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Obviously…I’ve been a little down since Austin’s Lakers bounced the Warriors in Game 6. It hurt watching as Klay and Steph both struggled mightily, but we as adults in Warrior Nation tip our hats and say job well done to the Lakers.

For me this is easy though because I pretty much watched every game Austin played at OU for his Hall of Fame coach Lon Kruger. Austin was a baller at OU and made first team All Big 12 his senior season during that season in which Baylor won the national championship behind the Triplet Guard Tandem headed by NBA first rounders Davion Mitchell and Jared Butler.

Austin went undrafted for some odd reason, but Laker GM Rob Pelinka wisely brought Austin on board as an undrafted free agent…and lo and behold…Austin in my mind is the Lakers third best player behind LeBron and Anthony Davis.

Austin is a role player no doubt, but his presence on the floor brings that needed balance to bring the best out of LeBron and AD. He reminds me of Jeff Hornacek with those great Utah Jazz teams which featured Karl Malone and John Stockton. Same thing…two Hall of Fame super stars and then a role player from Iowa State. BTW….I loved Jeff Hornacek back in the day during his glory days in the Big 8.

Anyway…huge Game 2 tonight in Denver, hopefully LeBron has acclimated himself to the altitude and comes out ready to play in the first period. This is very simple for the Lakers, you have to play 48 minutes and make the Nuggets pay when Christian Braun and Jeff Green are on the floor.

Denver in reality only plays eight guys and Braun and Green in my mind are one of the real keys in this series. That being, the Lakers need to punish Denver when Nugget coach Mike Malone goes to his seventh and eighth guys in his razor thin rotation.

Chris Jackson my son from Denver in town tonight to watch Game 2. Chris knows how I feel about Austin… in that I love what Austin stands for as a role player who’s basically making the league minimum. Hopefully, me rooting for the Lakers won’t be a problem for Chris.

That’s the amazing thing about basketball chemistry in that Russell Westrook (also referred to as the (Basketball Greek Tragedy on this blog) with his $43 million plus salary could never figure out how to bring the best out in LeBron and AD. Whereas. Austin gets it.

I’m pretty amped for the Game 2 tonight. Hideaway pizza and maybe one or two Pacificos. Lakers have to win at least one road game in this series…tonight would be a good place to start.

I am at peace within myself. The Warriors played selfless, almost perfect ball in routing the the LA Lakers by thirty points in Game 2.

At my age, with my health issues….nothing makes me feel closer to the next life other than Pauli, maybe the wife, or a Klay Thompson night like the one witnessed last night on ESPN with Mike Breen, JVG, and Mark Jackson on the call.

The Moral Compass, Kevon Looney, was ill and had to play limited minutes off the bench. No problem….JaMychal Green came off the bench and played one of the best games I’ve ever seen him play.

Steph only scored 20 points, but was basketball pure with 12 assists as the ball flowed like only it can flow when Steve Kerr’s disciples move the ball seamlessly. I think the Warriors had around thirty assists against the fluxmoxed Lakers.

Simply put, both Anthony Davis and Austin Reaves sucked in Game 2 after stellar performances in the Lakers Game 1 three point win. Without those two playing high level ball…LeBron will not advance to the Western Conference Finals versus the sneaky good Denver Nuggets.

Game 3 on Saturday night hopefully with Mike Breen, JVG, and Mark Jackson on the call again. Surely… ABC won’t trash this game with the lame musings of Doris Burke. I used to love Doris, but something has happened to her…. or either it’s just me in my season of reckoning.

Klay playing like this makes me feel basketball heaven isn’t far away. When Klay hit those 11 threes against the hapless Thunder in Game 6 it changed me forever.

I should have dumped the feeble Thunder format the next morning and turned this into a Warrior underground blog.

Like a liberated slave who has escaped from the South to the more liberal North….I feel free at last.

Let’s go, Warriors!!!

What would my vision of heaven be? Klay draining threes in the clutchest moments, maybe the wife, Pauli, and the best Seinfeld episodes. I’m really a very simple guy.

Yes…it appeared to be a little sketchy for the Warriors after a bad Game 6 home loss to the puppy dog Kings. The doubters and the haters probably thought the iconic Warriors would just roll over and call it a decade long dynasty with four rings.

But here’s the thing… Lombardi said it best during the Packers’ iconic long decade of NFL rule….’the more you win and the harder you work—you find it extremely difficult to surrender’. I grew up as a Lombardi-Jerry Kramer kid and I NEVER forgot when Coach Lomardi made that quote. As in never.

Lombardi > Churchill….just saying.

The Warriors could very well get beat in the next round by Austin Reaves’ surging LA Lakers, but there won’t be any surrender attached.

This was was just four wins for the Warriors. It takes 16 wins in the real NBA season of the playoffs to claim a ‘ship. These Warriors still need 12 more wins against the likes of the Lakers, the Nuggets, and the Celtics. That’s a gauntlet is what that is…pure and simple.

But I I know this…as do Steph, Klay, and Draymond…if you’re going down you go down with your guns blazing to the very last breath.

What we saw on Sunday was Kevon Looney the moral compass of the iconic Warriors remind his teammates what it means to be the defending champion of the NBA. Loon put the Warriors on his back along with Steph Curry and said this to his struggling mates…”We’re not losing to the Sacramento Kings, or the Minnesota TWolves or the Oklahoma City Thunder or the New Orleans Pelicans or some other sketchy outfit in the Western Conference”.

Loon and Steph basically said with their play …”We might not get past Austin Reaves and LeBron in the conference semifinals, but we’re going out with our competitive dignity intact to the end.”

Klay, Wig, Draymond, Dante, Moses, Jordan ‘f—king Poole, Johnny K, and godfordsaken Gary Payton Jr….step up. Kevon and Steph could use some help.

To win twelve games against this potential gauntlet to win twelve more games…it can’t be two on five basketball any longer.

If you doubt the veracity of my statements…that’s on you because the fact of the matter is the coverage of the NBA is so weak in the OKC market it is almost laughable.

Here’s where two on five will get you. It will get you to the same place the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche find themselves this morning… that being, they were eliminated last night by the lowly expansion Seattle Kracken ot whatever they’re called because Nate McKinnon and Cale Makar couldn’t do it by themselves.

No Boston, no Colorado, and no Tampa Bay Lightning….the Stanley Cup Playoffs needs a storyline.

So I’ll be lasor focused on the Warriors and Lakers in Round 2.

Two big, big NBA Playoff games in California tonight. I’m jacked for certain.

For those of us in godforsaken Oklahoma who have been passionate NBA long before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans….this is a night we could cherish depending on the results of both games.

If the NBA gods play this one right both Golden State and the LA Lakers will emerge as second round survivors in the very balanced Western Conference. What a dream matchup that could be for NBA purists like myself who been bored to death with the Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood approach Sam Presti has traversed in culturally godforsaken Oklahoma.

In real life here in Oklahoma….I try to keep these thoughts to myself about what I think about Oklahoma in general, but here on the Thunder Underground I think it should be okay to state things such as they are in reality.

I love this interview from Coach Steve Kerr. If only Sam Presti had the hubris or gravitas to ever hire an up front head coach like Coach Kerr you would have to think the Thunder would have at the minimum won two NBA championships with Kevin, Russell, James, Serge,:Perk, and NIck. But alas….I fear Sam Presti only hires head coaches who are subservient to his more anal retentive concepts of how grown men in the NBA should be coached.

This is why I had to turn okcthunderground.com into a Warriors blog instead of another run of the mill Thunder blog which goes down on everything Sam Presti says or does. Sigh.

This in fact is probably the most I’ve written on the Thunder during the entire NBA season to date. The Thunder…aren’t they adorable? They go 41-43 and get blown out in the NBA Play In Participation Tournament by a marginal Minnesota team which was missing two key rotational players.

And until Sam Presti’s Little Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood approach to the NBA in Oklahoma City ever changes….41-43 type of seasons will continue to be the norm in godforsaken Oklahoma.

Please watch the video, Sam Presti. This is what a coach looks like who has some hubris, gravitas, and the respect of his ball players.

I am at peace in my basketball world of Golden State nirvana. Finally… a clutch road win by this bunch who ‘maybe’ have found themselves after this grueling roller coaster season of road futility as defending NBA champs.

This was basketball nirvana. Draymond came off the bench and excelled. Kevon Looney, the Moral Compass of the Warriors, played what I thought was the best game of his NBA Playoff career. Jordan Poole inserted as the starter in place of bad boy Draymond responded with some toughness and clutchness of his own. Maybe that punch in the face from Draymond in training camp served a purpose after all.

All above in the preceding paragraph are role players. This is what role players have to do for their team to win clutch road games. Gary Payton Jr. had a couple of great plays as did Donte. I would have liked to have seen some more minutes from Moses Moody, but I can’t bitch after a win like this one. Moses is going to be a baller…trust me on this. His time is coming.

Johnny Kuminga … you were sent a message last night from Coach Kerr with the DNP…here’s the message stud hoss—‘You may have more natural ability than any player in the league, but you need to mentally bear down when you’re given minutes by Coach Kerr.”

Of course…Steph, Klay, and Andrew were all clutch in the final minutes as well, but those guys are stars and that’s what stars are supposed to do in clutch time. Namely…play like stars. This is not complex. Ask Jimmy Butler and his clutch blue collar buds on the Miami Heat who just slayed the Milwaukee Bucks in their clutch Game 5 road win as well.

You have your star or two, and then you have your role player grinders. This was an NBA night I just loved because as I’ve written on my casual Thunder blog this season…Klay is my favorite player in the league and this post injury version of Klay is basically a role player. Klay is a role player and Steph and Wig are the two best players on the team.

But winning is the thing. Klay knows this more than any other player in the league. It’s about what you have to do to win games when they matter most.

If only we had a team like this is Oklahoma City who embraced this type of mantra perhaps next NBA basketball season … I could write a few things Thunder related on my casual Thunder blog.

What I may do tomorrow is give Sam Presti my take on here as to who are the nine players I’d build my team around next season so as to start playing genuinely competitive NBA seasons again in god forsaken Oklahoma.

Sam Presti…it’s about winning, buddy. Pure and simple. Winning is fun.

Well, U Conn is our national champion and now we get down to the serious business of the NBA Playoffs. I didn’t play One Shining Moment this year because I’m genuinely bummed on what the transfer portal has done to college hoops. I love parity, but the Portal in both football and basketball needs to be tweaked.

The OKC Thunder were eliminated from the Round Robin Play-In Tournament last night on the road by the T-Wolves in Minnesota. A horrible lopsided loss in which Karl Anthony Townes and Rudy Gobert dominated inside the paint area from start to finish.

But for the Thunder at least they gave their fanbase some real basketball games versus the tanking mode employed the previous two seasons.

Sam Presti needs to get his team a couple of bigs who can play NBA level basketball with the league’s better teams. Both Poku and Chet in street clothes to close out this season…sigh. OKC has to hope Poku and Chet aren’t busts like Markelle Fultz and Ben Simmons were in Philly during Sam Hinkie’s Process with the Sixers.

You can’t bust on the second pick in the draft and next season Chet needs to show his fragile body can adapt to the NBA level of play. I mean…if not Chet then Sam Presti will have to bring some degree of interior physicality to his team or they’ll get put out of the first round or the round robin next season as well.

But the Thunder as a whole have some real positives to build on and if nothing else they seem to have gotten the Oklahoma City fanbase watching the team again.

Golden State gets started tonight as the sicth seed in the West. Given how bad the Wrriors were on the road this season…the fact the draw turned out this way is an absolute blessing four the four-time NBA champs.

I see the West as wide open.

Steve Kerr finally has some semblance of a bench in place and Andrew Wiggins is once finally healthy. Wiggins in my view was the Warriors’ second best player last season behind Steph.

Wiggins gave the Warriors everything they needed defensively and rebounding wise to go along with Draymond and Looney. Wig filled a team role seamlessly in that regard and compensated for Klay’s diminshed role defensively. Wiggins is a big deal for the Warriors. We’ll see how how out of game shape he is later tonight in Game 1.

To me…this is the first round matchup the NBA Universe is most excited to see right now.

Very cool is all I can say at this point. Nobody is giving SDS much of a chance tonight, but if Jimmy Valvano’s Wolfpack could best Akeem the Dream and Clyde Drexler then I have to think the Aztecs at the least have a chance of pulling this miracle off tonight.

You can’t let UConn go wild in transition and the Aztecs gotta keep on pounding those offensive boards like they did in the second hald versus FAU.

I know the Aztecs only have a 20% chance or so in Vegas of winning this game, but this ia why the NCAA Tournament is such a unique animal.

Go Aztecs!!!!

For God’s sake….finally. Someone with a set of balls has indicted this dog shit piece of grifting pond scum.

I in no way am going to put the Michael Flynn ‘Lock Her Up video’ on display just yet because I think the three other cases outstanding against ‘Little Hands’ are stronger than this case in New Yourk…but at least it’s refreshing to see in some parts of the country the Rule of Law hasn’t been swept away like it has in the intellectual abyss known as Oklahoma Oklahoma.

Oklahoma’s new state motto pending this legislature…. ‘Land of the free, home of the brave, and the hopelessly stupid.

Let’s see if Alvin Bragg in New York can get a conviction of this pahetic creep who has snowed every dipshit in this country who has never bought a book….let alone taken the time to read a book.

But unlike Hillary….and like Dave Chappelle I won’t call these unread simpletons by the name of Deplorables. I feel sorry for them …actually.

I’m enjoying the NCAA Tournament. Since I was born in San Diego …I’m pretty much rooting for San Diego State at this point.

Isn’t it interesting to see all this parity when the other schools are able to buy players thru the advent of NIL just like Duke, North Carolina, and Kansas have done in the past thru the shoe companies.

It just takes two dudes to turn around a basketball program.

Anyway….Go Aztecs, make me proud.

Please don’t call them Deplorables. Hillary sorely misplayed that one. Instead…maybe start buying books written above the average 6th grader’s comprehensive level. Mentor you your Trump relatives if possible with a new book every month.

Be kind to these people. They need our kindness.

Peace.

Eventually… I want to do my 2022 Black History winner which is Hakem Jeffries. But I’m moving at a ponderously slow pace still with the health issue.

OU didn’t make either the NCAA or NIT fields which is a blessing. O State really isn’t all that much better and Oral Roberts has the dubious task of playing the hottest team in the NCAA field in the first round in the surging Duke Blue Devils

I always start my March Masness by watchin the ESPN 30/30 classic…Survive and Advance.

I love Jimmy Valvano… he once said These Three Things a Person Should Do Every Day of Their Life’…1 Laugh, 2 Learn Something New, and 3 Cry.

Never take a day for granted and fight to the end.

So who am I pulling for given OU’s abysmal second season under Porter Moser?

I would say…Duke. So much parity. Fifteen or so teams could win this thing this season.

Let the Madness begin.

I never watch the game because its contrived nonsense, but then again I don’t watch any of the All-Star games from the NFL, MLB, or NHL either.

I like the home run derby in baseball, the three point shooting contest and sometimes the dunk contest in the NBA..

Damian Lillard beat Buddy Hield in the three point shooting contest, Mac McClung from Philly’s G League team won the dunk contest (good for him), and Jewel stunned with her rendition of our national anthem.

I guess Team Giannis won the game from what I read the next day.

That’s about as good as it gets for me with the NBA All-Star Game.