So…as I’m sitting there watching the OKC Tre Cupcakes on Saturday night in a do or die game against the league record best Houston Rockets–I’m thinking to myself what the has gotten into these guys?
I mean…for seventy-nine game they’ve played like the biggest competitive pussies I’ve ever witnessed in a lifetime filled with playing sports, coaching sports, and watching sports. So really what got into these guys on Saturday night?
I don’t actually know. Maybe they got fired up watching Patrick Reed and Rory going toe to toe–chin to chin during an epic third round of the Masters. Maybe Nick Collison pulled them aside and said some things challenging them as men. Or maybe Russell Westbrook watched some film of what Maurice Cheeks looked like playing the point guard position in 1983 when Mo led the Dr. J, Moses Malone, and my Sixers to an NBA Championship.
I’m going to go with No. 3 in that despite all the negative things I’ve written of late in regards to the OKC Tre Cupcakes at heart I’m an optimist. I’m going to assume Russell Westbrook took a piece of Maurice Cheek’s basketball heart and finally decided within himself that to date this OKC Thunder season has been absolute bullshit and couldn’t take it any more.
I’m going with No.3.
In a game the Thunder absolutely had to have in order to avoid being tabbed as the biggest joke of the basketball season–OKC’s Thunder finally showed up.
And it was beautiful in that they competed like a bunch of junkyard dogs with a collective chip on their shoulder.
It was a collective team effort, but most of all it was Russell Westbrook being Mo Cheeks shutting down James Harden with his lockdown defense. It was like watching Westbrook back at his days at UCLA when he was one of college basketball’s best defenders instead of a pretty boy triple double stat boy. In a word..it was like watching Maurice Cheeks in his prime.
Russell Westbrook stepped up and shut down James Harden in the fourth period. Do you know what something like that does to a team when they finally see the team’s star take that approach on defense? It makes them want to play at that level as well. That’s what it does.
And lo and behold… the Thunder followed Westbrook’s lead on a night when the team showed some grit, showed some passion, but most all showed a competitive heart.
Even Carmelo showed it. Paul George showed it. Jerami friggin Grant had it pouring out of his veins. And my frilly Euro boy Alex Abrines continued to snarl, to scratch, to claw, and to bleed a little bit. Who would have thought back in December I would fall in love with Alex Abrines as a basketball player, but strange things can happen to a man when he has to watch 79 games of bullshit to finally witness a ‘possible’ sliver of light at the end of a tunnel of shit.
So this win means the Thunder will probably make the playoffs. That’s it. I have no idea if the Thunder Tre Cupcakes can embrace this as a game to game thing moving forward.
Only Russell Westbrook and his father would know. Because there is an option No. 4–that being Russell Westbrook’s father challenged his son to step up.
Why would I even guess something like this?
Because as a father who has a son the exact same age as Russell Westbrook — I could have seen myself telling my son ..step the fuck up or shut up.
Russell Westbrook stepped up.
The Thunder at the Miami Heat on Monday evening.