Author: Mike

Well, I was wrong, after the Boston Bruins scored four third period goals to rally against the upstart Toronto Maple Leafs, I went ahead and watched the second half of the Thunder game live and with the volume not muted of all things.

I know, what the fuck. Maybe it was the euphoria of those four Bruin goals which had me feeling giddy and somewhat above the doom of what has become this Thunder’s Season of Hell tour.

Ten seconds on Fox and I kid you not Brian Davis said something stupid, yet the volume stayed. I was in that good of a mood. My wife had to come in and tell me I was too loud for the neighborhood twice during that Bruin goal outburst. I was walking on sunshine, baby.

So I sit and watch as the Thunder fall 25 points behind the Utah Jazz with something like eight minutes or so left in the third period and wondering to myself which Thunder player will get ejected first as this season mercifully comes to an end.

But then the oddest thing happened…Russell Westbrook made two three point shots and Rudy Gobert got his fifth foul and had to leave the floor. Then Westbrook went from being Rickey Rubio’s bitch in this series to being Rickey Vaughn and fuck me if I didn’t see this with my very own two eyes this fucking team of dysfunction somehow followed Westbrook’s lead and rose from the ashes of death to somehow beat the Utah Jazz by a score of 107-99 inside of a Chesapeake Arena gathering of witnesses who like me–had to be in complete disbelief as to what they just witnessed.

I swear to God…my father in heaven said to me from aove,”This is really happening, Michael me boy.” It was this kind of ethereal out of body experience.

Russell Westbrook never left the floor the second half. Wild Thing played all 24 minutes and made my heart sing. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before in sports. It was like watching Tin Cup hole that 235 yard 3-wood to make a 12 at the U.S. Open.

Russell Westbrook hit a fucking three wood over the water and it went into the hole for a 12. And here I sit as a grown man blogger feeling like the Thunder just won the NBA Championship even though the reality of Game 6 in Salt Lake with Mitt Romney trolling Russell isn’t beyond the realm.

If nothing else..in the spirit of Westbrook I’m going to drop more fucking F bombs on here today than ever before written anywhere on the Internet in the spirit of Russell Westbrook’s second half.

If ever 24 minutes of play symbolized why you cannot in your heart love Russell Westbrook even when you wanted to strangle him an hour earlier these were those 24 minutes.

This was our championship moment in Oklahoma City. Fuck Kevin Durant—who said you can’t win it all in Oklahoma City.

You know what else happened in that second half…Paul George ended up scoring 34 points of his own to go along with Wild Thing’s 45 points.

One other thing happened… amidst Billy Donovan being fired on Twitter when the Thunder were down by 25 points–Donovan and Mo Cheeks finally benched Carmelo Anthony long enough for the Thunder to get the lead and extend this series.

Note to Billy Donovan—you were fired last night on Twitter while the game was still going on. You have nothing to lose in Game 6. For the love of God as a coach please do the right thing with Carmelo Anthony’s minutes.

So, I guess I’ll torture myself and watch Game 6 with the sound on Fox.

Why the fuck not ’cause right now I’m walking on sunshine and even this Thunder team which can’t get eliminated like a normal group of humans is still alive in the NBA Playoffs.

In closing, I’ll tell you what—if these motherfuckers go to Salt Lake and win Game 6 I’ll be the first guy lined up against that chain link fence at Will Rogers Airport when their flight home lands.

Fuck it. This is for the Mitt Romney Northwest Division Trophy as far as I’m concerned.

LET’S GO THUNDER!

My first Game 5 thought is that the Boston Bruins will be playing the Toronto Maple Leafs in a Game 7 in Boston while the Thunder are playing the Utah Jazz in Game 5 in Oklahoma City. Note to Clay Bennett and Sam Presti–I’ll be watching the hockey game live and watching the basketball game on the delayed Fox telecast later with the sound muted.

This will be the first time in the Thunder Era in Oklahoma City my schedule won’t be completely revolved around a Thunder playoff game. I’ll watch the rebroadcast with a detached sense of objectivity like someone watching the game from some other city.

How sad a basketball junkie like myself is writing something like this on his blog. It’s incredibly sad because I’m an immensely competitive person who has nothing left for this ‘team’ Sam Presti put together this season.

Quite frankly–I want it to be over. I want Utah to win the game and end the Oklahoma City season.

And know this–I fully realize this means the end of a magical run of NBA basketball in my hometown.

What I witnessed in Game 4 was a virtual disgrace. To me, it was the lowest moment in the history of the Thunder. Worse than the game against New Orleans which got PJ Carlesimo fired that first Thunder season. Even worse than the Game 6 loss to the Warriors which set the table for Durant’s exodus to Oakland.

This was Ground Zero for me. This was the bottom. It made me want to puke.

What we witnessed on Monday night in Salt Lake City made me sad and tugged at my heart because it’s apparent to me it’s time for Clay Bennett to make some very tough decisions about the future of pro basketball in Oklahoma City moving forward. Very tough decisions. Brutally tough.

I need more time before I write what I think those changes should be. Whether OKC wins tonight has nothing to do with those changes. I just need a few days to gather my thoughts and make sure I have it right in my head. To make sure I’m being fair to all parties involved.

But there is a flip side for me. My longtime team the Philly Sixers just completed the ‘Process’ and advanced to the second round of the Eastern Conference by winning its 56th game of the season. Their future burns hot orange bright with Ben Simmons and Joel Imbiid being the new ‘it’ guys in the NBA.

My favorite hockey team in the Western Conference–the young Colorado Avalanche competed in a glorious manner before losing to the Nashville Preds in six games. Colorado’s youthful team has a future which burns bright as well.

Then of course–there’s the Boston Bruins who go against a red hot goalie tonight in Frederick Anderson in a Game 7.

The fact a basketball fan like me will have his heart in Boston while an NBA team is playing an NBA playoff game twenty minutes from my front door says it all for me.

It says don’t insult my intelligence any longer this basketball season.

But I will watch the game on the rebroadcast and blog the closing chapters to what surely will be an ESPN 30/30 film and a book by someone on an intriguing ten years of pro basketball in Oklahoma City even if the ending isn’t the one I hoped for back when Durant, Harden, and Westbrook were college kids playing in the NBA.

Again, I don’t know exactly what to write. I do know this though, Clay Bennett has a great deal on his plate right now as far as the organization called the Oklahoma City Thunder.

This Game 4 was an embarrassment on multiple fronts not only for the organization, but for the city as well. This wasn’t the face city leaders of OKC had on their minds a decade ago when they brought a pro basketball club to Oklahoma City.

There’s really no point in critical plays being cited or stats being all that much needed or strategy being discussed on here today. This is simple, the Utah Jazz in every way imaginable is just outclassing the Oklahoma City Thunder not only on the floor, but on the bench, and in the GM’s office.

For the second season in a row the best team in the Northwest Division isn’t the Thunder, but the Utah Jazz and with this head to head series it’s an emphatic statement the Jazz are making.

The Thunder lost this game by a score of 113-96 in a game in which Russell Westbrook guaranteed a shutdown of Rickey Rubio and the Jazz. Sigh.

Here’s the thing with Rubio and this Jazz team, Rubio only averages 13 points a game so everybody already knew Game 3 for Rubio was an outlier. There was no need for all this drama. The need was for the Thunder moving the basketball and playing sound team defense.

OKC had 5 assists in the first period. For the entire game the Thunder had 10 assists. What this means is that in the final 36 minutes of play the Thunder had 5 assists as a team. Please explain to me how Oklahoma City’s offense has evolved since the firing of Scott Brooks? Please explain that one to me, Sam Presti.

There has been no transformation whatsoever in the Thunder offensive system in three years. None. There was for that brief period an offensive burst which led to the Thunder’s 3-1 series lead against the Warriors in the 2016 Western Conference Finals, but none ever since the epic collapse by the Thunder in that fateful series.

Since OKC held that 3-1 series lead, the Thunder have gone 2-10 in post season games and will be 0-3 in post season series. There is nothing here in data which would support the notion Billy Donovan knows what he’s doing with this Thunder basketball team.

But to Donovan’s defense there’s not all that much evidence Sam Presti knows what he’s doing as well as the Carmelo Anthony trade makes no sense whatsoever as the Thunder are now strapped to another season of Carmelo Anthony for $28 million dollars.

Please explain to me why Paul George is going to stay in Oklahoma City?

I’m sure Jerry West already has a page full of reasons why Paul George should leave Oklahoma City.

This is sad for me. This is emotional. I don’t get paid for blogging on the Thunder. It’s a passionate thing for me.

If Paul George leaves what you have in Oklahoma City is basically a replica of the Memphis Grizzlies with Westbrook and Steven Adams under contract as Memphis does with Mike Conley and Marc Gasol. Only the Thunder will have to absorb another year of the Carmelo Anthony deal.

So–if you fire Billy Donovan how is it any of this which I just listed gets fixed?

Here is one thing I do know though… the OKC Thunder will never win another Northwest Division championship until they get a coach who can get some semblance of order attached to Russell Westbrook’s basketball game.

Triple doubles are fun things to hunt down during the course of grueling 82 game schedules. But in order for the Thunder to be post season relevant either Russell Westbrook changes his game or the Thunder are going absolutely nowhere as a basketball organization which fancies itself as championship relevant.

Game 5 is in Oklahoma City on Wednesday night. Teams in the NBA which trail 3-1 in series win something like maybe 5% of the time.

It’s been an ugly season, yet expensive season of NBA basketball in Oklahoma City. Sam Presti put all his chips on the table with the trade of Oladipo and Sabonis to Indiana. It appears the Utah Jazz and the rest of the Western Conference remain unimpressed.

Clay Bennett has some serious things on his NBA plate to consider if Utah advances.

I’m not sure I have any thoughts left on this team. To be talking about effort and commitment while the Thunder are in the playoffs is something odd and foreign to me.

If ever a group of three stars in Westbrook, George, and Anthony should be playing with a competitive chip on their shoulder it should be this group of players.

These three stars went a collective 1-8 in the playoffs last season and you just figured these three players had something they would want to prove to the rest of the league peer-wise.

Very odd and it leaves you feeling this season which never really started has continued along the same theme in post season.

It’s tough to watch.

It’s as if in the ten year era of Thunder basketball in Oklahoma City the program has gone full circle from youthful NBA innocence to what we’re seeing currently.

Game 4 tonight in Salt Lake City.

This is when you have to be very careful being an underground blogger. You don’t want to knee jerk or overreact. Which of course is easy for me since I proclaimed this a season which never was before Game No. 80 in Houston.

But still, there’s the human part inside all of us and we hope our sports teams can find some heart inside of themselves from time to time and do semi-miraculous things.

Then again, there are those other times you have to look reality square in the eye and hold truth to power.

The truth being here is that the Thunder have no idea what they’re doing in this series against a very well coached Utah Jazz team which in reality doesn’t have as much talent on paper as the Thunder do.

It matters not who guards Donovan Mitchell in this series. I was wrong on that count. It’s not that simple.

How do you say this and not sound cruel?

I’ll try. Russell Westbrook was absolutely brutal on Saturday night in this pivotal Game 3. Just absolutely brutal. There–I said it.

Oklahoma City got nothing on either side of the ball from Russell Westbrook in this basketball game. And truth to power be known, for the second straight game the Thunder got little of nothing from Steven Adams as well.

Carmelo was actually not horrible. Paul George struggled a bit with his shot, but kept the Thunder in the game somewhat. Ray Felton was still a bulldog and Pat Patterson had some decent minutes.

But here’s what you can’t duck or pretend didn’t happen– that being, Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams didn’t show up for the Thunder on Saturday night in Salt Lake.

Now–John Stockton did because I saw him on the ESPN shot without his spirit T-shirt on I might add…cheering for the Jazz. That was cool.

But nowhere to be seen were two parties previously known as Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams. Bad Little Dude and the Big Mate were nowhere to be seen on the season’s most important night.

Go figure.

And here’s another thing..it wasn’t three point shooting which torpedoed the Thunder as they went 14-28 from beyond the arc. Nor was it free throw shooting which derailed the Thunder as the Jazz themselves were awful from the line going 18-27 (67%).

And I don’t think it’s fair on this one to blame Billy Donovan for coaching nuance because there wasn’t anything for him to coach in that Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams were evidently not in the building on Saturday night.

Rickey Rubio had a career night of sorts triple doubling the master or regular season triple doubling…Russell Westbrook.

You could also point out Joe Engles came alive scoring 21 points or that Donovan Mitchell slogged thru a pedestrian night with 22 points of his own.

But this night belonged to Rickey Rubio, Quin Snyder, and the memory of John Stockton.

In sports and in life…heart is a simple thing. It really is when you pause and give it thought.

The inches we fight for every day in our lives. Those inches matter. They really do.

But you have to fight for those inches and Billy Donovan has a basketball team which on more nights than not–doesn’t fight for those inches.

Game 4 in Salt Lake on Monday night.

So…I’m reading Bret Dawson this morning on newsoksports an he’s quoting Billy Donovan talking about the inches we fight for in sports on every play. My jaw dropped. Because if ever there was a basketball team which doesn’t consistently fight for those inches…it’s this bunch he coaches in Oklahoma City.

By my count this team ranks near the bottom of the NBA in my category of ‘inch fighting’.

But I was somewhat heartened to at least see that Billy Donovan knows his team needs to be better in fighting for those inches a mere six inches in front of our faces every day.

My thought would be…the guys who finally showed to play defense in Game No. 80 in Houston need to find those inches tonight in Salt Lake or else they’re going to be down 2-1 in this series at around midnight.

In the NBA, teams which win Game 3 in a series tied 1-1 go on to win the series 73% of the time.

I’m thinking if were coaching this team…Paul George would be defending Donovan Mitchell and let Corey Brewer take Joe Engles. Just a thought from a casual fan.

You know, and some effort wouldn’t kill anyone.

For those of us who are non-millennials or Gen ex’ers the rebirth of the Utah Jazz is kind of cool. It reminds me of those great Utah Jazz teams coached by Jerry Sloan which featured John Stockton, Karl Malone, and Jeff Hornacek.

It was an era for Utah Jazz basketball when Michael Jordan was around and the Lakers were viable. It was a time when the small market Jazz were one of the league’s best run franchises.

Stockton ended up being the NBA career leader in both assists and steals. He played his entire career in Utah. On one of his contracts late in his career, he took less money to enable his front office to make the team more competitive. But he did attach one stipulation, he wanted free ice time at the Jazz arena for his son’s ice hockey team to practice on. Trust me, as someone who was a hockey coach/father you have no idea the value of ice time. How do I not love John Stockton.

Stockton never won a ring, but Utah did get to one NBA Finals where of course they lost to Michael Jordan and the Bulls.

Upon his retirement–Stockton has been involved in coaching youth teams and even became an assistant coach for his daughter’s team at Montana State. Stockton was interviewed for the Jazz head coaching job after the firing of Ty Corbin, but Quin Snyder got the job.

Stockton played his college ball at Gonzaga and was the 16th player taken in his draft class. He played on two U.S. Olympic teams and was on the Dream Team.

As we watch rookie sensation Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert take this Utah Jazz to renewed heights this isn’t unprecedented in the history of the Utah Jazz.

I hate to admit this being a Thunder fan, but part of me wants them to advance because I so much more respect their approach and mental toughness than that of this Thunder team.

So, yeah, I’m torn.

I know that earlier in the week I made the generalization that NBA head coaches and robots who drive for Uber are pretty much one and the same. Of course, that’s a little absurd in that there are a few NBA coaches who can actually coach their ass off besides Greg Popovich and Rick Carlisle.

Quin Snyder is probably a coach who falls into that category. I’m very familiar with Snyder in that he both played for and coached under Coach K at Duke. You can’t get a much better pedigree than that although some of the dullards in Oklahoma might say — “What about Jeff Capel?”

But you study Quin Snyder a little deeper because he’s an interesting guy and not your normal coach. He’s actually a coach who I find interesting because of his diverse background.

Snyder has both an MBA and a law degree from Duke. Not your typical jock turned coach. Know who graduated from Duke who was a major impact on the NBA being in OKC? That would be another interesting guy named Aubrey McClendon.

Snyder has made multiple stops at both the college, the pro, and the Euro side of basketball. Again, an interesting guy.

He coached as the assistant head coach for Coach K then not long after found himself as the head coach who succeeded Stormin Norm Stewart at Missouri. Snyder lasted six years at Missouri before he was fired because of NCAA allegations of improper recruitment of a player.

Sounds a little bit like Jeff Capel doesn’t it?

Here’s the difference. Quin Snyder didn’t go back to Duke to sit next to Coach K as an assistant.

Nope. Instead, Quin Synder became humbled by his experience and exit from Missouri and embarked on a tour of coaching stops which made him understand why he failed at Missouri.

He coached in Russia. He coached in the D League. He took on several assistant jobs. He worked his ass off and made himself a better coach.

If ever a coach in the NBA earned his job it’s Quin Snyder.

And of course, he’s now head coach of the Utah Jazz and the most likely coach to win this year’s NBA Coach of the Year Award.

As a human and not an Uber driving robot, I love the fact Quin Snyder pulled himself up off the canvass after the Missouri experience and found himself as a coach.

Now…if say Coach K ever quits at Duke who would I hire?

I’m thinking Quin Snyder and not Jeff Capel would be my basketball coach… and I actually met and very much liked Jeff Capel.

I wish more NBA coaches were as interesting as Quin Snyder.

Except for a 19-0 run in the third period these were the Oklahoma Thunder we saw on many a night during this NBA season of torment. All the bad things which had me screaming profanities during the first 79 games all came back to roost as the Thunder in essence got schooled by rookie Donovan Mitchell in losing pivotal Game 2 by a 102-95 count inside Chesapeake Energy Arena.

But there was no screaming from me this time around. My screaming tirades with this team will never happen again. I know who they are even if they weren’t for those two games in Houston and Miami. Trends and numbers usually play themselves out in team sports.

In hockey, teams which win the first two games of a best of seven series go on to win 89% of the series. In NBA basketball– I would assume the number is similar–though I’m too lazy right now to google it. So, yeah this was a huge game in that Utah now has home court and the Thunder at least for this Game 2 proved all the bad habits they embraced as a team are all still there.

It was another horrible start for the Thunder as they once again came out of the locker room with nothing and were quickly behind 9-0. It was a game where Steven Adams couldn’t stay on the floor due to foul trouble before eventually fouling out and only played 22 minutes against a team which has a guy named Rudy Gobert. It was also a game were OKC’s trio of Westbrook, George, and Anthony went a combined 19-58 from the field.

Except for Jerami Grant…Billy Donovan didn’t get much from his bench like he did in Game 1 when they went a collective +44. On this night, Donovan rolled Ray Felton, Alex Abrines, and Pat Patterson on the floor for 40 minutes and got a -26 in return. Abrines and Patterson were both scoreless in this game.

But even more than these things it was a game which showed OKC’s shooting numbers from Game 1 were an outlier of sorts as the Thunder reverted to seasonal norms of going 11-35 (31.4%) from three point land and 12-18 (66.7%) from the free throw line.

It was also a game where the Thunder as a team choked shooting the ball in the fourth period going a collective 6-28 from the field as Utah rookie Donovan Mitchell shone as the brightest star on the floor while Westbrook, George, and Carmelo went poof into the Oklahoma night.

The Utah Jazz were the hottest team in the NBA the last thirty games of the NBA season and now the Thunder travel to Salt Lake in desperate need of a split to get back to Oklahoma City at 2-2.

A big game for the Boston Bruins looms as they have a 2-1 series lead with Game 4 in Toronto tonight.

You see, although what happened in Houston was nice, bad habits don’t just go away with one game though. It just doesn’t work that way in team sports.

There has to be a collective will of sorts.

Prayers and best wishes for the Popovich family. I’m clearly an outlier in dumb red Oklahoma. I love Popovich and the honesty he’s had in saying publicly the things about Trump which not one single sports journalist or member of the Thunder has had the balls to say. Not one, except for Russell Westbrook. Prayers are with you, Pop.

I wasn’t even going to write about this again, but I was browsing newsoksports and read some bullshit Barry Tramel wrote on this whole ordeal of typical Oklahoma stupidity.

Here’s the thing to me, the comment Brian Davis made is completely irrelevant.

This man is not a racist. He’s a dude who realizes his viewing base is how do I put this… not all that smart.

He’s just a homer of a sports announcer who somehow ascended to a great job of being the television voice of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Which by the way has probably been the most interesting NBA franchise to follow these past ten years when you consider guys named Durant, Harden, and Westbrook all got their professional start in the league via this organization.

But what this whole story says to me reaffirms why Oklahoma ranks near dead last in education. Why Oklahoma has regressed these past ten years as a state rather than the opposite despite the international fame the pro hoops has provided. Why Oklahoma has a governor who many in this country rank as the worst in the nation. Why Oklahoma has two United States senators who don’t between the two of them appear to know much of anything. Why states like Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Alabama are states where Trump got his largest voting pluralities. Why Oklahoma appears to actually have become dumber these past ten years rather than the opposite.

This is the question Barry Tramel should have posed instead of a page full of words on the origin of the phrase cotton pickin.

Why has Oklahoma actually become dumber these past ten years?

This isn’t about political correctness in Oklahoma. This state has no political correctness. This is the state which gave Donald Trump the gift of Scott Pruitt to run EPA into the ground.

This isn’t about political correctness, it’s about why Oklahoma as a state and a people can’t smarten up and as group start moving into the current century and addressing it’s very pressing issues…like for instance coming to that flash of genius moment where it might want to realize it doesn’t have enough revenue with it’s current tax laws to have something more than the worst state educational system in the country. Or maybe the thought it might be helpful to elect smart people to run the state.

Maybe this is the crux of the issue and it somehow correlates as to the how and why a goofy homer like Brian Davis ever got this job in the first place.

The answer is transparently clear.

Dumb.

Oklahoma is a dumb state.

And in reality–Brian Davis, a smart dude from Northwestern, realized being dumb on the air in Oklahoma was the perfect career move.

Google Peter Principle or Grover Norquist Tax Pledge instead of the origin of cotton pickin’ if you want to reach the truth as to how Brian Davis has kept his job all these years.

Brian Davis back for Game 2.

Go get ’em, Tiger.