least met them.
But tonight, all of that is erased. Those 55 wins? They’re gone, they don’t matter. That division title banner? Forget about it. When the clock starts running tonight, the Thunder had better be ready to go because all that fun we had the last six months doesn’t mean anything if they’re not.
Because that’s actually my great fear about this series. I know the Thunder’s the better team. I know the matchups favor them. But it’s the intangibles that scare me. Oklahoma City is now the favorite coming in. People are glossing over this series and talking about the Western Finals. That makes me nervous.
I’m ready to get the games going because I’m ready to find out if the Thunder will play tight. If they’re going to be nervous. But we’re still a number of hours away and all we can do right now is wait. And talk more about it.
Our friends at Totally Tickets already pitched in some lower level seats that I gave away on Twitter Friday. Now, they’re throwing two more my way to pass out to you good people.
If you want two free upper level seats for Game 2 against the Nuggets, it’s simple: Guess the score of Game 1 in the comments and add in how many points you think KD will score as the tiebreaker. (If we’re still tied after that, the winner will just be whose comment came first.)
My advice: If you have a Grays Sports Almanac from the future, this would be a good time to use it.
And let me shamelessly plug Totally Tickets here as well. Forget StubHub. Totally Tickets has no service fees and for the most part, has way more reasonable prices. Check there first for Thunder tickets before you go anywhere else.
There’s a chance I’ll have a few more tickets to give away later on, so hang in there if you miss out this time.
For whatever reason, George Karl has been intent on labeling the Thunder as a bunch of arrogant kids led by a cocky coach. Obviously Scott Brooks isn’t cocky and comparitvely to the rest of the league, the Thunder’s roster has to rank highly on the Not Cocky Scale.
I think Karl is trying to tap into his inner Zen Master and use some mind tricks to mess with the Thunder. Maybe because Karl sees his team as a bit overmatched and in need of a little motivation or something. Whatever the case is, I wrote about it at length today at CBSSports.com. My feeling? It’s going to backfire because I promise you, the Thunder have taken notice of it.
I’m not big on this whole idea of forcing a rivalry. Some are, but I’ve always said rivalries just sort of happen and in most cases, are forged from the playoffs.
A reason? Because during the playoffs you see a team a whole lot in just a couple weeks. You have to see their team over and over. Instead of getting ticked at Kenyon Martin one night and then forgetting about it the next because the schedule has made you move on, you have to see him again in two days. You’ve got to argue with the other team’s fans for a couple weeks. You’ve got to deal with that one player on their team that just seems to always kill you (see: Gasol, Pau).
As a result, it’s very easy to hate that other team. You start noticing even the little things. Man, I hate Ty Lawson. Look how he wraps his ankles. So stupid. It’s the nature of the beast. As fans, we take every little thing personally. When some Nuggets fans says something simple and harmless like, “I dunno, I think we’re actually have the deeper bench and probably an advantage at shooting guard,” it’s natural to blow and say, “Gah! Nuggets fans are SO STUPID.” Like I said, it’s life in the postseason. And sometimes, depending on how things play out, it’s how you end up with a rival. Read more…
Morning playoff people. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Next is now.
It’s on.
Kevin Durant issued a challenge yesterday to Thunder fans. He doesn’t think you can do any better. “I don’t think they can get any louder than they were last year, but that is a challenge to everybody. I don’t think you guys will be better than you was last year. But we’ll see. That’s one thing we’ve all been talking about, running out of that tunnel and seeing how it is.”
Last season, the Thunderdome may have been hazardous to your health. If we’re going to take up KD on this, somebody might be leaving the arena in an ambulance Sunday night.
To cap off the regular season and set things up the first round of the playoffs, Royce Young from dailythunder.com and CBS Sports joins TGR. We take a dip in Deep Thoughts and get our Thundies on!
Topics of discussion:
Do the Nuggets have a coaching edge over the Thunder?
Are people making too much of Perk’s influence and the Thunders’ new “bad attitude”?
Who was the MVP for the Thunder this season? The Debbie Downer? The Biggest Villain?
We discuss all these things and more. Download, listen and comment.
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I was planning on putting together my own top 10 Thunder plays for the regular season, but wouldn’t you know it, the NBA went ahead and did it for me. And I think they did a pretty darn good job including everything I would.
A couple that I’d toss out though for honorable mention: Read more…
I was sent this video earlier today and let me tell you, whoa. I’m not going to embed it because the title of it is NSFW and the video itself is probably pushing the borders, but if you want to see a dedicated Thunder fan get the logo tatted massively on her thigh, have a watch.
J.A. Adande looking at potential future upsets: “The Thunder over the Spurs. That requires a Thunder victory in San Antonio, where the Spurs lost just five times this season. But the Spurs won by only four points in their second meeting in San Antonio (which marked a 23-point improvement for the Thunder from their first meeting). And Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker might not be so inclined to go to the hoop now that Kendrick Perkins is lurking there for OKC.”
After a fun week of back-and-forth wondering about the three-seed and a brief flirtation with the two-seed, the Thunder locked themselves in to the four-spot Wednesday night and will play the Denver Nuggets in the opening round.
We all kind of saw this matchup coming two weeks ago, but now it’s for real. And the interesting thing is, we got two pretty good previews of this series in those last two weeks. Oklahoma City won both meetings with one coming in Denver and the other in OKC.
Obviously much more to come about this matchup, but here are five things we learned from those last two games: Read more…
David Aldridge of NBA.com likes the OKC-Denver matchup: “I LOOOOVE Denver and OKC. We may have a final average score of 130-127. It’s hard to see either team being able to slow down the other unless they junk it up defensively, and that might only yield temporary results. I really want to see the Felton-Lawson/Westbrook matchup at the point and Nene vs. Kendrick Perkins in the hole. I imagine we’d also see a lot of Arron Afflalo and/or Wilson Chandler against Kevin Durant, and I’d love to talk with each of the Nuggets about how he’ll prepare for the matchup. Denver’s Pepsi Center and OKC’s Ford Center are great fan venues as well. Should be a fun, fun series.”
Rudy Raya of SLAM on OKC’s second playoff appearance: “What separates Oklahoma City from most other teams in the League is that they have a group of guys they know they can rely on each and every night. While other teams may have certain question marks in their roster, there is no questioning the skill or heart of any player who takes the floor for them. Each player has confidence in himself and in his teammates to make the right play. The Thunder are truly a team in a league full of players.” Read more…
The times and dates for the Thunder’s opening round series versus the Nuggets has been set. As expected, the Thunder will open Sunday night at 8:30 p.m. against the Nuggets in Oklahoma City.
(All times CDT) Game 1: Denver at Oklahoma City: Sunday, April 17, 8:30 p.m. (TNT) Game 2: Denver at Oklahoma City: Wednesday, April 20, 7:00 p.m. (TNT) Game 3: Oklahoma City at Denver: Saturday, April 23, 9:00 p.m. (ESPN) Game 4: Oklahoma City at Denver: Monday, April 25, 9:30 p.m. (TNT)
If necessary: Game 5: Denver at Oklahoma City, Wednesday, April 27 (time and network TBD) Game 6: Oklahoma City at Denver, Friday, April 29 (time and network TBD) Game 7: Denver at Oklahoma City, Sunday, May 1 (time and network TBD)
Well, it’s nice to have that out of the way. Officially, the Thunder are the four-seed in the West and will play Nuggets to start the playoffs. Officially, the Thunder finished the season with 55 wins. Pret-tay, pret-tay good.
The result of tonight’s game had meaning for a bit, but Scott Brooks and the Thunder certainly didn’t play as if it did. Oklahoma City’s starters played just about 20 minutes each, leaving the game in the hands of second stringers. The Thunder actually had control late, but the Bucks ripped of an 11-2 run to close the game which sent things to overtime. There, Milwaukee outscored OKC’s second team 14-10 as the Thunder’s five-game winning streak was snapped.
(The irony of going to overtime: John Salmons pulled out Kevin Durant’s rip move and got the call with 24 seconds left, with the Bucks trailing by three. He nailed all three free throws to tie the game at 96-96. I’ve always said I hate the rip move.)
The plus/minus numbers should tell you everything you want to know about this one. OKC’s starters were +19, +18, +19, +7 and +16. The bench was -13, -11, -20, -14, -1, -18 and -11. I won’t lie though, winning is always better than losing. Though I didn’t care all that much about it, I’d rather play the Nuggets than Blazers to open the playoffs and losing took care of that. But with the Mavs winning, there was no plus to losing. Instead of 56 wins, OKC finished with 55. Instead of closing with six straight wins, the Thunder closed with five. Instead of maintaining that sparkling overtime record, the Thunder adds a blemish. I don’t think there’s any momentum hit here or anything; it’s just more fun to win than lose. Read more…
vs. 
