I’m taking a break from our NBA Finals today. I’m going to hit the terrain bike for forty minutes and see what happens. Anotherwords….how much better off am I now than on Monday. To gauge my chemo recovey per se.
I’d like to congratulate the Texas Longhorns for their first ever softball national championship they clinched last night. I’m happy for their pitcher. It’s a lovely ending with her story with her doing all this for her grandmother on the very week her grandmom passed. My prayers have been with her.
I’d also like to congratulate the Flordia Pahthers and Edmonton Oiler for giving us hockey fans two awesome first two games in the Stanley Cup Finals. Edmonton won Game 1 in overtime, while the Panthers answered back last night with a double OT winner. Two great games!
In closing…I’d also like to apologize to Mark Daigneault for my comments yesterday in regards in being critical of his coaching moves in the 4th quarter in Game 1. I went too far in comparing his fourth quarter bench management to being ‘something akin to what we might see from a Mike Gundy coached team.” I’m throwing a flag on myself 24 hours later on that one.
That was unfair and a little too harsh regardless of the obvious coaching disparity between Rick Carlisle and Mark Daigneault.
If I’m going to be on this blog asking all to be kind during these final Trumpian Days of the Burning Roman Empire…then at the least I should make sure I’m kind to others on this blog as well.
This is precisely where it’s a good thing being a Stage 4 cancer survivor. In that…you always rememeber the mantra–‘Never too low, never too high…whatever gets thrown at you. Believe in God, yourself, and others around you…and stay the course.’
Plus….’Don’t surrender and be kind to others.’
47:59:07
That was the time of how long the Thunder held the lead in this game.
I watched the game intently. I’ve looked at the stat sheet, and I’m still shaking my head as to why Coach Mark all the sudden started Cason Wallace over Isaiah Hartenstein…and finished with Cason amassing 33 minutes, 6 points, 2 rebounds, and a game worst -13 rating for both teams combined.
Keep this in mind as I crawl forward with my observations this morning…the Pacers pounded the Thunder on the boards by a collective margin of 56-39. That’s a +17 on the boards. In his 17 minutes of play, Isaiah grabbed 9 rebounds and with Chet Holmgren once again going ‘Missing in Action’ in this Game 1….rebounds were a substantial part of why the Pacers were able to overcome 25 turnovers on the road and still miraculously find a way to win this game at the finish.
Think about that…25 turnovers on the road and yet they still won the game.
Maybe it was just me….but I think almost swore to my wife I saw Mike Gundy working his magic on that Thunder bench pulling the strings the last seven minutes of the fourth period. It had a surreal Gundyesque feel to it.
Are you Thunder people kidding me? This is why I shake my head and just whisper to myself…”Let it go, Mike. It’s Oklahoma. This is how these people do things. Thi is why Ryan Walters is their education czar. This why Markwayne Mullen is one of the U.S. Senators. Let it go, MJ.”
I mean Cason Wallace got 5 more minutes than Alex Caruso as well so this wasn’t just a going small thing. And by the way…I thought the manner in which Gabbard and Lively bullied the Thunder on the interior last season in the Dallas series was the primary reason Sam Presti added both Isaiah and Alex Caruso to this basketball team.
Shai has nothing to explain to the basketball world after this shocking loss at the buzzer last night. He in no way was the problem. And BTW…do you people realize that in this game not ONE SINGLE MINUTE were Isaiah and Chet on the floor together. Not one single minute did their coach just try and see what might happen with that dynamic for a few minutes.
Here’s a couple of other things I took note of as well as I wind this down….
1 These Pacers are a very resilent group. They’re mentally tough.
2 The coaching matchup last night looked like Nick Saban vs. Mike Gundy. Maybe that’s why I focused so much on my Game Day post about what an excellent basketball coach Rick Carlisle has been during his career.
3 I also think at this point…Shai can really only count on three of his teammates for being engaged as co-leaders on this team on a game by game basis. Those three by my take are Lu, Alex, and Isaiah.
4 Again, one of the primary reasons Sam Presti won the NBA Executive of the Year this season was because of Caruso and Hartenstein additions to the team. Were there Thunder games played after the Minnesota series I’m not aware of?
5 Pick it up in a big, big way in Game 2, Coach Mark. Because all the sudden this is much like the Denver series, minus the fact the Pacers don’t have a first time interim head coach and have ten dudes who are healthy, athletic, long and are sick of hearing how great the OKC Thunder are.
And BTW…congrats to Coach David Adelman for being named the head coach of the Denver Nuggets moving forward. I think it was a deserved promotion.
Game 2 in OKC on Sunday. One would think a must-win situation for the Thunder.
I am picking the Thunder to win these NBA Finals in five or ‘maybe’ six games, but I will add with a tone of serious concern for Thunder fans—Rick Carlisle is a coach I put right there at the top of my NBA list for the last two decades or so. I’d put Coach Carlisle right there in my Top Four grouping of Pop, Steve Kerr, and Eric Spoelstra.
He’s a ball coach for certain. One of those rare coaches I actually enjoy gleaning knowledge from with every one of his comments during a presser. You know, real pressers…where a coach isn’t shielded by their own team like the Thunder do with Little Nick Gallo and all of that nonsensical nonsence when ‘Momma Gallo” is asking the questions and trying to steer the tone. Even on the cusp of a Thunder championship…this still bothers me. Don’t talk down to your fanbase.
His teams move the ball. His teams know how to play with transitional pace…and they move the ball outside the three point-line as well as any team in the NBA currently. When I’m watching Rick Carlisle coach a game…I try to take the time to note each secondary hockey assist because I love the way the ball moves with his teams. Rick Carlisle would strangle Julius Randle with his ball stopping antics and I don’t think that’s an overstatement.
But here’s what facsinates me most about tonight…how will Coach Carlisle insulate Tyrese Haliburton’s space and time from Sam Presti’s dobermans-pitt bulls when the Thunder bring their Forty Minutes of Hell?
Sam Presti has given Coach D a very unique tool box of sorts. That’s why we’re stilll chirping about the historic defensive metrics this Thunder team has displayed this basketball season.
Coach D has the luxury of defending Haliburton with Lu Dort, Alex Caruso, JDub when not on Siakam, Cason Wallace, Aaron Wiggins, and Kenrich Williams. That’s six elite defenders with 36 fouls between them who can rotate on Tyrese Haliburton when he’s on the floor. Anotherwords, one of those six will be fresh and foul trouble free when they hit the floor to physically assault Tyrese Haliburon’s space and time.
I think it’s a intriguing Game 1 tonight inside of Pay.Com Arena. It’s a simple game though really. Because in today’s NBA game if one team is hot from beyond the arc and the other goes stone cold as we’ve seen from the Thunder some during this post-season…anything could happen in one game or maybe two. But four?
If tonight we’re the NCAA Championship Monday, one game winner take all…I’d probabaly give the Pacer’s 47-48% chance of winning it all like NC State or Nova did. But this requires four wins by the Pacers in two weeks.
And if Coach D thinks this through…I would suggest Tyrese Haliburton shouldn’t be wornout dude by Game 5 back in Oklahoma City.
How cool…we have the NBA Finals in Oklahoma City for a second time. Smell the roses. Freeze yourslf in time. These NBA championships have been difficult to repeat of late. Very tough to repeat.
*It’s storming out here at the mini-ranch in Deer Creek. MJ feels as if he’s a mystical basketball god at this point. This pre-game storm MJ conjured up is the surreal calmness, then storm before an NBA Championship run. I feel like Zeus out here on the mini-ranch steering these Finals in the direction of these Oklahomans who need some new structuring of their faith for things beyond Trump. If you have faith…amazing things can happen. 4:45pm*
Well…first off, the two mile bike ride on National Bicycle Day was a struggle. There was no Rocky climbing the steps in Philadelphia on this ride. In fact, my cellular dashboard was still in such chaos my time was double what it was a week ago before this most current chemo infusion.
But as Coach Lombardi…sometimes said, “It’s not about winning all the time. It’s about you giving the ultimate of what have to give. The time will vastly improve by Friday morning. There isn’t a doubt in my mind in that regard. None.
So…I opened my private mailbox last night and this video above had been seent to me from my friend, Thunderchick a.ka. TC. Usually, I get stuff from all over the world from college educated men and women who love the NBA like I do. They seem be my niche readers. While white- male, racist, red-neck, uneducated guys in Oklahoma….not as much. Except for the occasional warm death threat genre read. Que sera.
I want to thank TC for thinking of me and sending me this video. She’s very talented and if not already…should be employed by the Thunder in some capacity. I thought this was beautiful… and it put a lump in my throat as I predictably cried again.
For me…even though I strayed as an OKC fan during the draconian deathwalk-purge tanking…I very much want them to win this series. They’re not playing Denver. They’ve solidly won me back as my second favorite NBA team.
I don’t think this is that complicated or needs to be. The Thunder are substantially better than the Pacers…and from my viewpoint–the Thunder crossed an enormous bridge to the championship when they beat Denver in Game 4 to even that series and not allow the Nuggets the thought of closing out the Thunder at home in Game 6.
In fact…I THOUGHT TO DATE THAT WAS THE MOST SINGULARLY IMPORTANT WIN IN THE THUNDER ERA IN OKC.
From that point on…this was not about just getting to the Western Conference Finals. Nope…from the moment that game ended and that dark, black, ominous Thunderstorm engulfed Denver proper it became Sam Presti’s One Shining Moment. It did.
From that win moving forward forward this became OKC’s NBA Championship Season in my mind. Not Boston’s, not LA’s, not Dallas’s, not Minnesota, but it became the Thunder’s personal property.
So…what I would say is this to Coach D who I will no longer called Coach Mark is this…DON’T OVERTHINK THIS AND TRY TO BE TOO CUTE.
Establish the tone of the physicality allowed by the zebras, adjust on the fly… and do what you’ve done all season, that being, perform like the best team in the NBA this season with the fifth best win mark ever heading into these Finals.
The Championship Window isn’t just ajar…it’s wide f–king open. Now go get what is rightfully yours and have no regrets.
Damn….I cried again. Seeing Perk I on that podium 125 lbs lighter with that snarl on his face set me off. My son honestly named his pup lab Perk on Perk 1’s second day here from Boston. If you don’t think that tugs at MJ’s heart…you don’t know MJ. Perk II is still vibrant in Denver while Perk I is schooling Steven A on ESPN.
Did you know that today…Wednesday, is officially National Bike Day. I had no idea. So this even amps me up more on my return from cellular death to hit the bike hard today. Plus, both the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals are getting ready to begin. I know most of ya’ll in Oklahoma have very little interest in the Stanley Cup Finals.
And just so you know…we have a repeat of last year’s Final of the defending champ Florida Panthers and the Edmonton Oilers. I’m going to pick Edmonton to win the first Cup for a Canadian city since the Montreal Canadians did it 1993. I just think its their time. Nothing scientific, plus I think God is totally sick of Donald Trump.
And then tomorrow I’m going explain why I think the Thunder will win the NBA Championship in five games over the Indiana Pacers.
But right now I’m struggling to fall asleep…so I’m adding these two songs to make sure I fall asleep.
I didn’t disappear or die. I just needed a full week off to recover from the chemo infusion treatment I received last Tuesday. This was by far the toughest cellular recovery period I’ve had to date on the Stage 4 Cancer journey.
Dr. Showalter and I reappraised my situation and decided I should consider four more of these treatments to get my PSA count down to 2 or below. Consider though..I began this procees with an off the chart PSA number of 1,212…which could possibly be some sort of record. I haven’t researched that…but I’m fairly certain that 1,212 puts MJ in rarified air as far as PSA counts for people still living to talk about it. I would even add with some misplaced hubris…you could consider MJ a modern era PSA rockstar.
During the past week, for the first time since I began chemo…my digestive tract somewhat shutdown and in the course of the week…my weight fell from 220 lbs to 205 lbs. This is not a bad thing all things considered because I actually wanted to get my weight back down to around 195 lbs…you know–my John Marshall senior year weight when I had biceps and a neck almost like Russell Westbrook.
But I showed great improvement today as my cells in unison said,”Mikey–it’s okay and I think you can get out and hit the bike tomorrow and the weights the day after. Go for it, buddy.”
So enough of that. And I very much want to get my NBA Finals prediction on here sometime tomorrow in case I die at the OKC Wellness Center near Sam Bradford Blvd.
But before I sign off on here tonight..I want to express my love for Patti Gasso and her young women for their season which concluded in the national semi-finals when a heartbreak walk-off sacrifice fly ended their quest for an unthinkable five-peat in the current era of D1 collegiate sports.
This was not supposed to be this kind of season for OU. Gone were iconic players such as Jada Coleman, Tiare Jennings, (my favorite-Kenzie Hansen), Alyssa Brito and from the class before… Grace Lyon.
This was supposed to be a rebuild season in Norman. Instead…OU went 53-8, won the SEC regular season, and won the SEC Post Season Tournament. And of course…came within a few plays of hooking up with Texas for a repeat of last season’s national championship finals.
It was a privilege and honor to watch these young women this season. Sure.. I wish we’d won yesterday, but I definitely feel this is one of those Vince Lombardi moments when you feel okay about the way the season ended because they never surrendered and there’s something very substantial in embracing that mantra as you navigate life.
Trust me on that.
I cried again.. of course. But I’m going to touch more on all my cancer journey crying tomorrow during my NBA Finals analysis.
Make sure you Oklahoma people take the time to completely embrace the fact your team is in the NBA Finals.
I think if I’m going to have this incredible, almost herculean performance tomorrow on the terrain bike at the OKC Wellness Center ..I need to play this song and then have a beautiful eight hours of sleep. Yo, Adrian.
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.
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.
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.
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.