This is when you have to be very careful being an underground blogger. You don’t want to knee jerk or overreact. Which of course is easy for me since I proclaimed this a season which never was before Game No. 80 in Houston.
But still, there’s the human part inside all of us and we hope our sports teams can find some heart inside of themselves from time to time and do semi-miraculous things.
Then again, there are those other times you have to look reality square in the eye and hold truth to power.
The truth being here is that the Thunder have no idea what they’re doing in this series against a very well coached Utah Jazz team which in reality doesn’t have as much talent on paper as the Thunder do.
It matters not who guards Donovan Mitchell in this series. I was wrong on that count. It’s not that simple.
How do you say this and not sound cruel?
I’ll try. Russell Westbrook was absolutely brutal on Saturday night in this pivotal Game 3. Just absolutely brutal. There–I said it.
Oklahoma City got nothing on either side of the ball from Russell Westbrook in this basketball game. And truth to power be known, for the second straight game the Thunder got little of nothing from Steven Adams as well.
Carmelo was actually not horrible. Paul George struggled a bit with his shot, but kept the Thunder in the game somewhat. Ray Felton was still a bulldog and Pat Patterson had some decent minutes.
But here’s what you can’t duck or pretend didn’t happen– that being, Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams didn’t show up for the Thunder on Saturday night in Salt Lake.
Now–John Stockton did because I saw him on the ESPN shot without his spirit T-shirt on I might add…cheering for the Jazz. That was cool.
But nowhere to be seen were two parties previously known as Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams. Bad Little Dude and the Big Mate were nowhere to be seen on the season’s most important night.
Go figure.
And here’s another thing..it wasn’t three point shooting which torpedoed the Thunder as they went 14-28 from beyond the arc. Nor was it free throw shooting which derailed the Thunder as the Jazz themselves were awful from the line going 18-27 (67%).
And I don’t think it’s fair on this one to blame Billy Donovan for coaching nuance because there wasn’t anything for him to coach in that Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams were evidently not in the building on Saturday night.
Rickey Rubio had a career night of sorts triple doubling the master or regular season triple doubling…Russell Westbrook.
You could also point out Joe Engles came alive scoring 21 points or that Donovan Mitchell slogged thru a pedestrian night with 22 points of his own.
But this night belonged to Rickey Rubio, Quin Snyder, and the memory of John Stockton.
In sports and in life…heart is a simple thing. It really is when you pause and give it thought.
The inches we fight for every day in our lives. Those inches matter. They really do.
But you have to fight for those inches and Billy Donovan has a basketball team which on more nights than not–doesn’t fight for those inches.
Game 4 in Salt Lake on Monday night.