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It was like a college football Saturday this past season.

In the first game on Fox Southwest we saw the feel good Jalen Hurts Sooners bury the miserable Kansas Jayhawks in Madison Square Garden by a 126-103 count. It’s almost uncanny how much these Thunder with Chris Paul resemble the Sooners with grad transfer Jalen Hurts.

But as we all know that story at some point turns ugly when the feel good story has to play a big boy monster in wait from the SEC with a mobile quarterback who can pass.

Enter the ESPN Game of the Night with Mikey Breen, Jeff van Gundy, and Mark Jackson on the call as real basketball junkies salivated to witness LeBron duel Giannis for the lead in the regular season MVP race.

It was like Joe Burrow versus Tua. Neither disappointed the viewers as the Bucks hung around until finally succumbing in the fourth quarter and losing by a score of 113-103.

It was great stuff. But we know for sure Clemson and Ohio State fans already know how this story ends. But what I don’t know right now is whether quiet stealth assassin Kawhi Leonard or LeBron is Joe Burrow this NBA season.

Does LeBron still have enough in him to carry the Lakers to four wins on a Texas-OU national stage setting to get his Lakers past the Clippers?

I don’t know. But I can’t wait to see.

On the Thunder-Knicks front—the game was a disgrace from a standpoint of how bad the Knicks are and how little they give their fans for the price of a ticket. Truly—at some point Adam Silver needs to step in and orchestrate some sort of deal with Chris Paul as player coach going to the Knicks at the conclusion of this season.

If I’m Sam Presti this is what I want….I want RJ Barrett, I want a first round draft pick down the road, and I want Julius Randle if he still has a year left on his contract beyond this season.

This is where Sam Presti gets his rebuild with another talented piece in Barrett to go alongside Shai G. Alexander and another Canadian at that to go along with Alexander and Dort. I wonder if any of these guys can skate?

In watching that dumpster fire of a Knicks team last night–Barrett’s potential is still obvious if someone gets him out of there and puts him in a winning culture.

To conclude–remember early on in this season when the narrative in New York was they were going to build around this young core. How’d that go?

Go make your deal, Sam Presti….but remember to sell high.

The reality is Milwaukee, the Clippers, and the Lakers are in their own exclusive universe right now with the other twenty-seven NBA teams looking from the outside in.

In the past week the Clippers have rolled Denver, Oklahoma City, and Houston without even breaking a sweat.

For the first time this season the Clippers are healthy and for good measure added Marcus Morris and Reggie Jackson at the deadline. The Clips are the deepest most well rounded team in the league and most capable from a defensive standpoint of defending either LeBron or Giannis.

Oklahoma City wants no part whatsoever of either LA team in the playoffs. Consider this when the LA teams most likely square off in the Western Conference Finals they will both be playing on their home court in the Staples Center. Jack Nicholson vs. Billy Crystal in the conference finals.

Putting aside my loyalty for the Thunder…as an NBA fan I can’t wait to see the Clippers vs. Lakers series at Staples. And right now I’d take the Clippers.

POWER POLL

1 LA Clippers

2 LA Lakers

3 Milwaukee Bucks

4 Boston Celtics

5 Toronto Raptors

6 Denver Nuggets

7 Houston Rockets

8 Miami Heat

9 Oklahoma City Thunder

10 Dallas Mavericks

11 Philadelphia 76’ers

12 Utah Jazz

For the tenth time in the last eleven road games the Oklahoma City Thunder won an NBA game. It wasn’t easy though for the Thunder in hanging on against a decimated Detroit Piston team which is one of the worst in the Eastern Conference.

The Thunder almost squandered a fifteen point second half lead before it took a clutch three from Danilo Gallinari to seal the win with around ten seconds left.

With the win Oklahoma City improves to 38-24 and remain as the No. 6 seed in the West. The realistic goal for the Thunder is to avoid the Lakers and Clippers in the first round.

Four Thunder players scored in double figures with Shai G. Alexander leading the way with a 27 point night. Next in line was Dennis Schroder with 23 points. Both Gallinari and Chris Paul tallied in double figures as well 19 and 16 points.

Steven Adams, Lu Dort, Nerlens Noel, and Abdel Nader were okay, but nothing special.

For some reason Billy Donovan keeps playing this season’s version of Alex Abrines in Terrance Ferguson and it is painful to watch. In 20 minutes of playing time–Ferguson scored two points, grabbed one rebound and was a -4.

It’s tough to watch because it’s apparent the kid’s confidence he can play well consistently at this level isn’t there. Hopefully, when rookie Darius Bazely returns from the injured reserve list Billy Donovan will limit Ferguson’s role to minor minutes.

With twenty games left in the regular season the Thunder need to go 12-8 to reach the 50 win plateau. When you figure in April the Thunder have a road back to back versus the Lakers and Clippers… in essence the Thunder would need to go 12-6 in the other eighteen games to get to fifty wins. Maybe–but not much room for error.

Next up…the NY Knicks on the road where the Thunder should win their eleventh road game out of the last twelve.

It was a tough night to watch the Thunder as for the second game in a row they faced an NBA top three team in the LA Clippers at home on Super Tuesday.

You can’t sugarcoat it…with the Clippers completely healthy they appear to be in an elite select league with Milwaukee and the Lakers. The reality with this Thunder team is that in a playoff series they won’t be able to seriously threaten any of these three teams. But I think from Denver, Houston, and Utah down the Thunder should be competitive in a post season series.

On the political front it was a pleasant surprise as Joe Biden won nine of the thirteen states on Super Tuesday. Biden not only kept pace with Crazy Bernie Sanders, but he actually took the delegate lead.

One would think or hope both Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren will drop out of the race sometime this week and pledge their support to Joe Biden.

I’m sure at some point Bloomberg will do this, but not quite as sure on Elizabeth Warren as she seems to envision herself as the moral guardrail of America. Hopefully, the fact Joe Biden has had a few Al Franken-esque experiences with women over the years doesn’t put him in a bad position with Elizabeth Warren. Isn’t it odd…she didn’t mention one of Biden’s moments in this regard in one single debate. Not one.

But the Dems need to move on at this point since they’ve buried Mike Bloomberg and see if they can overcome the Hunter Biden-Burisma onslaught which will be coming in relentless torrents on Donald Trump’s twitter feed and at his rallies.

I could actually vote for Joe Biden—so I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope Elizabeth Warren doesn’t stay in the race and try to take him down before she leaves the race.

After almost twenty years of hosting the almost iconic ‘Hardball’… Chris Matthews called it quits on MBNBC tonight.

Some speculate he was forced to resign for a comment he made in comparing ‘the Bernie Sanders supporters in Nevada to the Nazis invading France in WWII.’

I can’t believe we’ve become this sensitive given our sitting president openly talks about grabbing pussy and other worldly things.

But no one more than me knows this affliction after being given a lifetime ban at the prurient Daily Thunder. The politically correct boundaries are uber thin in this new American order of acceptable decorum.

Like Chris Matthews, I thought my comment to what I thought was a platonic female friend about giving one of the weaker Daily Thunder content writers a face wash with a certain part of her body might motivate him to write in a stronger, more authoritarian voice.

But like Chris Matthews with Hardball, and as with me when I literally owned Royce Young’s blog and attained iconic status… I was shown the door as well for an errant comment.

Chris Mathhews… I feel your pain. Take care, buddy.

Tony Bennett is probably my favorite musical performer. Whenever I need to cleanse my mind…I turn out the lights and play an hour of Tony Bennett.

Given Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders lead their respective parties going into Super Tuesday–I need a little Tony Bennett to take my mind off the fact the country I live in has lost its mind.

I love this song.

What an absolute great game on the ABC Saturday Night Game of the Week. Just a fantastic game as the Rockets beat the Celtics in overtime by a 111-110 count in Boston.

This game made up for how bad both ESPN games were on Friday night.

The Houston Rockets since trading Clint Capela and picking up Robert Covington have gone on a tear playing small ball with PJ Tucker as their center.

It’s nice to see Russell Westbrook changing his game and getting away from jacking the bad threes. As an NBA fan it’s exciting to see Russell use his unique physical skills and in a sense morph himself into a combo guard-small forward-power forward.

The conventional wisdom was the Rockets would swoon after trading Capela, but with the 6’5″ Tucker at center and with Westbrook changing his game the Rockets have caught fire.

I hope this is what we see from Russell full-time because he’s a very unique talent and I’d love to see him win a championship in his career.

The Rockets are on a nice run and in the No. 4 seed in the West and there is the possibility they could be a first round opponent for the Thunder.

Anyway…great month of February for Russell Westbrook.

Going into this game it looked like it would be a tough emotional spot for Oklahoma City and it was. The Kings built a 19 point first half lead, but as per the norm with this team they didn’t panic. There’s a very nice blend of youth and vet experience on this ball club. They don’t flinch. They dig in and find a way to climb back into games.

This isn’t just Chris Paul. The team as a whole has bought in and it shows every game in different variations. And at this point I am going to give Billy Donovan some major props on how he’s handled this team throughout the season. He’s had a nice feel with his team.

Six different players scored in double figures with no one really being what I would describe as the dominant star. To me the play of the game was when Dennis Schroder made a twisting layup with his left hand to in a sense give the impression this was going to be another Thunder win.

And it was.

The Thunder are still a player away from being elite in that Dort, Ferguson, and Diallo by committee have nights when they can fill the role, but for them it will become more difficult as the caliber of competition cranks up in the goal achieving portion of the schedule.

Tonight in Milwaukee will an interesting test for these three players, plus for Steven Adams with having to handle Brooks Lopez on the perimeter.

For me Milwaukee is the best team in the East with Boston at two and Toronto at three.

I like Milwaukee tonight at somewhere around 7.5 to 8 points.

I’m jacked for the game as an NBA fan and very much hoping it’s Mike Breen, Jeff van Gundy, and Mark Jackson on the call.

It’ll be a good time to settle in with a glass of wine and some microwave popcorn and see what happens.

I’d like to go to my official okcthunderground.com data board so as I can possibly help some of the Daily Thunder Bernie Sanders millennial types pick up their scores or at least learn some things for next season’s bracket sheet which they may not get from Johnny Thunder and/or Justin.

Since the day after Thanksgiving the Thunder are 30-11. Only the Milwaukee Bucks with 35 wins since the same date have a better record.

At home overall the Thunder are a decent 21-13. Before Thanksgiving at home…the Thunder are 6-5, after Thanksgiving the Thunder are 13-8.

On the road overall the Thunder are a sublime 17-9 despite going 0-6 on the road before Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving the Thunder are a remarkable 17-3.

Since New Year’s the Thunder are 18-7.

From January 18th the Thunder are 13-3. Within these games the Thunder are 9-2 in games decided by 10 points or less. In the three Thunder losses the widest margin the Thunder have lost by is ten points and in the three losses the combined negative spread for Oklahoma City was 19 points. The Thunder have basically been in every game since January 18th.

Don’t just get exclusively hung up on the repetitive nonsensical dogma of the millennial nerds who never played or coached sports. But by the same token math and numbers if applied with experienced nuance are what separate the winners from the losers against Vegas.

The Sacramento Kings are in town tomorrow night. I haven’t looked at the Vegas spread just yet with the coronavirus most likely set to rip off another trillion in market equity value these next two days given the manner in which Trump froze like a deer in the headlight reacting to the pandemic.

The Kings have won three in a row and the Thunder have the Milwaukee Bucks on the road the next night on ESPN with Mike Breen and Jeff van Gundy. The Kings game makes me a bit nervous with so much attention looming towards Friday night’s game. I wouldn’t take the Thunder and give the points. What you might do though is play the market short two trillion between now and next Thursday.

If the market falls to 25,000 next week…then of course Trump’s first term economic numbers will fall below the Obama numbers for his first term when he inherited a depression-like economy from Bush 43 and Dick Cheney.

Lots of data to compute here at okcthunderground.com for the next week or so.

This is the second year I’ve done this. I try to be highly objective in my critiques of the various outlets which cover the Thunder. I have only one category…The Big Boy Britches Category. Unlike the Oscars—I don’t waste three hours getting to the point.

1. Mike Jackson okcthunderground.com
2. Berry Tramel The Oklahoman
3. Jim Traber Sports Animal
4. Glenda Independent blogger
5. Dusty D Sports Animal
6. Erik Horne The Athletic
7. Mark Rodgers Sports Animal
8. Maddie Lee The Oklahoman
9. Johnny Thunder Daily Thunder
10. Justin Independent blogger

Keep up the great work. I enjoy your work and please fight for all First Amendment rights every day just like I do. MJ