Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

Finally, a space to slip in the Thunder’s 103-100 win over the Knicks on Wednesday night inside of Madison Square Garden. Part of me wanted to steer clear of the Kristi Noem-Markwayne Mullin train wreck, but at some point I am an American who votes and at some point I have to draw a line in the sand Stage 4 journey or not.

It’s March Madness and both of OU’s teams are playing well and surging late in this season. The women beat Florida yesterday 82-64 in the opening round of the SEC Tournament for their seventh straight win and are now 24-6 on the season with a 1:30 tip today versus the LSU Tigers.

OU’s men have now won three straight and have moved past Missouri at No. 57 in the NCAA Net rankings. There is a path for OU to be the last team selected from the SEC to the NCAA Tournament.

A narrow path, but a path.

But that path has to include a road win Saturday in Austin versus the Longhorns who need a win themselves to go to the Big Dance. OU won at Austin on the last game of the regular season in the very same situation last March. Texas is nothing special. If OU can play the way they’ve played six of their last seven agmes minus the road loss at Tennessee…they can very much win this game.

BUT we do have have the defending champ Thunder in this market, and while I haven’t been amped by all the missed games from both OKC and Denver…it won’t be long before my hoops attention is soley focused on OKC’s drive to become the first NBA team in eight years to repeat.

Plus…we’ve got Shai firmly entrenched as the favorite to repeat as regular season MVP as well. OKC has a three game lead over the Spurs for home court in the West. The Pistons in my view are not ready to advance to the NBA Finals..so I would think Coach Mark and group are soley focused on keeping homecourt in the West and getting J-Dub back on the court.

Ajay Mitchell is a nice player, but in reality with McCain now in the mix–the Thunder can repeat without Ajay as long as J-Dub returns which I would think should be tomorrow night at home versus the No. 9 seeded Warriors.

Don’t sleep on the Minnesota TWolves though… I like what they did at the deadline with their guard depth by adding Ayo Dosunmu to their mix at the trade deadline and coupling him with Bones Hyland coming off the bench.

A very solid game by Chet on Wednesday night. Very solid. If this Chet would show up every night…I could even find myself writing the Thunder could repeat without JDub because they have so many other wing players who can defend and score at a high level.

If this Chet would show up more often…MJ would get off his ass on his underground blog.

Chet’s numbers on Wednesday were…28 points, 15 rebounds, and 3 assists.

My Three Stars of the Game went…1 Chet, 2 Shai, and 3 Lu Dort.

BTW, Lu Dort publicly apologized for the play the other night against Nikola. You know why he did this? Because he has the soul of a hockey player and he knows he’s better than that. That’s one of the reasons I love Lu Dort.

Obviously..Shai is the heartbeat of this team, but I’d say Lu Dort and Kenrich Williams are the moral compass of this Thunder team kind of like Looney was with those championship Warrior teams. Every championship teams two stars at the least and one moral compass like a Nick Collison, Lu Dort, or Kenrich Williams.

That’s it for me today. I need to get a hike in today at Mitch Park before the Sooner women tip at 1:30pm.

Love, grace, and mercy.

Mike J

Oh, boy. I mean seriously, oh, boy.

Should these two people be running Homeland Security at a time of immense roil throughout the world? As bad of selections as Matt Gaetz and Pam Bondi were…this is even worse I would say. I wouldn’t even want Kristi Noem or Markwayne Mullin or the other two humans Trump selected running my nearest Hideaway Pizza.

Who could write this nonsense on the most hopeless over the top Trump fake Christian outlet in the universe even if they were being paid to write it? I’m only doing it because I want to make sure people around the world who read this blog realize not everyone in the state of Oklahoma is a complete f–king idiot.

Going from John Kelly to Kristi Noem to Kirsten Nielson to Markwayne Mullin the cagefighting U.S Senator from Oklahoma is like going from say…Nick Saban to Mike Gundy.

You’ll notice I’ve stayed away from any Trump comments for the most part thirteen months into this historical second term of the U.S having a convicted felon in the White House running our country.

I figured it would be better for my cancer survival chances, plus I’ve honestly been trying to be better spiritually minus the occasional f-bomb here and there which I don’t think God holds againsts us in the long run. I think God is more concerned with love, kindness, mercy, grace, humility, forgiveness, justice, and redemption. Besides F–K is nothing more than an old English law anacronym for Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.

I learned that the first day of law school with Bob. Anotherwords, don’t freak out if someone drops an F-bomb here and there. It’s not like inciting a riot to have your own vice-president hung. Know what I mean there Mike Pence?

I’m not going to talk about Kristi Noem shooting her own puppy. I not going to talk about her purported sleeping with Trump’s boy Corey Lewandowski. This isn’t a gossip blog. This is an NBA underground blog and I need to do my writeup on the Thunder’s 103-100 win over the Knicks on Wednesday night at MSG.

I’m just so stunned thinking it couldn’t get any worse than the war which started a week ago. I’m not going to talk about the war on here because six Americans have already lost their lives.

So…if you’re from a blue state or Europe or some locale where people actually read books and don’t shoot their own dogs I just wanted to make sure you know Mike J isn’t anything like Donald Trump’s new Director of Homeland Security.

Trump, dude…we thought you loved the dogs, buddy. WTF?

If you voted for either Donald Trump or Markwayne you should be embarrassed and ashamed.

But in closing, I mean, what kind of a dipshit shoots their own puppy?

God bless America and we should all be praying for not only for our people, but the innocent people over there who have gotten caught up in all of this mess.

Make Israel Great Again, right? Change the ballcaps to MIGA. At least be up front about it.

Truth hurts.

Mike J

Hello March Madness, my old friend. Mike J lives to see his fourth March Madness since the ‘premature’ cancer death sentence. I love this time of the year. I absolutely love it because both college basketball and fishing heat up simultaneously. Then… The Masters, then the NBA Playoffs. Can it get any better? Only when the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin would be my answer.

It’s time I put this video of JWill with Andy Katz on the blog after the Hogs rather easy double digit win over Chet’s grossly overrated No. 1 Gonzaga team in 2022. Gonzaga was everyone’s pick to win the national championship. But I had seen JWill and his crazy coach in Tulsa when OU played Arkansas in a game in which OU beat coach Eric Musselman by double digits. Coach Muss got tossed in the second half and I fell in love with Coach Muss’s passion for his team

OU came back and beat Arkansas again the next year before they had entered the SEC and Coach Mussleman if my memory serves correct…got tossed again. What a character until he got fired and replaced by John Calipari– who is a character in his own right. I love both of those dudes. I mean…they go to war for their players.

Arkansas has had some great, great basketball coaches over the years. I wonder if Coach Cal might be interested in the OU job at some point? He’d be a trip in Norman. Not a bad place for an older coach where the football coach takes most of the fan’s displeasure.

I believe JWill double-doubled that night, plus some nice assists and was the player of the game while Chet was a non-factor for the grossly overhyped Gonzaga group which had Jalen Suggs and Andrew Timme as well. Plus… Andrew Nembhard I think. Anyway they way they were loaded, yet the Hogs advanced to the Elite 8.

I was thrilled when I saw Sam Presti steal JWill with a second round pick. Actually…I’m a little surprised JWill hasn’t been used more by Coach Mark until this season with all the DNPs.

I’m very well aware of the fact Sam Presti won’t be trading Chet to the LA Clippers…Presti would not do that because that’s who he is. But I do think JWill’s emergence this season makes it rather simple for Sam Presti to pass on Isaiah Hartenstein’s third year team option deal next season.

JWill can defend, he can create space with his screens, he can pass off the high or low post, and he can do what Isaiah will never be able to do… that being, knock down open threes and create space for Shai.

So, JWill, buddy…I didn’t watch the the Thunder’s win the other night over the weak Chicago Bulls because at this point in the NBA season I don’t watch shit teams play games .That’s just the way I am.

But I understand you had another massive double-double for the Thunder in a nice win for the team while guys sat again.

So…this post is for you. Keep up the great play and continue forward as being one of the fan favorite players on the Thunder. And, yes, you’re one of the Thunder Elite who could put on the skates and turn himself into himself into a legit ice hockey player because you’re made of the right stuff in that regard.

There’s a new hockey movie coming out this week-end and I think I’ll try and squeeze it in between basketball games.

March Madness, hello again my old friend.

Best wishes, Mike J

I attended both the OU womens’ Senior Game last week and the OU mens’ Senior Game last night in Norman. The women are in the NCAA Tournament regardless of what happens in the SEC Tournament. In fact..they’ll probably be a host team for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Jenni’s team is ranked No. 7 nationally and on a very good run coming down the stretch.

Do I think Jenni’s team can win the national championship? No…I do not. But for me the serious-attainable goal for this team is to get to an Elite 8 game and then play their best game ever in the Jenni B era and see where that lands them.

I think the fact they beat South Carolina and played a great second half at Texas makes this an attainable goal. Beyond that…I don’t know. I do know that in March basketball as in life and the cancer journey…it’s One Day at a Time. Breathe in through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth. Charity preached that to me constantly when I was at Ground Zero in the early stages of my cancer rehab when I weighed a 158 pounds and couldn’t do a push-up.

So…last night in Norman it was the last home game of the season and Senior Night as well. I didn’t sit near the student section, pep band, or the poms. I had a great seat second row, baseline near Joe C. New AD Roger Denny was down there as was Bob Stoops for a awhile.

As I watched the game… I was constantly looking at both Joe C’s face and Roger Denny’s face for any hints of how the impending decision will go in regards to Porter Moser’s future at OU beyond this season.

I’m not really sure how I feel right now and I’ve probably watched more OU basketball than either of these three guys. I was in junior high watching Johnny MacLoud’s teams back in the old Fieldhouse. Other than Berry Tramel and Al Eschbach …I can probably drop more OU basketball trivia than anyone else still breathing.

I might need to slightly push back on what I wrote about Porter after the team fell to 1-9 in the SEC and 11-12 overall. I said, “He should be replaced.”

Well not so fast there Mike J because since that juncture of the season the Sooners finally got Dayton Forsythe healthy, shortened the rotation to a tight eight man rotation, and have won five of their last seven SEC games to improve to 6-11 in the SEC and 16-14 overall.

Coming into this Missouri game … OU’s NCAA Net Ranking was 61. By beating a hot Missouri team by 16 points last night I would think the Sooners’ net ranking will improve to somewhere around 54-56 when the computer adjusts to last night’s results.

So…what OU needs to do next is go beat Texas in Austin on Saturday to keep the NCAA Net ranking trending in the right direction heading into SEC Tournment play next week.

For OU to get to the NCAA Tournament I don’t think they have to have a magical run like that NC State did several years ago in the ACC Tournament and win it. Just win a game or two like last season. But I do think OU has a solid puncher’s chance because of the overall strength of their schedule which included tough road assignments in non-conference versus Gonzaga, Nebraska, Arizona State, Wake Forest, and Marquette.

OU won two of those games and of course beat O State by ten at PayCom for another nice non-conference win. Plus, OU played No. 10 Nebraska to the hilt in a three point loss before anyone had at that point realized the special season these Cornhuskers would have to date being a Top Ten team.

What I’m saying is…I think the computer will be kind to OU if they can beat an ordinary Texas team on Saturday. OU’s Jeremiah Fear’s team beat Texas in the very same situation last March. This team is better that that team.

OU’s first eight players are now playing at a higher level than that team which played UConn tough in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. When Big Mo can stay out of foul trouble and stay on the floor and nourished properly through Ramadan…these Sooners are pretty good.

So…keep Big Mo fed with peanut and jelly sandwiches and keep fighting the good fight, Sooners.

I’m proud of you guys. You didn’t roll over. You didn’t feel sorry for yourselves and you’ve given yourselves a chance.

And as Coach Moser so aptly said in this presser, ‘That’s not only basketball, but’s that’s life, guys. Pulling yourself back up when everybody else was counting you out.”

Beat Texas. I mean, seriously, really…Beat Texas.

Mike J

Now that was a hockey game played in front of packed house last night in Oklahoma City at PayCom Arena!

That’s exactly what this NBA blogger has been clamoring for…for what seems like an eternity during this NBA regular season of discontent. It is as if Sam Presti, Coach Mark, Shai, and the rest of the Thunder players took my words of TOUGH LOVE to heart and decided it was time to quit playing like a group of prima donnas and play like the defending champions of the world.

This is not only what I want to see, but as well ABC, NBC, and ESPN want to see more of this and much less of the tanking and over the top load management. Sports are entertainment. The NBA is not the friggin’ G-League. When one pays to see Billy Joel, Elton John, Taylor Swift, or Eagles…they’re not paying to see a cover band.

The networks and the ticketholders are paying to see the stars play in important games against the top flight contenders. This bullshit which was perpetuated by Coach Mark and Sam Presti in the games at San Antonio and Detroit is not acceptable not only in the world of competitive sports, but in sports entertainment as well.

I hope after the debaucle in Detroit… I don’t have to write this any more on the blog this basketball season. And BTW…if I were the NBA commish instead of the extremely weak, feckless, and feeble Adam Silver…I’d still fine the Thunder for what they did in San Antonio and Detroit.

What a game last night in Oke City. Two teams who went to a Game 7 last spring came out and genuinely hated on one another for fifty three minutes of physical, in your face basketball…which is the way the game is supposed to be played.

Every foot of floor space and second of time had to be fought for and earned. This was a f–king brawl from start to finish and I savored every second of it.

Shai returned and played 33:46 and had 36 points on my score sheet. He carried his team as far as he could…then Coach Mark FINALLY did something right of late by sitting Shai the entire five minute overtime period.

And then what happened?

The role players stepped up big-time and won the overtime by six points over the then worn out Denver Nuggets.

My Three Thunder Stars of the Game go this way excluding Shai because he was sitting when the game was decided…1 Alex Caruso, 2 Jaylin Williams, 3 a tie between Cason Wallace and Chet.

It seems like I’ve been on Chet all season and he has deserved it at times and it needs to be done because the people like Nick Gallo, Matt Pinto, and Michael Cage do him a monumental disservice with all their coddling and babying of him. It is what it is…you’re an NBA max player and there is an implied obligation connected to that fact. You did a job on the boards last night and I’m objective so you’re in my Top 3 Thunder Players of the Game, buddy.

Here’s what I’m going to say about Jaylin Williams…I’ve loved him ever since I started watching him at Arkansas. He has the two main incredients I love in either a hockey or basketball player. He’s smart and understands the game. Plus, he’s tough when a line needs to be drawn in the sand. When Jay-Will went after Jokic taking up for his teammate Lu Dort… I almost went through the flat screen with bim.

That was beautiful.

That is a dude you want in the foxhole next to you. That is the guy as a coach you should be getting more minutes coming down the stretch run of this NBA season.

I was a little dissapointed in Shai for not getting Cason more involved scoring the ball. With J-Dub out…Cason should be that guy. We’ll see if Shai adresses that in Dallas tomorrow night. Shai’s a stud and more than a fair guy…so I’m sure he’ll take care of it.

Jared McCain…I need a brief ‘graph on Jared. He’s a player. Sam Presti got himself a player. Jared is one of those guys with basketball hubris and doesn’t really seem to fear failure. What I mean by that…is if he misses a shot he’s immediately locked and loaded for the next play from a mental standpoint. You can’t coach that. There’s not a drill for instilling that in a player. That came from Momma and Daddy’s loins.

Now… Lu Dort. Lu Dort is royalty on my blog and I’ve stated that many times. But he shouldn’t have tripped Nikola in the manner in which he did. The last thing the NBA needs right now is an injury from a play like that. It was a cheap play. Something we’d usually see from Draymond Green, and not Lu Dort.

Lu…that’s not who you are. I know because I’ve admired and watched you during your entire stay in Oklahoma City. I’m giving you a mulligan, my friend. If anyone deserves a mulligan on the Thunder…it’s you and Kenrich.

Speaking of Kenrich…he didn’t play last night so I’m expecting him to get some nice playing time tomorrow night in Dallas. Kenrich is gold on here as well. And so is Jaylin Williams from this point moving forward

So in my Thunder-Hockey Player Rating Scale here’s how I have my Top Five currently… 1 Shai, 2 Lu Dort, 3 Alex Caruso, 4 Kenrich, and 5 J-Will.

I’ll explain this in more detail after the Dallas game.

Have a wonderful Saturday in sunny Oklahoma.

Mike J

We have an OKC vs. Denver matchup tonight at Paycom with the Thunder holding a mere two game lead over the surging San Antonio Spurs behind their own serious MVP candidate in Wembynama.

I just looked at the injury report for tonight and amazingly seven of the nine who couldn’t play in Detroit or finish the game are listed as available to play tonight.

Damn…amazing how quickly they healed, right?

Shai is listed as available tonight, but of course, J-Dub and Ajay Mitchell are still out. You give out those max contracts as OKC did with both J-Dub and Chet and it is amazing how the urgency to play through bumps and bruises seems to diminish.

Durant and Westbrook hardly ever missed games and are still playing though Durant did miss some games that one season with the Jones’ Fracture. So some of you cats at PayCom who are still booing Durant should maybe consider that fact next time you’re still booing him ten years after the fact he decided he could never win a championship with a point guard like Russell.

Jack Hughes got his teeth knocked out in the third period of the Gold Medal game versus Canada and was back out there in no time to take a bad penalty and then score the winning goal. My guess is half of these Thunder players would be out 7-10 days on a deal like Jack Hughes absorbed with that high stick.

Am I assailing the toughness of the some Thunder players?

Yes.. I am. Both not all of them.

J-Will not only had a 30 point, 11 rebound night…he basically eviserated Chet in the NCAA Tournament Round of 16 when Arkansas drubbed Gonzaga and ended Chet’s one year career at Gonzaga.

So here’s what MJ would do tonight…I’d start J-Will alongside Isaiah Hartenstein against the Nuggets and move Chet to the Bill Walton role he played late in his career with the Celtics. Chet becomes the Sixth Man, albeit a grossly overpaid one, and plays around 22-24 minutes a game so as his fragile frame isn’t taxed by playing heavy minutes versus guys like Jokic, Wemby, Duren, and Segun just to name several NBA bigs.

Of course, it’s absurd to be paying a Sixth Man a max deal, but that could be alleviated when you trade Chet so as you give Cason Wallace the max deal he is going to get eventually. Easy…just call that sucker Balmer with the Clippers and it will all work out. That’s what MJ would do. Presti should at the least think about it.

Denver’s injury report is a horror show. Jamal and Aaron doubtful, while Peyton Watson out and Spencer Jones probably out as is Jalen Pickett.

I would think if Shai plays it should be on a tight minutes restriction. Maybe no more than 20-22 minutes.

I think what I’ll do sometime soon is make my list of players on this Thunder roster who have what it takes to be a hockey player. Because to repeat–you have to be both mentally and physically tough.

And if you people think I’m crazy…think back to Sam Presti’s opening comments during Media Day when he in essence was challenging his team to be the type of team who could indeed be the first team in the last eight years to repeat in the highly pampered ecosystem known as the NBA.

IT’S TOUGH TO REPEAT, BUT PATRICK MAHOMES AND TAYLOR SWIFT”S BOYFRIEND DID IT. KD AND STEPH DID IT. THE FLORIDA PANTHERS DID IT.

Anotherwords, in closing to the some of the Thunder players…please toughen up and play like Shai, J-Will, Lu Dort, Kenrich, Cason, and even the rook Barnhizer.

To win championships in team sports you have to be COLLECTIVELY SMART AND TOUGH. That’s what Sam Presti was trying to say way back in August if you were really listening.

We just all have to realize at some point…who’s running this Thunder ship, right?

Best wishes.

Mike J

If I’m Adam Silver right now…I’m not sure what to do with my defending champ OKC Thunder after Wednesday night’s much anticipated matchup of the respective No. 1 seeds in each conference as they squared off in a ESPN national telecast.

We’ve seen this bullshit before where the Thunder are scheduled to play a nationally significant game on ESPN with eight DNPs in San Antonio earlier this month. That game as well should have been a blockbuster must see for any real NBA fan in this country or the world for that matter.

Not to be though as eight DNPs couldn’t strap it on that night, and seven Thunder rotational players couldn’t muster the toughness to play on the second night of a back to back last in Detroit. Add to the fact…Isaiah Joe and Brandon Carlson didn’t come back for the second half.

7+2 is 9.

Are you kidding me?

Especially disappointing for me was both of OKC’s top two centers in Chet and Isaiah Hartenstien were DNPs after they both played the night before in Toronto. One would have thought one of the two could have rested in Toronto and been available for this mtachup with Cade Cunningham and Jalen Duren.

Chet, Isaiah….don’t be scared. The zebras won’t let JD hurt you. You can talk to MJ if it would help.

This game ostensibly had two of the top four MVP candidates possible as well in Shai and Cade. But not to be in the tanking and load management world of uber tankmaster Sam Hinkie Presti. Not to be.

Once Vegas saw this bullshit they posted Detroit as 9.5 home favorite in a game which should have been a pick ’em even without Shai if only some of his rotational teammates had bothered to give a shit about the image of the game, and more importantly to the point… the rapid devolving image of the regular season legitimacy of the NBA regular season.

Just so you sitting Thunder dudes know, the reason you’re paid these obscene amounts of money for playing a game…is the fact television and streaming revenue play a major role in you guys being grotesquely overpaid mega-millionaires.

Maybe Sam Presti, Clay Bennett, and you dudes should be a teacher for a year, or maybe a police officer, or maybe a nurse, or maybe a fireman, or maybe a self-employed person who works sixty hours a week so they can have heaith-care insurance. You know just to get a feel as to what real people who actually do something of real human value in society make ends meet.

Now…I am aware the guys on the floor the second half for OKC played their asses off and kept this somewhat respectable especially after Piston Coach Bernie Bicketstaff pulled off his Big Dog Jalen Duren.

So here’s what I’m going to do instead of wasting my time on any sort of recap whatsover….I’m going to bow down to Cason Wallace, Lu Dort, J-Will, Kenrich, Aaron Wiggins, Barnhizer, and Nikola T for playing as hard as you did for the full forty-eight minutes. Bravo…to you guys.

As far as Chet and Isaiah Hartenstein…I don’t know what to say. Words would be wasted at this point on my underground blog.

As as far as the defending champ Florida Gators…they improved to 22-7, 13-2 in SEC last night in Austin, Texas and are one of the hottest teams in the country currenty. Their coach, Todd Golden, and his returning players from last season seem to understand what it means to be the defending champs.

I can’t go any furthur. My disgust is consuming me. But in closing…if I were Adam Silver..I’d be fining the OKC Thunder at this point for the nonsense we’ve seen in San Antonio and Detroit of late by the OKC Thunder.

Mike J

What an interesting night in Toronto from an NBA standpoint. The Raptors are a decent team to the extent I had them at No. 11 on my All-Star break Power Poll. They’re not horrible. They’re not winning the NBA championship either, but they’re not horrible.

No Shai. No JDub. No Ajay. Not much from allleged ‘max’ player Chet Holmgren in one of his ‘passive-submissive mode’ nights as well. But it just didn’t matter.

You know why it didn’t matter?

Because Cason Wallace, Isaiah Joe, and Alex Caruso evidently are big-time Team USA hockey fans like me and were still glowing from the double gold medal swagger mojo from both of our hockey teams beating Team Canada twice while at the same time trying to help our sissified dysfuntional country ‘somewhat’ come to terms with itself.

I didn’t watch much of the State of the Union. I didn’t need to. I knew what Trump was going to do. But I did see the part where Team USA entered the building to raccous applause from both sides of the aisle. From what I undertsand it was the only time all night both parties stood united for our country. That’s what I meant when I wrote, “Sport is always a thread which bonds our country despite our differences.”

Before I get back to the NBA game…I would also add Cason, Alex, and even Isaiah played in Toronto with the gusto and toughness of hockey players versus the current soft prima donna sterotype of today’s NBA players. Cason and Alex have always been tough, but until this season not so much Isaiah.

But let me highlight this thought with a single paragraph on Isaiah Joe’s transformation as a hockey player this season…he’s worked his tail off and become a real two-zone player who can do more than just shoot the ball. He’s no longer a pylon liability on defense. He’s turned himself into a basketball player I believe who now has the toughness of a hockey player. That would be the highest compliment a Thunder player could get from me here on the blog.

My Three Stars of the Game went in this order…1 Cason, 2 Isaiah, and 3 Alex.

Cason’s line went… 27 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists. Isaiah had a 19 point third period as his recent heater shooting the basketball continued when he wasn’t playing defense and bringing the ball upcourt. Caruso went a team best +22 with 16 points.

Big game tonight in Detroit which used to be called Hockey Town USA back when the Red Wings were King of the Hockey Mountain. Both Cade Cunningham’s Pistons and the Thunder stand atop the NBA standings with 14 losses apiece in the loss column.

But it’s not just Cade, the Pistons have a big named Jalen Duran who will eat Chet Holmgren for lunch if Chet plays with the same softness he displayed in Toronto last night. Jalen will order a side of fries and literally eat Chet for lunch if he doesn’t bring his game inside the building tonight in Detroit.

Yeah, that’s me doing what Coach Mark should be doing. Sam Presti…you can thank me when all this repeat season is over, buddy. Somebody has to do it, right?

Enjoy the game tonight, Thunder fans.

Mike J

My feelings on Donald Trump have always been crystal clear on this blog. Nothing in that regard has changed minus the fact I just ignore him as I should have done before-hand.

But I have to note this on the blog…if you were still paying close attention to the television after the medal ceremony and after the national anthem…you would have discerned Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird’ rocking the arena in Milan.

Holy shit!!!!!

Free Bird along with Stairway to Heaven are the two rock songs which defined my youth. I mean….Holy f—king Shit!!!

So if there was any doubt…if this Team USA or the 1980 Team USA is my favorite team at this point it is…. 2026 Team USA, baby!!!!

F–k yeah and God Bless America and don’t take yourselves so seriously tonight during the State of the Union which I won’t be watching.

God bless, America.

Mike J

Let me tell you people something…you have no idea the journey it took these young women, these young men, and their families to have these moments in Milan.

The path to becoming a hockey player at this level is an amazing journey not only for the players, but for their families.

The cold mornings in the rinks at early hours.

The missed events other kids are participating in during school years.

The travel.

The hurt and setbacks.

The amazing dedication it takes for kids in America to get to this level in this sport is truly beyond challenging.

When I was watching Robert this weekend in Denver as a six year-old the thoughts of my son Chris at that age overtook me. The evolution of the hockey player is both physically and mentally amazing.

It is a journey which requires a passion beyond description.

Every young person on both of these Team USAs’ grew up watching Miracle. Every one of them I can assure you has this scene screared into their hockey souls. I’m a sixty-nine year-old man with Stage 4 cancer and it still gives me a rush watching this scene. It’s a scene about being an American. It’s a scene about dreaming big and then going out with a group around you… you’ve come to love as teammates and getting it done.

It’s what we should be as Americans instead of all the bullshit petty cultural nonsense which seems to obsess us as a nation daily.

Jack Hughes and Megan Keller and to all of your teammates…thank you and God Bless America for it is one of the truly great things about sport in that it reminds us we are all Americans and despite the issues we face as a country today this is still the best country in the world in which to live.

Mike J