Month: March 2020

The reality is Milwaukee, the Clippers, and the Lakers are in their own exclusive universe right now with the other twenty-seven NBA teams looking from the outside in.

In the past week the Clippers have rolled Denver, Oklahoma City, and Houston without even breaking a sweat.

For the first time this season the Clippers are healthy and for good measure added Marcus Morris and Reggie Jackson at the deadline. The Clips are the deepest most well rounded team in the league and most capable from a defensive standpoint of defending either LeBron or Giannis.

Oklahoma City wants no part whatsoever of either LA team in the playoffs. Consider this when the LA teams most likely square off in the Western Conference Finals they will both be playing on their home court in the Staples Center. Jack Nicholson vs. Billy Crystal in the conference finals.

Putting aside my loyalty for the Thunder…as an NBA fan I can’t wait to see the Clippers vs. Lakers series at Staples. And right now I’d take the Clippers.

POWER POLL

1 LA Clippers

2 LA Lakers

3 Milwaukee Bucks

4 Boston Celtics

5 Toronto Raptors

6 Denver Nuggets

7 Houston Rockets

8 Miami Heat

9 Oklahoma City Thunder

10 Dallas Mavericks

11 Philadelphia 76’ers

12 Utah Jazz

For the tenth time in the last eleven road games the Oklahoma City Thunder won an NBA game. It wasn’t easy though for the Thunder in hanging on against a decimated Detroit Piston team which is one of the worst in the Eastern Conference.

The Thunder almost squandered a fifteen point second half lead before it took a clutch three from Danilo Gallinari to seal the win with around ten seconds left.

With the win Oklahoma City improves to 38-24 and remain as the No. 6 seed in the West. The realistic goal for the Thunder is to avoid the Lakers and Clippers in the first round.

Four Thunder players scored in double figures with Shai G. Alexander leading the way with a 27 point night. Next in line was Dennis Schroder with 23 points. Both Gallinari and Chris Paul tallied in double figures as well 19 and 16 points.

Steven Adams, Lu Dort, Nerlens Noel, and Abdel Nader were okay, but nothing special.

For some reason Billy Donovan keeps playing this season’s version of Alex Abrines in Terrance Ferguson and it is painful to watch. In 20 minutes of playing time–Ferguson scored two points, grabbed one rebound and was a -4.

It’s tough to watch because it’s apparent the kid’s confidence he can play well consistently at this level isn’t there. Hopefully, when rookie Darius Bazely returns from the injured reserve list Billy Donovan will limit Ferguson’s role to minor minutes.

With twenty games left in the regular season the Thunder need to go 12-8 to reach the 50 win plateau. When you figure in April the Thunder have a road back to back versus the Lakers and Clippers… in essence the Thunder would need to go 12-6 in the other eighteen games to get to fifty wins. Maybe–but not much room for error.

Next up…the NY Knicks on the road where the Thunder should win their eleventh road game out of the last twelve.

It was a tough night to watch the Thunder as for the second game in a row they faced an NBA top three team in the LA Clippers at home on Super Tuesday.

You can’t sugarcoat it…with the Clippers completely healthy they appear to be in an elite select league with Milwaukee and the Lakers. The reality with this Thunder team is that in a playoff series they won’t be able to seriously threaten any of these three teams. But I think from Denver, Houston, and Utah down the Thunder should be competitive in a post season series.

On the political front it was a pleasant surprise as Joe Biden won nine of the thirteen states on Super Tuesday. Biden not only kept pace with Crazy Bernie Sanders, but he actually took the delegate lead.

One would think or hope both Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren will drop out of the race sometime this week and pledge their support to Joe Biden.

I’m sure at some point Bloomberg will do this, but not quite as sure on Elizabeth Warren as she seems to envision herself as the moral guardrail of America. Hopefully, the fact Joe Biden has had a few Al Franken-esque experiences with women over the years doesn’t put him in a bad position with Elizabeth Warren. Isn’t it odd…she didn’t mention one of Biden’s moments in this regard in one single debate. Not one.

But the Dems need to move on at this point since they’ve buried Mike Bloomberg and see if they can overcome the Hunter Biden-Burisma onslaught which will be coming in relentless torrents on Donald Trump’s twitter feed and at his rallies.

I could actually vote for Joe Biden—so I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope Elizabeth Warren doesn’t stay in the race and try to take him down before she leaves the race.

After almost twenty years of hosting the almost iconic ‘Hardball’… Chris Matthews called it quits on MBNBC tonight.

Some speculate he was forced to resign for a comment he made in comparing ‘the Bernie Sanders supporters in Nevada to the Nazis invading France in WWII.’

I can’t believe we’ve become this sensitive given our sitting president openly talks about grabbing pussy and other worldly things.

But no one more than me knows this affliction after being given a lifetime ban at the prurient Daily Thunder. The politically correct boundaries are uber thin in this new American order of acceptable decorum.

Like Chris Matthews, I thought my comment to what I thought was a platonic female friend about giving one of the weaker Daily Thunder content writers a face wash with a certain part of her body might motivate him to write in a stronger, more authoritarian voice.

But like Chris Matthews with Hardball, and as with me when I literally owned Royce Young’s blog and attained iconic status… I was shown the door as well for an errant comment.

Chris Mathhews… I feel your pain. Take care, buddy.

Tony Bennett is probably my favorite musical performer. Whenever I need to cleanse my mind…I turn out the lights and play an hour of Tony Bennett.

Given Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders lead their respective parties going into Super Tuesday–I need a little Tony Bennett to take my mind off the fact the country I live in has lost its mind.

I love this song.

What an absolute great game on the ABC Saturday Night Game of the Week. Just a fantastic game as the Rockets beat the Celtics in overtime by a 111-110 count in Boston.

This game made up for how bad both ESPN games were on Friday night.

The Houston Rockets since trading Clint Capela and picking up Robert Covington have gone on a tear playing small ball with PJ Tucker as their center.

It’s nice to see Russell Westbrook changing his game and getting away from jacking the bad threes. As an NBA fan it’s exciting to see Russell use his unique physical skills and in a sense morph himself into a combo guard-small forward-power forward.

The conventional wisdom was the Rockets would swoon after trading Capela, but with the 6’5″ Tucker at center and with Westbrook changing his game the Rockets have caught fire.

I hope this is what we see from Russell full-time because he’s a very unique talent and I’d love to see him win a championship in his career.

The Rockets are on a nice run and in the No. 4 seed in the West and there is the possibility they could be a first round opponent for the Thunder.

Anyway…great month of February for Russell Westbrook.