Author: Mike

My biggest fear of this Thunder team came to fruition as Oladipo, Adams, and Kanter didn’t step up and play up to their capabilities in Game 1. Ostensibly–they’re OKC’s second, third, and fourth best players and the truth of the matter is Pat Beverly by himself did more for the Rockets than the core of OKC’s team did as a whole combined.

Roberson was easily my Thunder Player of the Game, but I thought when Beverly took that massive hit from Adams on the screen the game changed. Beverly popped up, waved at the Thunder bench, and then helped his team go on a 19-8 spurt which put the game away for Houston. I thought Capela was excellent as well and the best big on the floor for either team. I think a great deal of OKC fans greatly underestimated both Capela and Nene coming into this series. I love Beverly. He’s annoying as hell, but he brings his lunchpail every night. He would have been a great hockey player.

Not much you can really say other than Houston out played, out shot, out hustled, and out coached the Thunder in Game 1. I thought Kanter’s presence defensively stood out as well, as in he couldn’t defend anyone in particular.

I really don’t want to write this, but this is okcthunderground.com and this is in part why I have the blog. Namely, I absolutely hate it when homer writers/bloggers or whatevers can’t write the truth.

Trust me, the truth hurts in a very bad way having to write this, but here goes.

OKC’s Thunder lost by a count of 118-87 tonight in the first game of the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs. OKC was beaten 59-33 in the second half after trailing 59-54 at the half. I’m not even going to look at the boxscore, it was that bad. Other than Andre Roberson, who was superb, and perhaps Jerami Grant, who was solid, I thought every other Thunder player was atrocious–including Russell Westbrook. And I thought Billy Donovan graded out at a D- for bench management in this game.

This isn’t the regular season where you get to play a litany of bad basketball teams during a season of 82 games. As a team, you better come to the arena with your lunchpail, your f–king heart, and some semblance of a plan. OKC as a team, brought none of the three to the Toyota Center on Sunday evening.

Note to Billy Donovan, if Steven Adams, Taj Gibson, and Enes Kanter are collectively going to play some of the softest basketball in Thunder history—there’s no reason whatsoever for them to be on the floor together at any point in a game in this series. None. OKC was outrebounded by 15 boards in this game and outscored 31-4 on second chance points. Little Patrick Beverly by himself showed more heart than OKC’s bigs just by himself on this abysmal night in Oklahoma City Thunder history. I was embarrassed for the Thunder players. Literally…embarrassed by the effort.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize Houston plays some very unconventional lineups when they go small with three point guards together at times during the course of the game. Trading twos for threes isn’t going to work. I cannot fathom how OKC as a team or coaching staff came with the plan they came with tonight in Houston. Just so we’re clear, Golden State scored 121 points against the Trailblazers today, Houston scored 118 points tonight. This is who they are, what they do. Trying to play big boy ball against these two teams defies the premise of math.

So…maybe the thought might be to go small with Jerami Grant getting big minutes to go in tandem with Andre Roberson, maybe trying some lineups with Doug McDermott here and there, hoping Russell Westbrook doesn’t turn it over nine times, and praying Victor Oladipo doesn’t go 1-12 shooting the ball.

It was just awful is what it was, but one game only counts as one of four, but it just feels so much worse because OKC didn’t look prepared and didn’t play with much heart in the first game of post season when you expect guys to bring something extra to the arena with them.

Game 2 in Houston on Wednesday night. I would hope there’s going to be a ton of film being watched tonight and tomorrow–and some major adjustments made by the Thunder staff.

If you would have told me before this season started the Thunder would go 47-35, Westbrook would average a triple double, break Oscar’s record, and Westbrook would be a major contender for the MVP… I would have taken it. And here’s the thing, even if OKC loses this first round series to Houston this season can still be deemed a major success, but with a caveat attached. I want to see some other OKC players step up in this series and show me there’s hope this roster has a chance to garner more from a team standpoint next season.

It would be unfair of me to say Victor Oladipo and Steven Adams were disappointments this season, but in all candor, I’m ready to see more from each of these two players in this series and beyond. I want to see Oladipo become Westbrook’s consistent twenty point backcourt scoring partner. I’d like to see the Steven Adams of last year’s San Antonio series. The energy, the toughness, the overall team catalyst. I thought Adams was the guy last season who was OKC’s MVP in the Spurs series… a sighting of that Steven Adams is a must if OKC is going to be seriously competitive in this series. These two guys genuinely need to step up their games as we begin the real season in the NBA.

To a lesser degree, same thing with Andre Roberson. He was wonderful last season against the Spurs cutting to the basket and getting out in transition. OKC needs this Andre Roberson if they want to compete with a Rocket’s team which averages a 115 points a game.

Next on my list is Billy Donovan. He needs to bring his AAA bench management game in this series. This isn’t a great matchup for the Thunder in that they struggle making threes at times and here they are in the first round playing a Houston team which goes on regular orgy-fests making trifectas. It can’t just be Westbrook trying to score with the Rockets. It has to be a team thing. Oladipo, Adams, Roberson, Kanter, Gibson, Abrines, McDermott, Sabonis, Christon, and Grant. But Billy Donovan as a coach can’t have bad spells where his mix and match lineups go dud for a couple of minutes while the Rockets are raining threes.

OKC has to make threes in this series–it’s just simple math. Think back to last season’s series with the Warriors and those last three agonizing losses. Look at those three box scores. Even if you’re a Trump supporter with math and science not being your thing, this math isn’t that complex, this isn’t like grappling with the nuance of climate change—OKC can’t give up a substantial negative differential from three point land every game in this series. Some guys not named Westbrook have to make some threes. Some guys not named Westbrook need to score the ball…period.

Do I think OKC is going to win this series? I would probably say not because the consistency from other players absent Westbrook just hasn’t been present this basketball season against the top three teams in the West. OKC went 0-4 versus the Warriors. They went a combined 2-9 against the Warriors, Spurs, and Rockets and did not win a road game against any of the three teams. It’s just very hard for me to ignore all of this even though I adore the Thunder. But one thing which gives me a sliver of hope is that this is not a great Houston team from a defensive standpoint. These guys are not the Warriors defensively.

So if I were forced to make a pick…I’d say the Rockets in either five or six games.

But as a Thunder fan looking ahead to next season, what I really want to see in this series are some young guys competing and growing up as a team. I don’t want to see Westbrook playing 1 on 5 basketball for 48 minutes.

I’m ready to see the OKC Thunder future starting tomorrow night in Houston.

Writers all over the world are trying to peel the layers back and expose the real Donald Trump. It’s not that complex. He’s not that deep. This is a massive overthink. He never in his wildest dreams thought some of you angry white people would elect him. Who would have thought 82% of white evangicals would vote for Caligula Lite? You Trump people left this person with no other option other than to pretend to be POTUS. This is who he is and who he will be at the end of the day. So my advice would be to drink heavily and somehow get through all of this without going completely fucking crazy while George is running the world.

It’s been a big week for Donald Trump. After getting virtually nothing done in his presidency to date, he made a wise political decision allowing his generals to start dropping bombs at various locales. First, he closed down a Syrian airfield for almost twenty-four hours, then followed that with the Mother of All Bombs somewhere near the Afghanistan – Pakistan border. Now, of course, the whole world watches as Trump and the fat kid from North Korea exchange twitter blows. If ever there was an illustration of how far American culture has dropped since the Cuban Missile Crisis this would be that learning moment.

The other day, Joe Scarborough actually compared Trump to Reagan and FDR. I have to say, after almost passing out from laughter, again the thought struck me how dumb America has become. Donald Trump is not FDR, TR, Lincoln, Reagan or even James Polk. He’s George Constanza. The only difference is Trump’s father left him millions allowing Trump to make enough money to lease a new trophy wife every fifteen years or so and put his name on some buildings. And maybe the hair. George is bald, Trump wears the dead rat on his head. Otherwise– these guys are twins. Identical. From Queens and everything.

I make my case… President George Costanza.

A very nice ending to the Thunder’s regular season. It didn’t even matter the Thunder lost to Denver to close out the season 47-35. The game was anti-climatic.

We are now at Day 83 in Caligula Lite’s presidency. Nothing he talked about with his supporters has come to fruition so far except for Mitch McConnell nuking Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, while Generals Mattis and McMaster remind us gently they’re running this country, and the guy heading the Dept of Twitter is a bit of con artist and won’t be realigning Nato and creating his own New World Order.

Nothing Trump talked about with his aluminum eared-plated Trekkies has come to pass—and to that we can all say…Thank God except for maybe the infrastructure bill. Some infrastructure would be nice.

No wall. No Mexicans paying for it. No draconian trade treaties. No repeal of Obamacare. No tax reform overhaul favoring the rich. No massive deregulations except for Scott Pruitt ignoring climate change as the head of EPA (that’s pretty big actually). No new world order alliance with Putin. No infrastructure program like that of FDR’s WPA. No job explosion given only 98,000 jobs were created in March. No Muslim ban. And, hopefully no ground troops in Syria.

But I think the message is kind of clear. This Trumpster we now see is nothing like the deplorable rogue we saw leading chants of ‘Build the Wall’ and ‘Lock Her Up.’ This is not the same dude who brought Michael Flynn, Steven Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway to the White House.

Whoever this Trump is in relation to the rogue huckster we had been watching is for the time being gone. Which is a good thing if only this can sustain itself and Caligula Jr. doesn’t revert do his fourth grade level tweeting and Dennis the Menace antics.

McConnell is the domestic policy president, while Gen. Mattis is the foreign policy prez. Trump is the Entertainment Tonight president and it fits his wheelhouse.

So what is the Trump Doctrine so far for the historical types who dwell on shit like this? How does it differ from Clinton, W, and Obama?

To me…the Trump Doctrine appears to have morphed into a nuanced doing of the exact polar opposite of all those things he said he would do for his aluminum ear-plated Trekkies during the campaign rallies in places where angry white people lashed back at globalization because Trumpster was the anti-globalization cheerleader or liar depending on your semantics.

Some presidents morph into FDR, TR, or Lincoln. But not Donald Trump. He’s morphed into George Costanza—and the thing is given what he looked like with Bannon, Flynn, Manafort, Miller, Conway, and all that Mercer family money–I’m good with the Constanza Doctrine. I’m completely good with it given the alternative.

It took me 83 days to figure out who Donald Trump really is…he’s George Costanza is who he is.

With 6.3 seconds left in regulation, Victor Oladipo hit a jumper to give the Thunder a 100-98 win on the road in the next to last game of the regular season. OKC played this game without Westbrook, Gibson, Roberson, and McDermott as all were on a rest night getting ready for the playoffs.

It was an extremely upbeat night for the Thunder as their young players stepped up and competed hard on road. Billy Donovan has to be extremely pleased in what he saw from several of his young players, not only for what they could possibly do against Houston, but more perhaps looking down the road to next season.

Victor Oladipo and Domas Sabonis both showed flashes of what they will mean to this team as both of their roles expand next season.

Oladipo struggled with eight turnovers, but had a line of 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists. I’m hopeful now that Westbrook has his place in triple double history, his game becomes more conducive to making Oladipo’s comfort range expand within his game. Together they have to become a tandem, kind of a symbiotic relationship, if this team wants to take their game to a higher level.

Sabonis had some excellent moments as well. His game is there. It just needs time and some work in the weight room wouldn’t hurt. Sabonis had 19 points and 9 rebounds and is clearly going to be a nice stretch four for the Thunder once he matures as a player.

All in all it was an excellent night for the Thunder as they improved their overall record to 47-34 with tonight’s home regular season finale against the Denver Nuggets closing what has been a very solid season in the first in Oklahoma City without Kevin Durant as a member of the team.