Author: Mike

Great dunk. So much for Dwight Howard as one of the game’s elite rim protectors. Orlando, Lakers, Houston, and Atlanta all became worse with Dwight Howard over time.

It was the second night of a road back to back and it wasn’t pretty at times. But the Oklahoma City Thunder behind Russell Westbrook’s sixth straight triple double had just enough left in the gas tank to beat the sinking Atlanta Hawks by a 102-99 count Monday night in Phillips Arena.

Westbrook struggled mightily with his shot in the first half, but scored 27 second half points to cement his sixth straight triple double and eleventh of the season. It was the 48th career triple for Westbrook. Meanwhile, Kevin Durant appears to be settling in comfortably with his role player status in Oakland. Rumors have it an ESPN 30/30 movie entitled ‘The Real MVP’ might be in the works. And, yeah, this won’t be like the one on the Oxygen Channel.

OKC had double digit leads in both halves, but to the Hawks credit they fought back each time and actually had a chance to send the game to overtime at the end of regulation as a Tim Hardaway Jr. came up short.

The Thunder are still unbeaten since their coming to Jesus moment on Thanksgiving Eve when Billy Donovan finally decided he was going nowhere in a hurry with either Kyle Singler or Alex Abrines as his bench three point flamethrower. Coincide Westbrook’s six game mercurial streak with the fact Anthony Morrow’s minutes have been a fixture in these six games. It’s called space and time. As in Morrow helps create both for his fellow teammates, especially Westbrook, when he’s on the floor. Space and time. You’ll never read that on Daily Thunder, trust me.

Morrow played 25 minutes against the Hawks and was excellent scoring 15 points on a 5-8 shooting night which included 4-6 from beyond the arc. When Morrow does this the Thunder become a different animal, and a dangerous one.

Nice game by Steven Adams with a 12/10 double double. Dipo scored 14 and had a dunk over Dwight Howard which I’ll probably post tomorrow when I’m not sleepy.
Kanter went 10 and 3. Joff didn’t play much. And Semaj had five assists for the second straight game.

Like I wrote atop, it wasn’t pretty, but you take a road win on a back to back any way you can get one. Actually, I think it’s OKC’s first road back to back win of the season after failures in Detroit, Oakland, and Sacramento.

OKC improves to 14-8 and their dual for fourth in the West with Houston will get even hotter on Friday night as Harden’s Rockets visit the Peake for what will be playoff like basketball in mid December.

I can’t wait. I’ll be back tomorrow to post the Dipo dunk over Howard.

Have a pleasant evening.

LET’S GO THUNDER!

Since the putrid road loss to the Kings on Thanksgiving Eve, two constants have played themselves over five straight games for the Thunder. Namely, Russell Westbrook has triple doubled while the Thunder won their basketball game.

Same basic formula was in place on Sunday evening inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena as Westbrook chased the ghosts of Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Wilt Chamberlain, and Michael Jordan while his teammates chipped in enough for the Thunder to get their fifth straight win to improve to 13-8, while staying close enough to Houston for the dual narratives of the two teams with the top two MVP canidates battling for the fourth seed in the West as well as an MVP trophy. Not a bad turnaround for Houston and Oklahoma City as oil is back trending in the low 50’s while their star millennials are taking all the shine from the Durant-Curry Show so far this NBA season. Go West Texas Crude. Go Thunder!

Throw in fellow MVP canidate Anthony Davis and it was a compelling night of basketball even though for the second straight season the Pelicans are one of the league’s bigger disappointments twenty-one games in. Davis had 37 points and 15 rebounds. Another bonus was OU’s NPOTY Buddy Hield was in town as well and probably had his best games as a professional with 16 points.

But this night belonged to Russell Westbrook, his Thunder, and on this night the ghost of Michael Jordan. Not that long ago, Jordan made Westbrook’s introduction speech into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. Tonight, Westbrook recorded his fifth straight triple double and became the first NBA player since Jordan in ’88-’89 to do such a thing. It was Westbrook’s 10th triple double of the season and 47th of his career. And here’s the thing—he’s doing this within the framework of the Thunder winning games and being relevant in the West. Again–if OKC takes cares of Orlando at home and Nick Young was whistled for that walk like he should have been—the Thunder are 15-6 and Westbrook is on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Thing is—he’ll probably be on the cover of SI multiple times anyway as this story unwinds into December and beyond.

OKC had this game under control, but allowed the Pels to close to 94-90 coming down the stretch. Some Buddy Hield threes and some Thunder turnovers were the main culprits to the tight fit, but Westbrook took over, nailed a big three which made Billy Donovan swoon during the ensuing timeout, but nonetheless the Thunder sailed home with their fifth straight win.

Enes Kanter was excellent in this game with 17 rebounds and 10 boards. Adams left the game early with what we hope is a very mild ankle sprain. Dipo was solid with 14 points. Andre Roberson was excellent again with 13 points on 6-8 shooting and it was on his 25th birthday. Roberson has really stepped up his game of late and along with Morrow are secondary reasons the Thunder are playing better as a team.

Morrow didn’t score the ball all that much in 25 minutes, but again there’s the spacing deal. Lauvergne didn’t score all that much as well, but he hauled in 11 rebounds. Jofferey Lauvergne is becoming one of my favorite Thunder bench players. He always finds a way to contribute. He doesn’t do anything one thing exceptionally well, but he does everything pretty well. Samaj Christon wasn’t awful, in 11 minutes he had five assists. Still ready to see Cameron Payne back, but these are great developmental minutes for Christon. Jerami Grant actually guarded Anthony Davis some playing the four position and he competed very nicely. If you can guard Anthony Davis there’s a wide variance of NBA players you can probably guard in this league.

Thunder on the road tomorrow night in Atlanta to play the suddenly reeling Hawks — which really shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise since Dwight Howard is now in Atlanta.

Just so were clear on this, from this point forward it’s not just OKC bloggers following this story, it’s the basketball world watching to see if Russell Westbrook can continue to chase the ghost of Oscar Robertson.

I’m almost certain we’re headed for controversy on college football’s Final Four after Penn State’s 38-31 win over Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game. Penn State just won the toughest conference in America, beat Ohio State head to head earlier in the season, and has won its last nine games. For me—they’re in. So is Alabama and so is Clemson as both are league champions as well. I think the question is whether you take Ohio State or Washington? My feel is Ohio State is the better team and played a much tougher schedule than Washington.

So–if I’m on that committee my Final Four in the national semi-final reads Alabama vs. Ohio State in one semi-final and Clemson vs. Penn State in the other semi-final. I would penalize Ohio State for not winning their conference and thus make them the No. 4 seed playing Alabama in the national semi-finals.

We’ll see how the committee handles this come tomorrow.

With this much needed break of games this might be a good time to post this excellent interview. Chris Webber of Michigan Fab Five fame is interviewing Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson. It’s still early in the season, but heading into December, Westbrook is averaging a triple double. This is a great sports record of sorts he’s chasing. In baseball, the equivalent would be hitting for the triple crown. In football it would like rushing for 2,400 yards. In hockey, maybe ringing up a fifty goal, fifty assist season. This is a great accomplishment Westbrook is chasing and I’m hopeful our mostly millennial basketball writers in Oklahoma are fully aware of what Westbrook is in pursuit of here. Most of them never saw Robertson play, and to be quite frank, I’m not sure many of them saw Chris Webber play all that much either.

Anyway, this is an excellent interview and a prerequisite watch as Westbrook chases Oscar Roberston.

Highly entertaining game last night in Oakland as the Rockets ended the Warriors’ 12 game winning streak with a 132-127 double overtime win. Harden had his fourth triple double of the season while Durant scored 39 points and Curry chipped in 28 points before fouling out. Another kicking incident by Draymond Green, but’s it okay because he plays for the Warriors and it’s really not all that big of a deal if Green is kicking opposing players in the balls or face on his shot follow through. If you watched the game, it was fairly clear who the MBVP was on the floor was–and it wasn’t Durant, Curry, or Green. It was James Harden.

Here’s Harden’s media day interview talking about Mike D’Antoni and this season in general.

I’ll probably do around five Power Polls this regular season and only rank the top ten teams in the league. I see no point going any further down the list. If you have no life whatsoever and need to know who the bottom twenty teams in the league are then probably googling Marc Stein or Bill Simmons would be the thing to do.

1. Golden State Warriors — When you won 73 games the previous season and would have won a second straight NBA championship if not for the dipshit antics of Draymond Green in Game 4 and add Kevin Durant to your ball club, you should be the best team in the league. Currently–they are.

2. Cleveland Cavaliers — Although I have the Cavs at No.2, I still feel they’re the team to beat come the NBA Finals. LeBron has owned Kevin Durant’s mind to date, so until I witness Durant cross this mental hurdle the Cavs are my pick to repeat although I have them No. 2 in my first poll of the regular season.

3. San Antonio Spurs — A good team, but not a great team. How far can they go with Tony Parker as their starting point guard? I honestly think OKC will match up nicely with the Spurs.

4. LA Clippers — This in itself shows how weak the league is when everyone is picking the Clippers as the fourth best team in the entire league. I think OKC would match up very well against the Clippers in a post season series as well.

5. OKC Thunder — Assuming Westbrook doesn’t get hurt, Adams can keep his hand healthy, and Victor Oladipo continues to elevate his game weekly—I see no reason the Thunder shouldn’t be here on my poll. If the zebras had called the Nick Young Walk and OKC doesn’t sleepwalk against the Magic at home they’re 14-6 as I write.

6. Toronto Raptors — Who else is the second best team in the East? DeRozan has finally cooled, but I love their guard tandem. At some point this season, Westbrook-Oladipo will pass DeRozan-Lowery, but for now I still have them above the Thunder backcourt by a smidge.

7. Houston Rockets — Like Westbrook, James Harden is having a career season. Should not be a surprise if you saw Mike D’Antoni coach Steve Nash in Phoenix. If ever a coach was made for James Harden it’s D’Antoni. Houston vs. Oklahoma City games should be treated as prized royal treasures this season by NBA junkies. First game this season didn’t disappoint at all.

8. Chicago Bulls — Jimmy Butler. No other reason than Jimmy Butler. Plus, someone has to fill out this feeble poll.

9. Boston Celtics — They should start playing better. But they still need a star. Glad Presti didn’t trade Westbrook for Crowder, Smart, and those first round draft picks right now. Seriously glad.

10. Atlanta Hawks — They’re going nowhere once again, but they play smart ball and give their fans their money’s worth on most nights. Yawn.

A very nice moment in Oklahoma City last night for Scott Brooks and the fans.

Let’s not even think about the East and LeBron for the time being. LeBron is the best player in the league until someone in the West beats him in the Finals with a healthy team around him. Anotherwords, I don’t put all that much stock in what Golden State did two seasons ago in the Finals against a Cleveland team which was decimated by injury.

But this year in the West we have quite an MVP race brewing with the likes of Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Chris Paul, Kawhi Leonard, and Anthony Davis. I’m not sure I could vote for any member of the Golden State Warriors in that they have two previous MVP winners on the same team and four NBA All Stars in their starting five. It’s a team which won 73 games last season and added Kevin Durant in the off season. So how do you decipher who’s their MVP given the fact on any given night it could be either Curry, Durant, Green, or Thompson?

None of the other five canidates I mentioned have the luxury of the Warrior players. Westbrook, Harden, Leonard, and Davis do not have another Top 15 player on their respective rosters. Chris Paul does have Blake Griffin, but he’s the only one with a star supporting him.

Westbrook and Harden would be my top two choices one fourth of the way through this season. Both are having spectacular seasons leading teams with rosters which aren’t talented enough to compete for an NBA championship. Yet both OKC and Houston are having respectable seasons and giving NBA fans some great entertainment. Adam Silver should consider himself fortunate for the Westbrook and Harden narratives this regular season. No one really cares about the regular season otherwise because it’s obvious given the Super Team building which has occurred in Cleveland and Golden State as to who should be in this season’s Finals. Nobody really cares and that says a great deal for the NBA collective bargaining agreement which has allowed this to happen. Silver and his greedy NBA owners should consider themselves fortunate Westbrook and Harden are creating an MVP buzz to make the regular season fun to watch.

There’s just no way I could vote for either Durant or Curry. Especially Durant. He joined a team which won 73 games last season—so how do you calculate his presence is all that valuable until we see if Durant can finally beat LeBron with all these All-Stars surrounding him. We can’t. Plus, we don’t even know if Durant could beat a team with Steph on it since he said no mas after his Game 6 no show in the Western Conference Finals. So in all candor neither Curry or Durant’s regular season numbers mean much of anything. How do you determine if there’s really a ‘most valuable player’ on the Golden State roster. I can assure you that Westbrook, Harden, Leonard, and Davis are clearly their teams’ most valuable player. Can we really say that in regards to Durant or Steph Curry or even Draymond Green?

Keeping in mind how I view the MVP this is how I would vote today with LeBron in his own category over to the side.

Western Conference only:

1 Westbrook
2 Harden
3 Paul
4 Leonard
5 Davis
6 Griffin
7 Durant and Curry
8 Lillard
9 Conley (injured-out indefinitely)
10 Marc Gasol

Pretty good basketball game tonight inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena. It was a game which had multiple roller coaster rides as it appeared Scott Brooks, like Serge Ibaka, would return to hand his former team a defeat on the road.

OKC had it going early and at one point led the Wizards by 16 points. But Washington behind Bradley Beal’s 31 point night won both the second and third periods and actually led the Thunder by seven points with three minutes left in regulation.

Enter Russell Westbrook of triple double Oscar Robertson fame and claimed by some to be the jilted ex-point guard of Kevin Durant. Well, wouldn’t you know it, from that three minute mark moving forward Russell Westbrook was one part Michael Jordan, one part Kobe Bryant, and one part Allen Iverson. In a season so far which has propelled Westbrook near the top of MVP consideration — Russell Westbrook once again showed that maybe he was secretly glad Kevin Durant left to go play for the AAU super team in Oakland. Because if Durant didn’t leave we wouldn’t be seeing NBA history being played out before our eyes every night. Because there’s no way Charlie Bell and Richie K would have allowed Westbrook to upstage their prize client in this manner. No f–king Nike way. Golden State may very well win the NBA championship, but in all candor this is some great stuff we’re seeing every night as Thunder fans. Historically great. Oscar Robertson great.

Those last three minutes saw the Thunder roar back largely due to Westbrook, backcourt mate Victor Oladipo, and a Thunder defense which went small making some critical late stops.

But still, OKC was down 98-95 with the ball and the shot clock off when Westbrook went inside the three point line, then outside of it, then nailing the three to ultimately send the game to OT after Otto Porter missed at the buzzer on a very good look from the right elbow. Westbrook’s three was his only made three on the night (1-6).

In OT, Westbrook went completely into MJ/Kobe mode scoring 14 of his 35 points as the Thunder ran away and hid from former coach Scott Brooks and his highly disappointing so far Wizards. It was vintage Russell Westbrook. A Westbrook who wouldn’t have been able to do this with Kevin Durant still in place in Oklahoma City. So, it’s kind of ironic for a hoops purist like myself who was heart broken when Durant left to make Charlie, Richie, and Nike happy–that all this turned out to be possibly the most interesting Thunder season to date. Que sera, sera.

Our Thunder are now 12-8 and in the midst of a four game winning streak since the disastrous loss in Sacramento. The season turned when Bill Donovan finally said enough of Kyle Singler and Alex Arbrines and decided to give Anthony Morrow an honest shot at playing time. Morrow was only 2-9 from the field tonight, but in 31 minutes he had four assists and the highest +/- rating of any Thunder player tonight at +20. Go figure.

All told all five OKC starters scored in double figures tonight, plus Enes Kanter scored 14 points in 14 minutes. But this was one of those nights when it was tough to keep Kanter on the floor because Brooks pretty much stayed small. Which translates into Jerami Grant getting more playing time when opposing teams go small.

Roberson, Sabonis, and Adams were all solid. Victor Oladipo was excellent scoring yet another mini-triple double of 25-6-6. Oladipo went 10-16 from the field and was 5-9 from three. It was a super efficient performance. I know, I know…the way I go on this way and that way about the Westbrook-Oladipo backcourt should have me standing between Brian Davis and Michael Cage—but I’m telling you people these two guys will be the second best backcourt in the league come April. Tonight, combined—60 points, 20 rebounds, 17 assists. Just saying.

Well, so, our Thunder are now 12-8, playing some pretty good ball and back on track to win maybe 47-49 games this NBA regular season which would be fine with me because I have OKC at No. 4 in the West on my Daily Thunder bracket sheet.

The Thunder get a very much needed break of games until Sunday evening when Anthony Davis and the Pelicans show up in town.

Until then, enjoy the break, watch some Bedlam football, and study up on Oscar Robertson.

BTW, for those of you who can’t get over the Durant departure this is for you. He’s gone. He’s going to marry Draymond Green and at some point they’re going to have children together. So–my advice would be to get over it and enjoy this ride.