Month: May 2025

What a story for Sam Presti’s Thunder.

I wonder what the other Sam is doing this morning. The other Sam being Anderson from the NY Times who wrote the national bestseller Boomtown. I wonder if he like MJ this morning is taking all this in with a cup of early morning coffee as the Thunder are literally on the cusp of making their return to the NBA Finals.

I wonder if someone should write Boomtown II or something of the like? Just a thought.

To think it wasn’t that long ago the Thunder had back to back 22 and 24 win seasons during the draconian depths of Presti’s death march to rebuild the franchise from the lofty heights of playing in the 2012 NBA Finals opposite LeBron and Dewayne Wade.

There was the gut punch exit of Kevin Durant to the Warriors after the Thunder blew a 3-1 series lead in that epic meltdown in Game 6 at home.

There was the creation of the triple-double monster Sam Presti created in Russell Westbrook. There was the acquisition of Paul George from the very same Indiana Pacers who the Thunder might very well play in the upcoming NBA Finals.

Then there was Paul George requesting a trade when it was apparent the Westbrook-Paul George combination never really clicked or produced a first round series advance to the second round. Then there was the agreement between Presti and Westbrook that Russell would leave the Thunder and become a Houston Rocket alongside his former teammate James Harden.

And out of those moves came Shai to Oklahoma City from the LA Clippers where he had a very solid rookie season and grabbed the notice of NBA coaches and general managers for his quiet, steady play.

Then there was the one season return of Chris Paul to the Thunder to in essence be a mentor for Shai and his development. And that team of all things played Harden and Westbrook’s Rockets in the Bubble Playoffs and went to a Game 7 loss in the first round to the Rockets.

Irony of all ironies it wasn’t Chris Paul or Shai who scored a game high 37 points in Game 7 to keep the Thunder in the game. Nope. It was his Canadian buddy, Lu Dort the defensive savant who dropped 37 in that game as Shai pretty much struggled in that series. Go figure.

Then of course…came the tanking and the rebuild. The 71 point road loss to the Memphis Grizzlies being the symbolic nadir of the process of losing by design to someday return to NBA relevance much the same as Presti had done in Seattle.

In my mind during all of this premeditated losing was the parallel thought of the Timothy Robbins character in Shawshuck Redemption crawling through all that sewage shit to escape from prison to experience the blue skies of freedom on the Mexican Pacific coastto fix a boat and his reunite with his buddy Morgan Freeman.

So here we are this morning waiting for the story to complete its arc with the Thunder most likely winning Game 5 tonight to return to the NBA Finals. Only this time around…the Thunder will be if not a prohibitive favorite to beat either Indiana or the NY Knicks in the final round…but at the minimum a solid favorite to win the series in either five or six games.

And to boot…we as NBA fans get to see perhaps this final page of Shai and Nickeil’s battle for family bragging rights. I thought Nickeil was the No. 1 Star for the TWolves in Game 4. He was awesome. Some more help from Anthony Edwards would be nice though.

If Nickeil has 37 points in his pocket like Lu Dort did in Game 7 versus the Rockets… perhaps this game could be interesting. But the more likely scenario is Minnesota will continue to turn over the ball at a unsustainable volume and their season with a loss to the Thunder tonight inside of the Pay.Com Arena.

Add to that…thunderstorms are supposed to arrive in OKC tonight from the west sometime during or after the game. Could anyone have written this up any better?

Enjoy the game tonight, Oklahoma. Take the time to consider the enormity of this NBA journey you’ve had the privilege of witnessing firsthand.

Mike J

Hopefully…if you’ve been reading the pre-eminent Thunder underground blog in this market…you know precisely what the numbers allude to in my postgame formula analysis of the Thunder’s dramatic, thrilling Game 4 road win over the TWolves on Monday night.

I would blog at this juncture to date last night was the biggest win in the Thunder era in Oklahoma City minus perhaps the Game 6 home win over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 6 at home.

But in the end…I would always lean to the road wins in Game 4 versus both the Denver Nuggets and these Minnesota TWolves as the best wins in Thunder history. Perhaps…several wins over the Zac Randolph, Marc Gasol, and Tony Allen Memphis Grizzlies would rank in my Top 5 Thunder post-season win list.

But I’ll write this…the AT&T Boys comng down the stretch in those last six minutes were stellar. Absolutely stellar on the offensive end of the court. I would think there’s some smilng faces in the AT&T marketing department today. They got it right…JDub and Chet rose to the occasion.

My Three Stars of the Game go in this order…1 JDub, 2 Shai, and 3 Chet.

Why JDub over Shai?

Because everyone, including MJ, pretty much knew Batman would show up in this game. Robin…we weren’t so sure about in the biggest road game of his NBA career. I loved the manner in which JDub carried the early game scoring burden before Shai got going and settled in with his offensive game…and of course Shai had 12 free throws, and was seemingly down on the floor every other Thunder possession with Little Nick Gallo running out onto the court with a chilled towel to dab Shai through the fatigue.

My numbers atop this postgame narrative go like this:

1 40-Shai’s point production

2 34-JDub’s point output

3 21-Chet’s total points

4 95-combined points from the Big 3

5 18-Thunder offensive rebounds

6 26- Minnesota turnovers

But most of all circle the 26 Minnesota turnovers. Before Game 1 was played… I introduced the number 14 as my barrier line of where the TWolves could not exceed if they expected to win games in this series.

Guess what game the Wolves stayed below that marker? Game 3 of course when they limited their turnovers to 10 and ran the Thunder off the court.

I watched Coach Finch’s postgame presser and I’m not going to post it on here today because it’s redundant.

I’ll just be blunt instead to the Minnesota TWolves…teams which are careless with the ball this time of the season and play loosely with the ball…usually don’t advance to the Finals.

So..I would write this for Coach Finch as well…if you guys don’t want Game 5 to be your last game of this post-season…I would highly suggest you take care of the ball and not exceed that 14 marker if you want to have any chance whatsover on Wednesday night.

All the complex math above made me think of one of my favorite songs of all-time. Hopefully…all this math puts me in a better metrics place with the millenial minimalists and Gen X’ers.

Mike J

It’s getting ready to thunderstorm out here at the mini-ranch in Deer Creek. I’m telling you people…there’s something to these thunderstorms on critical Game 4 wins for this Thunder team.

I have a big morning tomorrow at the Integris Cancer Center…so I clearly want to give this huge Thunder win an excellent recap along with what I think the Thunder will do in Game 5 on Wednesday night inside of the Pay.Com Arena.

The AT&T Boys were special tonight. 95 points combined by the Big 3 in the most important game of their NBA careers to date.

You diehard Thunder fans should savor this one for quite a awhile…like forever. Because it was special what these guys did tonight.

I need to go to bed for right now for my big morning. I can hear the thunder beginning to rumble in from the west.

Mike J

To me…tonight’s Game 4 in Minnesota could very well be the defining game in this series. We as passionate NBA fans have yet to see a close, competitive game in this series go to the buzzer. All three have been blowouts despite the TWolves actually playing fairly well in the first halves in their two losses at Oklahoma City…minus the last minute of each first half.

Everyone was calling for this series to be a knife fight of sorts. But as we all saw in OKC there was no knife fight because the zebras coddled and protected Shai to the tune of 14.5 free throw attempts in both of those games. And that’s exactly why the Minnesota fans greeted Shai with a chorus of boos every time he touched the ball on Friday night.

That’s precisely why they followed Doris Burke’s cue and began chanting, “Free Throw Merchant”, every time Shai toed the line in Game 4.

Maybe that’s why the whistle happy zebras from Games 1 & 2 never materialized in Minnesota as Shai suddenly only had 4 free throw attempts in the Thunder blowout road loss. Or maybe Batman and Robin just played soft.

Remember …Michael only averaged 8.2 free attempts per game in his career. Kobe only averaged 7.4 PGFTAs.

But with that dynamic in place one would expect the Thunder themselves to be physical with Anthony Edwards. It never happened. So what happened to the Thunder’s historic defense in Game 3?

What happened was two-fold…OKC got hammered on the boards by a 51-32 count, and they only created 10 turnovers of which only several led to Thunder live ball points in the first half.

Game 4, here we are. So… ya’ll Oklahoma City Thunder fans think the TWolve fans are just going to let that angst for Shai’s getting to the free throw line 29 times in OKC go away because of the blowout win on Friday night be the Game 4 narrative?

I wouldn’t think so. I would think if anything the TWolve fans try to turn it up a notch if the Thunder come out flat as they did in Game 3.

Let’s be blunt on here now….just this past week Shai won the regular season MVP, while JDub made the All-NBA Team for the first time in his career.

Sam Presti and Clay Bennett are getting ready to pay both Batman and Robin A LOT of Oklahoma pecos. I mean… a bunch of money. And then they’ll have to decide Chet’s ultimate value…or should I say the NBA market itself will determine Chet’s injury prone value after three years in the league.

So if I’m the Thunder…I would think all the urgency and desperation which was nowhere to be seen in Game 3 in Minny might manifest itself tonight in Game 4. The NY Knicks sure showed some desperation and guts last night in Game 3 in Indy. Kudos to KAT and the other guys. That was awesome.

I picked the Thunder this series to win in either six or seven tough games. I thought it would be a knife-fight. I thought in the end..Batman and Robin would be the difference because Minny doesn’t really have a Robin or two.

Two weeks ago in Denver…the Thunder in essence won that Game 4 to save their season by rallying in the fourth period to even the series at 2-2. That was the game when the mystery thunderstorm suddenly emerged in Denver just as the game finished and my son called me to tell me as much. I call it the Denver Thunderstorm Mojo game.

Some Thunder mojo is needed tonight in Minny.

These are the type of mental aspects I love about NBA Playoff basketball. The back and forth…the ebb and flow of human emotion and frailty. Caruso challenging these guys in the shoot around today. Reminding them that NBA rings aren’t just given to you by your adoring fanbase.

Hope everyone in the NBA family enjoys the game tonight.

Mike J

That was a serious Game 3 beatdown… which in essence was an elimination game for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I’m not shocked they won, but I’m semi-aghast at how good the Twolves looked or how bad the Thunder got whipped in every facet of the game.

For those of us who aren’t novice level NBA followers, like most of the Thunder fanbase…it’s not all that complex if you follow the right Thunder blog and don’t allow yourself to be homered to death by the Little Nick Gallos, the Michael Cages, and the Royce Youngs of the Thunder homer mill. I’m not on anybody’s payroll. I do this this because I have a genuine passion for NBA basketball as a whole, and not just for the Thunder.

I’ve always kept my promise in that regard… I blog the objective NBA basketball truth on this blog. I at times may shamelessly troll you a bit if you act stupid enough to deserve such treatment, but in the end…I’ll write the truth on the Underground.

This was only one game. A home game. But here’s the thing neither team in this series has yet to lose a home game. Heading into Game 4 in Minnesota on Monday night in my mind if the Wolves take care of business…this series is basically up for grabs hypothetically speaking.

The pressure is still clearly on the TWolves backs for Game 4, but if they win then all the pressure shifts to the Thunder in what would be a pivotal Game 5. OKC would at that point want no part of their own Game 6 elimination game in Minny.

How did this monmental shift take place on Saturday night?

1 For one thing…the Wolves only turned the ball over 10 times in this game and only had two live ball turnovers in the first half. OKC lives on live ball turnovers. It is the gas which fuels their Nolan Richardson super-turbo engine. They thrive on odd man rushes like a hockey team. If you take this aspect of their game away from them and make them straight up beat you with the three-ball…they’re beatable by teams who are defensively solid.

2 Shai only had four free throw attempts in this road game. That’s 10 less free throws just by Shai than he averaged in the first two Thunder wins. For the most part..I love the other parts of Shai’s game, but all the faking, flopping, and falling to get to the free-line diminishes his reputation. Every other fanbase is going to start doing what the TWolve fans did on Saturday night and start chanting ‘Free Throw Merchant’. when he’s on the line.

Shai…please take this advice from MJ….enough of the faking, flopping and falling to get to the line. Michael and Kobe never faked to this degree. If you keep it up…you’re going to look in the mirror one day and see James Harden looking back at you. Take that as you may.

3 Minnesota lit it up hitting the open threes which Coach Finch alluded to in the first two games- postgame pressers. The looks for the most part have been open in this series, difference in this game was the Wolves were a blistering hot 20-40 beyond the arc, while the Thunder were a pedestrian 14-44.

4 The rookie from Illinois…Mr. Shannon’s 15 points were a spark off of a TWolves’ bench which scored an unthinkable 66 bench points in this game. Think back to Denver’s bench production the round previous. Nikola would be in disbelief of such bench support.

5 Both Julius Randle and the human basketball slug Rudy Gobert were much better in this game after being bench in the second half of Game 2. Julius is not a slug, but the way he played in Game 3 is the way he needs to play the remainder of the series for Minny.

6 The angry Minnesota crowd was what you want from your fans. They were clearly angry with all the preferrential treatment Shai received in the first two games in OKC.

Let’s not overthink this though. Playoff basketball is not getting too high or too low. It’s adjusting on the fly and emotionally reacting to a wide range of human competitve emotions.

One last thing…Shai was a -36 in this game, while AE was +3 ….

7 Your star has to play like Batman…not Batgirl–and your team can’t can’t get outboarded 51-32. Just sayin’

MJ is ready for Game 4 and congrats to Patti Gasso’s Sooners for their 9th straight advance to the College World Series.

Mike J

Do I think Shai gets some serious home cooking inside of the Pay.Com Arena?

Yes, I do, but that’s not the reason Minnesota is down 2-0 back home hoping they can win Game 3 in what should be a more friendly zebra arena where Shai won’t be on the line every time he’s bumped or slightly jostled.

The reason the TWolves are down 2-0 in this series is because they have not been able to control their live ball turnovers, and the fact they’ve at times really played some stupid basketball in this series. The manner in which Minnesota has ended the first halves in both of the games in OKC is a clinic on HOW NOT TO FINISH A HALF ON THE ROAD.

Stupid teams are like dogs who play in the street… in that you don’t see them around very long. Plus, of course the pylon-slug Rody Gobert did virtually nothing in either of the first two games in OKC. How he scored 27 points in a game versus the Lakers is still beyond me.

Of course..in OKC with the Thunder in their building you know run fueled live ball turnovers are coming…so you as a team and a coaching staff have to better react when the Thunder are in one of their Forty Minutes of Hell runs in the second half or whenever during the 48 minutes of play.

OKC plays like a college team. This is not standard NBA Playoff basketball. This is Jerry Tarkaninan-Nolan Richardson hoops. Without the live ball turnovers the Thunder can literally offensively stall at times if you force them to beat you from behind the arc. But if you’re fueling a run of Thunder 2 on 1 layups via turnovers…you have little chance of beating these guys once…let’s alone four times.

If we see an OKC-Indiana Finals…we’re going to something very different as far as NBA Finals pace. Because Indiana in my my mind is the team in the league best suited to run with the Thunder, plus the Pacers like the Thunder have impressive length and athleticism on their roster.

But back to Shai’s 29 free throw attempts in the first two games in OKC. This means in the irst two games Shai has been on the line 14.5 times a game, while Anthony Edwards has been on the line 17 times for an average of 8.5 attempts in the two games.

So I looked up a few players and here’s what I found:

Michael Jordan over his career averaged 8.2 free throw attempts per game.

Kobe over his career averaged 7.4 free throw attempts per game.

Larry Bird over his career averaged 4.4 free throw attempts per game.

So…to Jaden McDaniels comment on the push in the back to Shai,”I wanted to at least get called for a foul when I fouled him.”

I don’t disagree with that assessment, but you guys gotta be smarter as a group if you don’t want this series to not end in four or five games.

Hope we see better games in Minnesota on Saturday and Monday.

Mike J

What a beautiful acceptance speech!

You know…I love chick flicks. My wife of 45 years pretty much hates sports and the chick flick movies are the part of me she has instilled in me between all of the never ending parade of sporting events of which I have ever participated in or watched or blogged about in my life.

If I was a player on Jeopardy and saw the category Chick Flicks…MJ’s eyes would expand and then I’d run the category. Swear to God.

See what I mean?

Shai’s speech beyond the stats of Paris’s presentation genuinely teared up this older man. Absolutely made me pause and think to myself..”What a lovely man Shai’s better half has shaped through her presence and steady influence in his life.”

Some guys go their entire life and don’t figure out what Shai has already realized in his still young life.

As is well documented on this blog, I’ve cried quite a bit to myself out of joy during the cancer journey and this made me cry in a very good way. This was a joyous cry.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander made me cry. He made me remember the first time I realized I had fallen in love with my wife.

Thasnk you, Shai.

Congratulations, Mike J

In defense of the Minnesota Timberwolves very low energy loss in Game 1 of these WCF’s…like me—they seem to be confused as to what constitutes a foul in games played inside the Pay.Com Arena in Oklahoma City.

I’m completely objective in this series because neither one of these teams are where my basketball heart resides, but, man …on Sunday the Thunder were allowed to tackle and urinate on Nikola Jokic, while in this Game 1 of these WCF’s Rudy Gobert, the interior defensive stalwart of the Wolves, found himself bench-ridden 1:48 into the game with the tickiest-tack foul second foul one could imagine in what never turned into a knife fight.

Now…let be clear here on the blog…the officiating wasn’t the reason Minnesota shot 15-51 from beyond the arc or the reason OKC turned 19 Wolve turnovers into 31 points. No…in no way did Minnesota perform at a level in the second half which would warrant them winning this game. That’s not where I’m going with this.

Where I’m going with this is the zebras the remainder of these NBA playoffs don’t need to treat Shai and the other Thunder players as if they’re pristine little glass figurines out there. Call it the same as far as physicality allowed…call it both ways so we as NBA fans are allowed to see real playoff basketball on both ends of the floor for both teams.

ALLOW THE WOLVES TO DEFEND AT THE SAME LEVEL YOU ALLOW ALEX CARUSO TO DEFEND.. I love physicality. I love watching basketball knife fights here and there. MJ loved the Detroit Piston Badboys.

Shai’s mommy isn’t going to come out of the bleachers from the Edmond soccer field bleachers and attack you zebras if her little baby gets bumped into now and again. I mean, Doris Burke, on the telecast said it best when she said,”This is why Shai is called the Free Throw Merchant in NBA circles.”

But enough of that. The Thunder did enough in the second half to easily pull away down the stretch and gain a 1-0 advantage in this series. I thought Shai was good in the second half after a poor first half. JDub and Chet supported Shai’s 10-27 night with some solid play in the second half. So..I guess the three AT&T guys are my 1-2-3 Stars of the Game.

Kenrich Williams did very nice things for Coach Mark in the second half of this game with 9 points and a +19 rating in ten minutes of action. Plus, he seemed to slow Julius Randle down a bit. I love Kenrich. I wish he was a Denver Nugget. I pleaded with the Nuggets’ front office to see if they could acquire Kenrich at the trade deadline, but to no avail. Kenrich gets my 4th Star of the Game. Maybe now…the Nugget front office will follow some of my advice.

Game 2 on Thursday night inside of the Pay.Com Day Care Pre-K facility where we don’t allow touching or overly agressive children wearing non-Thunder apparel to participate in recess.

Anthony Edwards and his buds need to step up and play much better if they want this to become a compelling WCF which goes beyond four or five games.

Have a beautiful day.

Mike J

I’m amped and ready to see what should be an extremely physical Western Conference Finals between the Thunder and Minnesota TWolves. 7.5 seems about right considering the Nuggets were 10 to11.5 point road dogs in their four games inside of the Pay.Com Arena. And if you’d taken the points in those four collective games with Jokic you would have gone 2-2. So there’s that.

I feel for the referees in this series because in a sense the Minnesota TWolves are a mirror reflection of the Thunder as far as their defensive intensity. Though Minnesota is a more traditional NBA defensive team in the sense their offense doesn’t live and die in transition with the live ball turnovers.

To me..tonight in the first 16 minutes or so we’re going to see what the NBA officials are going to allow Alex Caruso to get away with as far as his hands being all over Anthony Edwards or Julius Randle or whoever Coach Mark has his doberman guard.

BTW…if Coach Mark guides his team to the NBA Finals..I’ll start referring to him as Coach D here on the Underground because at that point in my mind he will have traversed the canyon from being a developmental coach over there at the Little Girls U8 girls soccer field on Danforth Rd in Edmond to an NBA championship coach. I’ve told you MJ haters on here on my private mailbox…I’m a Libra and at the end of the day I’m always fair-minded no matter if I have to correct an intial narrative. If the Thunder don’t win this series however…he’ll still be Coach Mark on the only honest Thunder blog in Oklahoma.

If I’m Coach Mark here’s what I’m saying to my team…do not allow these guys the chance to breathe. They do not thrive at our pace. Turn up the pace. Everytime Anthony Edwards even thinks he’s going to touch the ball get inside of his space and time just like Caruso did with Nikola in Game 7… until the refs do not allow you to tackle him. Make Julius Randle, Naz Reed, Jaden McDaniels, Mike Conley, Donte, the slug Rudy Gobert, and Alexander-Walker beat us. Get inside of Anthony Edwards’ head and stay there this entire series.

Plus, everytime the ancient Mike Conley brings the ball up court I want us to trap his old ass and make him look like Russell Westbrook did in Game 7. That being, like someone who should be reminded he’s an old guy trying to hang with you young thoroughbreds and should probably consider this his last run.

Conversely..if I’m Coach Chris Finch I’m telling my team if they turn the ball over more than 14 times tonight there’s a fairly strong liklihood they’re going to be 0-1 heading into Game 2. Take care of the ball and make these guys run half court offense with Rudy Gobert taking the rim away from Shai’s toolbox in this series. Make the other Thunder players beat you shooting threes and see what happens. Throw some zone at them as well. Mix it up.

I’m thinking it will be a tough six or seven game series. Kind of like those old battles the Thunder had with the Memphis Grizzlies when they had Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, and the then young MIKE CONLEY.

Defense and an iron will win championships. I said it in my Game 7 pre-game breakdown and nothing has changed, nor will it through the course of these NBA Playoffs. Defense wins NBA championships as it does in the NFL and NHL as well.

No space. No time. No shelter. No nothing.

Good luck to both teams tonight in Game 1. Give us a good show.

Mike J

First off, congratulations to the OKC Thunder for advancing to their first Western Conference Final since 2016. This win is not only the biggest win for the franchise since that fateful June of ’16…I would say it is the biggest win in the Thunder era in Oklahoma City to ‘date’.

If the Thunder had lost this game…I shudder to think how the Thunder fanbase and the Jim Traber callers would have reacted. It would have been semi-ugly that’s for certain. But instead–the Thunder now stand as the only No. 1 or No. 2 seed left standing in either of the conference finals.

What we as NBA fans have witnessed in these playoffs is virtually the changing of the guard in the NBA hierarchy. Left standing instead of LeBron, Steph, Kevin, Giannis, Jimmy Butler, Jayson, Nikola and even Luka are four younger teams—three of which play in small to medium sized markets.

The New York Knicks are the only team left in this year’s NBA Final Four which plays in a big city market. And consider what Michael Breen said during yesterday’s game when it became obvious the Nuggets had run out of gas and were done for this season: “This for the first time in NBA history marks the first time we will have a different champion in a consecutive seven year stretch.”

Anotherwords, what Mike Breen in my mind was saying is…”How hard it is in this collective bargaininng era to stay atop the league without going too deeply into the salary cap tax.” But this isn’t unique just to the NBA, ask the GMs in the NFL and the NHL as well. It’s tough to not only repeat, it’s tough to maintain the talent integrity of your first championship team.

Enter these Denver Nuggets who for the second straight year failed to get beyond the conference semi-finals do the fact they no longer have Bruce Brown, Ketavious-Caldwell Pope or Jeff Green.

The same narrative has befallen the Colorado Avalanche since their Stanley Cup season… as their fourth best player is now a member of the the Dallas Stars post-trade deadline and probably one of the leaders for this season’s Conn Smythe Trophy if the Stars advance beyond Edmonton to the Stanley Cup Finals.

What I’m saying is it’s tough to repeat…even for Patrick Mahomes when he doesn’t have affordable personnel around him.

But for these Thunder I would advise…THE FUTURE IS NOW. YOUR CHAMPIONSHIP WINDOW IS FULLY OPEN AS IT MIGHT NEVER BE AGAIN. Sam Presti will have to max JDub and Chet…and from that point forward the roster will change accordingly. The luxury of going 12-deep will not be there. Tough decisions will have to be made to keep the top four core intact.

So again from this objective view..THIS CHAMPIONSHIP WINDOW MAY NEVER BE AS OPEN AS IT IS RIGHT NOW. Go grab it is what MJ is saying. This should be your championship season…take what should be yours and have no regrets. Follow that 68-win season with an NBA championship and have a parade.

Eight more wins to claim a championship is where these Thunder are…and the next eight wins will be even tougher than the eight we have just witnessed. But from where I sit…I would say Sam Presti pushed just the right off season buttons in making this team a serious NBA championship contender, and now the favorite with the four teams we have left standing.

My Three Stars from Game 7 were in this order: 1 Alex Caruso, 2 Shai, and 3 a tie for me between Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon (for playing as well as he did).

No star for JDUB. He basically made a bunch of layups created off of the many turnovers created by Caruso and others. What I’m doing right now is openly challenging JDub…”Dude–it’s great you finally showed up in this series as Shai’s Robin, but to win a championship…Batman will need Robin more than once every 3.5 games. Challenge yourself.”

Some additional advice to the turnover prone Minnesota Timberwolves as well…”I’m for the Thunder from this point forward, but I want to see a compelling Western Conference Final to cover on my blog. So I’m giving you this salient scouting advice…if you turn the ball over 20 times or so and give these guys 37 live ball turnover points this will not be a compelling series.”

Anthony Edwards…this is when you either do or don’t show the world what the face of Team USA is going to look like in the coming future.

I’m sad the Nugget season is over obviously, but equally excited to see if the Thunder can win an NBA championship in Oklahoma City and have a parade. The White House visit part with that ‘person’ still makes me want to potentially puke though.

‘Taking whatever is mine.’ Tom Petty

Know what I mean, Thunder? Make Little Nick Gallo faint from joy. Talk about a dude who’s paid some dues. Carry him off into the sunset.

Sadly, Russell Westbrook was a Game 7 worst with a -34 rating. Maybe later today or tomorrow before the OKC-Minnesota series begins…I’ll blog on what I would do this off season to make the Nuggets championship contender next season. I only have one trade exit move and it’s the same move I would have made last summer after the Game 7 defeat to Minnesota. This does not need to be draconian at all.

Good luck, Thunder

Mike J