Thursday Bolts – 8.30.12

Sam Amick of SI.com polled NBA executives on the Finals: “The final tally, with three of the voters submitting only first-place votes: The defending champions in Miami received 15 first-place votes, one second-place vote and two third-place votes; their Finals foe, Oklahoma City, garnered two first-place votes, six second-place votes and eight third-place votes; and the Lakers, who have added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash to Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, got two first-place votes, nine second-place votes and six third-place votes. The Lakers may not be seen as the favorites to win it all, but the idea that they’re the top threat to the Heat is not only a topic of much discussion in the media but also clearly a very real sentiment in NBA circles.”

Matt Moore of CBSSports.com on the poll: “When the Lakers first landed Howard, there was excitement, but also a move to consider how good Oklahoma City still is, and how they match up with the new-look L.A. after bouncing them in five games last year. But the more you look at the Lakers’ roster, and how good it looks, the more the feeling is established that the Lakers may have leap-frogged the Thunder. This poll is a reflection of that. It doesn’t mean anything, of course. “They still have to play the games” and all that. But that goes both way. Oklahoma City isn’t guaranteed to have the same success, nor the injury luck they’ve managed over the past two years. Things could just as easily go wrong for OKC as they could for the Lakers, or Miami. Basketball and its chemistry is a tenuous, delicate thing.”

Serge Ibaka needs to work on his hat game.

Matt Moore for PBT on the West: “The Lakers, Thunder, and Spurs will be in the top three spots barring injury, it’s pretty safe to assume that. San Antonio is one where you’re tempted to throw them back into the pack of wolves to fight for their lives, but we always doubt San Antonio, and they always exceed regular season expectations (as opposed to the mid-2000′s when they would meet disappoint in the regular season and then exceed postseason expectations). As good as Los Angeles and the Thunder are, it shouldn’t shock anyone to see the Spurs nab the top seed in the playoffs again, just as it shouldn’t shock anyone to see them bounced in any round, first through Finals.”

Mario Chalmers is saying silly things.

James Harden played some summer hoops recently and put a couple of guys on skates.

Don Nelson on the birth of small ball: “It all happened in the Celtic practices. What Auerbach would do when it got to midseason and practices were drudgery, he would play big guys against the small guys and the smalls would always win. You put Bill Russell on the other team and everybody else big, and put the smalls on the other and it wasn’t a close game as long as it was a full-court game. Now half court, you couldn’t do that. But full court, the smalls always won, so I’m sure that was the start of it.”

The Thunder are refurbishing a city basketball court.

ESPN.com’s Summer Forecast has the Lakers as the West favorite.

Chris Broussard of ESPN.com on that: “Finally, those who are worried about James Harden because he vanished in the Finals should relax. So he had a bad series against the Heat, averaging 12.4 points on 37 percent shooting. It doesn’t mean he’s not clutch, it doesn’t mean he froze on the big stage. He simply played poorly. It happens, especially to 22-year-olds, which was Harden’s age during the Finals. Larry Bird averaged just 15 points and had back-to-back eight-point games in his first Finals appearance. So don’t count out Harden at all. In fact, like Durant and Westbrook, expect him to be better. Expect the Thunder as whole to be better, too, perhaps even better than the Lakers.”

One of the executives Amick polled: “They’ll be really good and should challenge for the Finals, but OKC should be a very good matchup for them. Kendrick Perkins has proved to be capable of defending Dwight in one-on-one situations and Ibaka can defend Gasol one-on-one, which limits the Lakers’ advantage slightly. I get the sense that people are underestimating the Thunder slightly given the moves that teams around them made, and that plays right into their hands. They’ll use it for motivation.”