It was an interesting night of sports. The Washington Nationals continued their march with destiny as they routed the favored Houston Astros by a 12-3 count ad thus on consecutive nights beat Cole and Verlander on the road. Think about that sentence…on back to back games on the road—these Nationals beat two of the toughest pitchers in baseball….and in Game 2 it was a rout.
For those not keeping count these Nationals have now won eight straight games in post season and eighteen of their last twenty games overall. This is a team on a roll of epic proportions if they can win two more games against these favored Astros who were the best team in the majors this baseball season.
Game 3 is Friday night in D.C. as the nation’s lawmakers will be able to forget the impending impeachment of the most corrupt POTUS in the history of our Republic for one night and agree on something.
The Nationals are setup beautifully with Anibal Sanchez to pitch Game 3 at home. Dave Martinez will then have in this order I assume Patrick Corbin, Max Scherzer, and Steven Strasburg to start the next three games.
The Astros are tough. They won’t roll over, but what they face in the next three games is a daunting task to get back to Houston for a Game 6.
Now…as far as the Thunder they played hard last night in Utah and only lost by a score of 100-95 against a Jazz team which is going to need a great deal more from Mike Conley if they aspire to be anything beyond a first or second round exit in post season.
Donovan Mitchell was an absolute hoss when it mattered and should be a player to watch with great interest in this his third season in the league.
The Thunder were a Vegas 9.5 road underdog last night and from my perspective it was a closer game than most thought it might be.
The Thunder are in hell right now as they appear to have only three players on their current roster who can score the basketball with any reliability.
The thing which makes this unfortunate is that two of these players…Chris Paul and Gallanari are on the trading block as part of Sam Presti’s rebuild-reclamation project in Oklahoma City.
The only player beyond those two who apparently will able to score the ball consistently will be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who scored 26 points in this opener and did indeed show he is a player you can build with as long as he has nice players around him.
Steven Adams and Terrance Ferguson were offensively horrific in this game. Adams always struggles with Rudy Gobert so I won’t go overboard here, but the Thunder got nothing from him offensively.
I’ve now watched the Thunder play two games this season and in those two games combined Terrance Ferguson has yet to score a point. Not a point from the starting shooting guard position in two games. It’s good to see Sam Presti has finally figured out the role of the shooing guard in today’s NBA. That was sarcasm.
Dennis Schroder was 1-8 from the field and remember this is the same Dennis Schroder of the Atlanta Hawks when they tanked hard to accumulate to top end draft picks.
I’m going to be very cautious about how I blog about this Thunder season. If Chris Paul and Gallanari are around all season I could see this team possibly winning anywhere from 37-41 games. Without them…this team could be a freak show to witness. It could be like watching the Kurds in Syria if these guys aren’t around to stabilize this roster of players who can’t shoot the basketball.
Next up the home opener with the Washington Wizards coming to Oklahoma City. Like most Wizard fans I won’t be watching. Instead I’ll be watching Game 3 of the World Series to see if Anibal Sanchez can put a death grip on this series for the Nationals and a place of honor in baseball history.