Month: December 2016

Granted, Westbrook’s tear has been key to this six game winning streak. But let’s not for a second undervalue what Anthony Morrow has meant to this team the past six games. He’s playing substantial minutes and giving the Thunder what they so desperately need—three point shooting and spacing. I love watching Morrow shoot a basketball. He has one of the purest shooting strokes in the league. I can sit and watch the guy shoot in volumes. His ball doesn’t go thru the net, it splashes the net. He and Reddick are my two favorite pure shooters in the league.

When Donovan was giving Alex Abrines a serious look, Morrow never pouted. He waited his opportunity and has made the most of it. I would guestimate if you took a poll of avid Thunder fans in Oklahoma that Morrow would rank as one of the three most popular players along with Russell and Steven.

I love this performance by Morrow during the injury plagued season of 2014. Anthony Morrow at his best.

For the time being, let’s push the ghost of Oscar Robertson over to the side. How ironic–not that long ago Michael was in Oklahoma honoring Russell Westbrook’s induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. On Friday night at Chesapeake Energy Arena, Russell Westbrook will be attempting to tie Jordan’s ’88-’89 feat of seven consecutive triple doubles.

Point blank, Michael is the greatest basketball player I’ve seen in my lifetime. Bill Russell would rank second on my list. Kareem would rank third. I was born in ’57 so I’ve been fortunate enough to see most of the greats.

During pro basketball’s time in Oklahoma City, I’ve been blessed to see Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook. Think about that. All four most certainly headed to the Hall of Fame and I’ve seen all of them play in person in Oklahoma City.

This Friday will be special as Westbrook pursues his seventh straight triple against James Harden’s Rockets. I can’t speak for every Thunder fan, but I still love Harden. I wish he were still with the Thunder, but as time has ebbed along as a fan of the league I realize this is better for him and the game. Make certain of this, I do not feel the same way in regards to Durant because in the end I feel Durant is not doing anything which will help the game or even cement his own legacy. I just feel he’s taking the easiest route possible to a ring short of joining up with LeBron James. I guess I’m just too old school.

But on Friday, it’s Westbrook and Harden. Two California kids who grew in LA idolizing Kobe as their favorite player. Friday evening in Oklahoma City should be special. Maybe Michael should show up and watch from courtside sitting next to Russell’s younger brother, Ray Jr. That would be cool.

I love good interviews as you might tell from reading my blog. I enjoy observing an athlete put his guard down and revealing something of himself/herself to the public. By far, my favorite part of ESPN are the 30/30 docu movies. To me, the most compelling part of sports is often in the human story which drives the sports story. I love this interview with former Georgetown coach John Thompson just talking to Michael like he’s one of his former players and not the player who beat him in the ’82 national championship game.

Take the time to watch if you can.

Great dunk. So much for Dwight Howard as one of the game’s elite rim protectors. Orlando, Lakers, Houston, and Atlanta all became worse with Dwight Howard over time.

It was the second night of a road back to back and it wasn’t pretty at times. But the Oklahoma City Thunder behind Russell Westbrook’s sixth straight triple double had just enough left in the gas tank to beat the sinking Atlanta Hawks by a 102-99 count Monday night in Phillips Arena.

Westbrook struggled mightily with his shot in the first half, but scored 27 second half points to cement his sixth straight triple double and eleventh of the season. It was the 48th career triple for Westbrook. Meanwhile, Kevin Durant appears to be settling in comfortably with his role player status in Oakland. Rumors have it an ESPN 30/30 movie entitled ‘The Real MVP’ might be in the works. And, yeah, this won’t be like the one on the Oxygen Channel.

OKC had double digit leads in both halves, but to the Hawks credit they fought back each time and actually had a chance to send the game to overtime at the end of regulation as a Tim Hardaway Jr. came up short.

The Thunder are still unbeaten since their coming to Jesus moment on Thanksgiving Eve when Billy Donovan finally decided he was going nowhere in a hurry with either Kyle Singler or Alex Abrines as his bench three point flamethrower. Coincide Westbrook’s six game mercurial streak with the fact Anthony Morrow’s minutes have been a fixture in these six games. It’s called space and time. As in Morrow helps create both for his fellow teammates, especially Westbrook, when he’s on the floor. Space and time. You’ll never read that on Daily Thunder, trust me.

Morrow played 25 minutes against the Hawks and was excellent scoring 15 points on a 5-8 shooting night which included 4-6 from beyond the arc. When Morrow does this the Thunder become a different animal, and a dangerous one.

Nice game by Steven Adams with a 12/10 double double. Dipo scored 14 and had a dunk over Dwight Howard which I’ll probably post tomorrow when I’m not sleepy.
Kanter went 10 and 3. Joff didn’t play much. And Semaj had five assists for the second straight game.

Like I wrote atop, it wasn’t pretty, but you take a road win on a back to back any way you can get one. Actually, I think it’s OKC’s first road back to back win of the season after failures in Detroit, Oakland, and Sacramento.

OKC improves to 14-8 and their dual for fourth in the West with Houston will get even hotter on Friday night as Harden’s Rockets visit the Peake for what will be playoff like basketball in mid December.

I can’t wait. I’ll be back tomorrow to post the Dipo dunk over Howard.

Have a pleasant evening.

LET’S GO THUNDER!

Since the putrid road loss to the Kings on Thanksgiving Eve, two constants have played themselves over five straight games for the Thunder. Namely, Russell Westbrook has triple doubled while the Thunder won their basketball game.

Same basic formula was in place on Sunday evening inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena as Westbrook chased the ghosts of Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Jordan while his teammates chipped in enough for the Thunder to get their fifth straight win to improve to 13-8, while staying close enough to Houston for the dual narratives of the two teams with the top two MVP canidates battling for the fourth seed in the West as well as an MVP trophy. Not a bad turnaround for Houston and Oklahoma City as oil is back trending in the low 50’s while their star millennials are taking all the shine from the Durant-Curry Show so far this NBA season. Go West Texas Crude. Go Thunder!

Throw in fellow MVP canidate Anthony Davis and it was a compelling night of basketball even though for the second straight season the Pelicans are one of the league’s bigger disappointments twenty-one games in. Davis had 37 points and 15 rebounds. Another bonus was OU’s NPOTY Buddy Hield was in town as well and probably had his best games as a professional with 16 points.

But this night belonged to Russell Westbrook, his Thunder, and on this night the ghost of Michael Jordan. Not that long ago, Jordan made Westbrook’s introduction speech into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. Tonight, Westbrook recorded his fifth straight triple double and became the first NBA player since Jordan in ’88-’89 to do such a thing. It was Westbrook’s 10th triple double of the season and 47th of his career. And here’s the thing—he’s doing this within the framework of the Thunder winning games and being relevant in the West. Again–if OKC takes cares of Orlando at home and Nick Young was whistled for that walk like he should have been—the Thunder are 15-6 and Westbrook is on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Thing is—he’ll probably be on the cover of SI multiple times anyway as this story unwinds into December and beyond.

OKC had this game under control, but allowed the Pels to close to 94-90 coming down the stretch. Some Buddy Hield threes and some Thunder turnovers were the main culprits to the tight fit, but Westbrook took over, nailed a big three which made Billy Donovan swoon during the ensuing timeout, but nonetheless the Thunder sailed home with their fifth straight win.

Enes Kanter was excellent in this game with 17 rebounds and 10 boards. Adams left the game early with what we hope is a very mild ankle sprain. Dipo was solid with 14 points. Andre Roberson was excellent again with 13 points on 6-8 shooting and it was on his 25th birthday. Roberson has really stepped up his game of late and along with Morrow are secondary reasons the Thunder are playing better as a team.

Morrow didn’t score the ball all that much in 25 minutes, but again there’s the spacing deal. Lauvergne didn’t score all that much as well, but he hauled in 11 rebounds. Jofferey Lauvergne is becoming one of my favorite Thunder bench players. He always finds a way to contribute. He doesn’t do anything one thing exceptionally well, but he does everything pretty well. Samaj Christon wasn’t awful, in 11 minutes he had five assists. Still ready to see Cameron Payne back, but these are great developmental minutes for Christon. Jerami Grant actually guarded Anthony Davis some playing the four position and he competed very nicely. If you can guard Anthony Davis there’s a wide variance of NBA players you can probably guard in this league.

Thunder on the road tomorrow night in Atlanta to play the suddenly reeling Hawks — which really shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise since Dwight Howard is now in Atlanta.

Just so were clear on this, from this point forward it’s not just OKC bloggers following this story, it’s the basketball world watching to see if Russell Westbrook can continue to chase the ghost of Oscar Robertson.

I’m almost certain we’re headed for controversy on college football’s Final Four after Penn State’s 38-31 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game. Penn State just won the toughest conference in America, beat Ohio State head to head earlier in the season, and has won its last nine games. For me—they’re in. So is Alabama and so is Clemson as both are league champions as well. I think the question is whether you take Ohio State or Washington? My feel is Ohio State is the better team and played a much tougher schedule than Washington.

So–if I’m on that committee my Final Four in the national semi-final reads Alabama vs. Ohio State in one semi-final and Clemson vs. Penn State in the other semi-final. I would penalize Ohio State for not winning their conference and thus make them the No. 4 seed playing Alabama in the national semi-finals.

We’ll see how the committee handles this come tomorrow.

With this much needed break of games this might be a good time to post this excellent interview. Chris Webber of Michigan Fab Five fame is interviewing Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson. It’s still early in the season, but heading into December, Westbrook is averaging a triple double. This is a great sports record of sorts he’s chasing. In baseball, the equivalent would be hitting for the triple crown. In football it would like rushing for 2,400 yards. In hockey, maybe ringing up a fifty goal, fifty assist season. This is a great accomplishment Westbrook is chasing and I’m hopeful our mostly millennial basketball writers in Oklahoma are fully aware of what Westbrook is in pursuit of here. Most of them never saw Robertson play, and to be quite frank, I’m not sure many of them saw Chris Webber play all that much either.

Anyway, this is an excellent interview and a prerequisite watch as Westbrook chases Oscar Roberston.

Highly entertaining game last night in Oakland as the Rockets ended the Warriors’ 12 game winning streak with a 132-127 double overtime win. Harden had his fourth triple double of the season while Durant scored 39 points and Curry chipped in 28 points before fouling out. Another kicking incident by Draymond Green, but’s it okay because he plays for the Warriors and it’s really not all that big of a deal if Green is kicking opposing players in the balls or face on his shot follow through. If you watched the game, it was fairly clear who the MBVP was on the floor was–and it wasn’t Durant, Curry, or Green. It was James Harden.

Here’s Harden’s media day interview talking about Mike D’Antoni and this season in general.

I’ll probably do around five Power Polls this regular season and only rank the top ten teams in the league. I see no point going any further down the list. If you have no life whatsoever and need to know who the bottom twenty teams in the league are then probably googling Marc Stein or Bill Simmons would be the thing to do.

1. Golden State Warriors — When you won 73 games the previous season and would have won a second straight NBA championship if not for the dipshit antics of Draymond Green in Game 4 and add Kevin Durant to your ball club, you should be the best team in the league. Currently–they are.

2. Cleveland Cavaliers — Although I have the Cavs at No.2, I still feel they’re the team to beat come the NBA Finals. LeBron has owned Kevin Durant’s mind to date, so until I witness Durant cross this mental hurdle the Cavs are my pick to repeat although I have them No. 2 in my first poll of the regular season.

3. San Antonio Spurs — A good team, but not a great team. How far can they go with Tony Parker as their starting point guard? I honestly think OKC will match up nicely with the Spurs.

4. LA Clippers — This in itself shows how weak the league is when everyone is picking the Clippers as the fourth best team in the entire league. I think OKC would match up very well against the Clippers in a post season series as well.

5. OKC Thunder — Assuming Westbrook doesn’t get hurt, Adams can keep his hand healthy, and Victor Oladipo continues to elevate his game weekly—I see no reason the Thunder shouldn’t be here on my poll. If the zebras had called the Nick Young Walk and OKC doesn’t sleepwalk against the Magic at home they’re 14-6 as I write.

6. Toronto Raptors — Who else is the second best team in the East? DeRozan has finally cooled, but I love their guard tandem. At some point this season, Westbrook-Oladipo will pass DeRozan-Lowery, but for now I still have them above the Thunder backcourt by a smidge.

7. Houston Rockets — Like Westbrook, James Harden is having a career season. Should not be a surprise if you saw Mike D’Antoni coach Steve Nash in Phoenix. If ever a coach was made for James Harden it’s D’Antoni. Houston vs. Oklahoma City games should be treated as prized royal treasures this season by NBA junkies. First game this season didn’t disappoint at all.

8. Chicago Bulls — Jimmy Butler. No other reason than Jimmy Butler. Plus, someone has to fill out this feeble poll.

9. Boston Celtics — They should start playing better. But they still need a star. Glad Presti didn’t trade Westbrook for Crowder, Smart, and those first round draft picks right now. Seriously glad.

10. Atlanta Hawks — They’re going nowhere once again, but they play smart ball and give their fans their money’s worth on most nights. Yawn.