Welcome to OKCThunderGround!

Game 5 is tonight inside of PayCom Arena.

I am totally immersed in this series. I like and respect both teams. As was the case in the Denver vs. OKC series…at times I find myself conflicted and somewhat confused as to which team I utlimately want to win the championship.

But in the end it has to be the Thunder because of three guys.

Those same three guys who together crawled through the shit in that sewage tunnel from the Shawshank Prison of Tanking to this point where the Thunder are literally two wins away from the pinnacle of NBA excellence.

Those three guys are obviously…1 Shai, 2 Lu, and 3 Kenrich. My respect for these three young men is absolute at this point. What they have been the center of during this rebuild in Oklahoma City is a remarkable thing to witness during these cynical and at times jaded days we live in as American fans of sport.

But I must confess being that I posess the heart of a grinder myself…Nick Collison and Kenrich are probably my two favorite Thunder players in the Oklahoma NBA experience to date. Lu Dort is a very close third and might in fact cause MJ to expand this group to three players in the not to distant future.

Shai…I love you as well, but you’re a bigtime AT&T superstar–so I’m going to love more on the role players as we begin the best 2 of 3 tonight at PayCom.

Kenrich…here would be the dream for MJ as far your NBA future. I hope you win your ring and then Sam Presti trades you to the Denver Nuggets where you win your second ring next season.

BTW…during a Zoom call yesterday… my 5 year-old grandson confessed to me that even though he’s currently wearing an Alex Caruso jersey… like me–his NBA heart is still with Nikola, Jamal, Aaron, and Christian.

So…buddy, get your ring and then maybe, hopefully… I’ll run into you and your family someday walking around Washington Park even though I’m neither lit, nor woke.

Hope is a wonderful thing, trust me on that one.

Good Luck, Kenrich.

Mike J

What a beautiful ending for fathers all over America as JJ Spaun capped his improbable back nine comeback to win the 125th U.S. Open at Oakmont with your basic 64-foot walkoff tournament winner.

Of course…MJ cried like a baby. But that can’t be a shock.

Now to address all of my crying. I read Scott Turow’s current bestselling novel last week. The book is Presumed Guilty and it has been the long awaited closure novel to Presume Innocent.

The story is about this seventy-something year-old lawyer who was a prosecutor, a judge, and then a defense lawyer at the end of his career. And this wonderfully told story centers around the Rusty Sabich character reluctantly taking on the defense of his fiance’s son murder case.

It’s a great story masterfully crafted by Scott Turow.

But like I was saying last week after the French Open…sports are a microcosm of life. If you just don’t give up and keep plugging away…good things eventually turn your way.

There is a passage in the book where the Rusty Sabich character says, “They say your strength declines as you age, and that includes your emotional wherewithal. Old men weep when young men act like stones.”

Yeah, that’s where I’m at right now. You know… at this part of the journey… life does this to you. You stop and notice things you glossed over when you were younger. You pause and take the time to smell the roses.

Anyway, congrats to JJ Spaun and family. That was awesome.

Mike J

You gotta figure at some point this storming after a pivotal Thunder win this ‘storming’has some sort of super-natural merit to it. It’s pouring at the Deer Creek mini-ranch as I sit on the back porch looking into the abyss of nature and greenery.

Plus…you have to take into consideration the Hall of Fame Oklahoma weatherman, Gary England, passed this week at the age of 85. The same Gary England who was featured prominently in Sam Anderson’s book Boom Town. There could in fact be some double mojo working on this Thunder victory storm.

This is how MJ’s Three Favorite Weathermen of All-Time would go in this order…1 Gary England, 2 Willard Scott-NBC, and 3 Jimmy Cantore of the Weather Channel. Gary England was a gentleman, a pioneer, and a wonderful human being.

Either way…MJ doesn’t feel like playing Dreams again unless the Thunder have made it certain there’s going to be a parade in downtown Oklahoma City.

And unlike the bulbous Chuck Barkley, this MJ isn’t declaring a winner until one of these teams has four wins next to their name and Adam Silver is handing the O’Brien Trophy to either Shai or Siakam with confetti falling from the rafters.

A song would be nice though to take the edge off last night since as a still living Stage 4 cancer survivor I believe Dr. Showalter has told me he will kill me before the Stage 4 cancer if he finds out I’ve smoked a victory cigar or downed a real beer. Dr. S has a stare-down for certain.

So, yeah, here’s a Saturday morning different Fleetwood Mac song in honor of both teams’ performance in these Finals to date.

Love and peace.

MJ

This MJ, not the real one, is exhausted. That was some epic shit in the fourth quarter last night as the OKC Thunder saved their hopes for an NBA championship by being clutch the last six minutes of what in essence was an elimination game for the Thunder had they lost.

If Indiana goes on to lose these Finals in either six or seven games they will look back on those final six minutes with acute regret for the rest of their collective basketball lives.

This game will need two recaps from me in that I feel this game was that important. You could say it was Denver-Game 4 deja vous all over again. But it wasn’t. It was more than that.

It was an NBA Finals performance from Shai and his teammates which ‘should’ forever remove the stench from the Thunder’s epic collapse versus the Warriors in Game 6 circa 2016.

It was that kind of fourth quarter for the Thunder, but all good instead of self-inflicted disaster.

Winning Time is when it matters in the NBA Playoffs and Shai put his guys on his back and carried his team to a 31-17 fourth quarter win. But even more daunting is the fact the Thunder outscored the Pacers 13-1 during the game’s final three minutes.

13-1 on the road in an ELIMINATION GAME….on the road. See Michael’s ’98 tongue wagging. Seriously.

Shai scored 15 of those Thunder points in the 4th quarter and was 8-8 from the line on close out free throws.

And he got some significant help from his two AT&T buddies, Alex Caruso, and his coach who finally pulled his head out of his ass and made the common sense changes which needed to be tweaked in this critical Game 4.

My Four Stars go like this…1 Shai, 2 JDub, 3 Alex Caruso, and 4 Chet.

This MJ is whipped. It’s starting to rain at the Deer Creek mini-ranch. I’m not playing that Fleetwood Mac song though. I need my sleep. I’ll do a more exhaustive recap later on the nuanced changes Mark Daigneault made which gave the Thunder a chance to win this Game 4.

That was epic. Don’t think it wasn’t.

MJ

This is the biggest game of the series as far as I’m concerned. Whoever wins this game emerges with homecourt leverage the rest of the Finals.

This is a potential moment for the OKC Thunder. This is one of those moments when you find out about yourself and your teammates.

What you collectively are about as a team.

This is one of those times just like in the Denver series. Except this Pacer team isn’t fractured, isn’t razor thin, and this team has one of the best coaches in this generation of the NBA with all due respect to David Adelman.

This is where we don’t expect either team to surrender. Where we expect the winner to have survived by playing smart, tough, physical NBA playoff basketball for 48 minutes.

48 MINUTES.

If Alex Caruso needs to be tackled and put on the floor with some malice intended…so be it. And the same would apply for the Thunder on their defensive end of the floor. There should not be ONE SINGLE UNCONTESTED LAYUP TONIGHT.

Not one.

Hopefully…we tonight as NBA fans get the same desperate type of urgency we witnessed last night in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

What a hockey game!

Urgent. Sustained. Desperation.

May the most deserving team emerge victorious tonight in Indy.

Mike J

Big, big game tonight in Game 4 from Indy. Perhaps a career defining game for Rick Carlisle as he ventures near the cusp of becoming the third NBA coach in my lifetime to win a championship with a team from both the East and the West.

The other two would be Pat Riley and Phil Jackson. And think about this…those guys won their first titles with Jerry Buss when the Lakers were the gold standard in the NBA versus the joke they’ve become of late. And consider those two had guys named Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Kobe Bryant, Magic, Shaq and Dwayne Wade helping them win championships in Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami.

Rick Carlisle had Dirk and Jason Kidd at the end of their careers with Dallas as the No. 6 seed in 2011. And here Rick Carlisle is again with an Indy team which was at one point five games under .500 this season and the eventual No. 4 seed in the East. And not to be disrespectful, but Tyrese Haliburton and Siakam aren’t exactly mentioned in the same breath as Steph, LeBron, or Tim Duncan either.

And BTW, Pop, Steve Kerr, and Eric Spoelstra have never done what Rick Carlisle might do if his Pacers find a way to win Game 4 tonight in Indy.

Tonight’s game in Indy overflows with NBA historical implications:

Can the Pacers slay that Thunder 12.9 differential which made the Thunder a prohibitive Vegas favorite?

Or could the narrative once again turn out to be Sam Presti once again brought a team to the NBA Finals, but again with a coach not perhaps worthy of riding Secretariat?

The potential narratives are enticing and palpable.

Does this guy remind anyone of a backup point guard named TJ McConnell?

Enjoy the game.

Mike J

Nobody wearing Thunder blue on Wednesday night in Game 3 of these NBA Finals in any way made MJ think of the greatness or grit of Rafael Nadal. Instead, what this underground blogger saw was the Thunder get out-toughed, out-played, and out-coached on their way to a 116-107 road loss.

Some of the numbers from this Game 3 are just staggering considering the ‘faux’ toughness which has been bestowed on this Thunder team so far this post-season by the basketball media.

Indiana basically beat the Thunder at their own game. In your face defense, turning the Thunder over 19 times for 21 points, winning critical 50-50 balls, winning a bench point rout of 49-18, and of course, the coaching mismatch between Rick Carlisle and Mark Daigneault three games into these NBA Finals.

Coach D…dude, again, these are the NBA Finals and you’re coaching against the Hall of Famer Rick Carlisle. These aren’t the Edmond Girls’ Youth U8 Finals. Obviously…somewhere, somehow, MJ missed the fact Cason Wallace must have finished second to SGA in the regular season MVP voting. MJ must have missed all that during the beach trip hiatus.

What MJ also witnessed was Mark Daigneault doesn’t trust Aaron Wiggins, Kenrich Williams, and Isaiah Joe in a hostile road game situation. Combined the three played 16 minutes and scored a combined 6 points. In essense, Coach Daigneault only played seven players in this game. What I’m saying is seven guys played 224 of the 240 available minutes while Shai logged 42 tough minutes.

Conversely, the Hall of Famer turned this game around BY BELIEVING IN HIS BENCH and his rotation of ten players.

Some words of advice to Thunder Nation….these Pacers aren’t the crippled, razor-thin Denver Nuggets. These guys are deep, hungry, and like me, tired of hearing how great the Thunder are in relation to the reality Denver, Dallas, Minnesota, and the LA Lakers were all for various reasons not the teams we thought they might be heading into Western Conference post-season play.

Ben Mathurin’s 27 points and TJ McConnell’s abundant energy turned this game around in the second period despite the Thunder leading by five points entering the fourth period. The Pacers wore down the Thunder in the game’s final six minutes for a critical Game 3 win and a 2-1 series lead which puts the Pacers within two games of an NBA championship.

Tyrese Haliburton and Siakam were huge as well as they elevated their games when it mattered most.

But here’s the thing, this is the exact scenario the Thunder found themselves in heading into that Game 4 in Denver when the Thunder did acutally show up for 48 minutes.

But these Pacers aren’t those Nuggets. And these Pacers don’t have to figure out why their GM suckered them with Julius Randle and Rudy Gobert.

These Pacers seem to be a completely different group of dudes who need to win a critical Game 4 on Friday night night to take a commanding 3-1 NBA Finals lead.

I can’t wait to cover it for okcthunderground.com. This is why you want your own NBA underground blog This is why.

Mike J

• My wife and I over the years saw the Beach Boys live at four different venues. I hope Brian Wilson finds the peace which he seemingly had struggled with during his life. I love this song.
• We’re all just searching for our own unique peace, dignity, and grace traveling our own journey. MJ

I voiced my displeasure with some of the moves Coach Mark made in the Thunder’s mind-blowing Game 1 loss. But much to my pleasure and surprise…it appears Coach Mark followed every single one of my nuanced suggestions for the Game 2 turnaround on Sunday evening inside of PayCom Arena.

So…I’m guessing maybe Mark has been reading okcthunderground.com and implementing some, if not all of my simple suggestions.

Basically, what I said following Game 1 was:

1 I don’t give a shit if Cason Wallace starts, but unless he’s able to knock down a couple of three’s there’s no way he should be getting 33 minutes and be on the floor the last six minutes of the game.

2 I don’t have a minutes number on how many minutes Chet and Isaiah should on the floor together, but at least throw that look out there a bit like a pitcher showing his changeup now and again to keep batters off balance.

3 Play Kenrich Williams a minimum of ten minutes in every game. His value goes on and beyond the stat sheet. Game 2 Kenrick played 8 minutes and was a +15 in those minues. Duh.

4 If Coach Mark and Sam can’t find Aaron Wiggins at a minimum 18 minutes a game then they should trade him to my Denver Nuggets this summer. Don’t give me the bullshit metric numbers that say Aaron’s a defensive liability. Was. Bobby Portis a a liablity for the Milwaukee Bucks several years back when he helped Giannis get his ring? Aaron Wiggins should be the second guy off the bench following only Alex Caruso.

5 Isaiah Joe is the defensive liability. He’s soft despite all the nonsense you people listen to on those absurd Thunder telecasts and blogs. Isaiah Joe only has inherit value if the Thunder fall behind by a double digit deficit and Coach Mark is desperate for someone to hit some quick bombs from beyond the arc.

6 Ajay Mitchell is a nice rookie who has a great future, but who also missed 30 games due to injury this season. When Coach Mark inserted Ajay into Game 1 in the first half…MJ’s cursing could have been heard halfway up our sleepy street leading to the Deer Creek mini-ranch. Are you kidding me? Play Kenrich and Aaron.

That’s pretty much about it. We don’t need to reconfigure the DNA molecule for the Thunder to win this series in five or six games and have an NBA championship parade in Oklahoma City.

The rotation goes in this order for MJ…1 Shai, 2 JDub, 3 Caruso, 4 Lu, 5 Isaiah, 6 Chet, 7 Aaron, 8 Cason, and 9 Kenrich. THIS IS THE NBA FINALS…nine players or maybe a tenth if there’s foul trouble or an injury. This is WINNING TIME.

Again…I could care less who starts. But I care very much who’s on the floor those last seven minutes.

Obviously…every game has a different script per se, but from my viewpoint to date…Chet and Cason are getting a little bit too much of either Sam or Coach Mark’s nerdy organic hoops love. Sometimes, actually…most times—winning is simple. You ride your hoss and some guys other guys ride with him.

Having written what I just wrote…I would concede Chet is the player I have circled. This dude’s team at Gonzaga did nothing in his one NCAA Tournament appearance. If Chet wants to change MJ’s narrative…then I would suggest he step it up and be the difference maker in this series from this point forward.

Show MJ.

Yeah, that’s my Game 3 suggestion. Do what it takes to make Chet Holmgren be the game changer the rest of these NBA Finals. Make things Break Good in a significant way, Chet Holmgren.

Mike J

I am absolutely whipped. It was an incredible day of sport for MJ on multiple fronts.

First…congrats to the Thunder for a nice bonce back in Game 2 where the rotations and minutes made much more sense than what we saw in Game 1 from Coach D. I’ll write about what I specifically saw different tomorrow. I feel almost certain Coach Mark is reading the blog at this point.

Second…the sad realization for MJ that his favorite tennis player of all-time, Rafael Nadal, is winding down his career. What a tremendous farewell speech at Roland Garros. MJ cried for certain.

Third…Carlos Alacaraz outlasted Jannik Sinner in the second longest ever Grand Slam final and claimed his second straight French Open in a fifth set tiebreaker. Bravo! Neither surrendered. I felt like I was Hemingway in Paris today. It was magnificent.

I’ll address the Thunder’s bounce back tomorrow. I need my sleep. Evidently so do Tyrese Haliburton and Siakam.

But let me leave you Thunder players with the greatest thought ever shared by Rafael Nadal:

EXCUSES DON”T WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS!

MJ needs his sleep. Another one of MJ’s Sleep Collection Greatest Hits.

Peace, Mike J

It was a beautiful day for MJ that’s for certain. All of these thunderstorms during the night and Fleetwood Mac are making Mike J sleep better than he has in the last twenty years or so. Obviously…the thunderstorms didn’t do much for the Thunder the other night…but I think the fact I’ve stopped watching all cable news combined with my special Carl Spackler Total Consciousness Nirvana meditating process has put me in a place I never before imagined possible.

Word.

So I’m thinking Thunder Nation might be a little tight after the collapse in Game 1. MJ would advise deep sleep for you Thunder fans even though tomorrow evening is the biggest game in the history of the Thunder. My guess is Rick Carlisle and his Pacers are already fast asleep. They have absolutely nothing to lose tomorrow night….plus, as a team they’ve been corresponding wih me. They were impressed I gave then a 48% chance to win Game 1 as a Vegas 10.5 road underdog the other night.

So here’s what I going to do….I’m going to lend Thunder Nation my No. 1 fall asleep song so the fanbase, the players, and Coach Mark have some energy tomorrow night in the 4th period.

Hope you love the song. It never ever fails MJ.