The Suns with 3 possibly 4 future Hall of Famers is 3-8 in their last 11 games. The Mavericks have gotten their ass handed to them by Milwaukee by 33 and lost twice at home by 20. New Orleans has shown that Chris Paul is their team. While we have the second youngest team in the NBA and have beat the Celtics without our star player, swept Detroit, swept Miami, should have swept Orlando and played one of the toughest early season schedule in the NBA and we are still vying for home court in the playoffs and sitting at 12 games over .500 This is a young Oklahoma team that beat the Jazz, kicked the Bulls ass at home and if it wasn't for Carmelo would have beat the Nuggets twice this year. I know a lot of you don't understand what perspective is, but sorry to bring you guys the hard truth, but this isn't a Championship contending team this year. As no one thought we would be. This is a very young team, with great pieces, just learning how to win. The Thunder are a young team who is deficient of talent who plays hard every night and they can catch any team if they aren't on their game that night. Its sports, its why you play the game. I understand some of you have never played a sport in your life and thats okay. But when your competing with a bunch of guys who are professionals no game is a gimme.
I was wondering if there was going to be any reason surrounding the sky is falling, fire Nate, Oden sucks posts.
Are you sure about all of this? This season's over as far as I'm concerned. I did my research and, as far as I can tell, this is the very first time in the history of the NBA that a team has ever lost to an opponent with a worse record. We suck all sorts of ass. I'm already looking forward to the lottery and next season.
actually hate to break it to you but we have been playing pretty poorly for the last 10 games or so...yes we have won some the last two wins involved injuries for the other team that allowed us to come back. We arent playing good havent since Roy's second missed game after the hammy...sometime is missing from the team. just not clicking right now. running rough.
And I hate to break it to you, but this is what a young team does as they learn to be title contenders - they play inconsistent ball. Anyone who thought (or thinks) this team is winning a title this year is piss drunk or high. Everything they do this year, both good or bad, is chalked up to experience for the serious runs that they (hopefully) have in them in the next few years to come. They're a bunch of early twenty-somethings and rookies learning to compete for an NBA title. Losses to shitty teams WILL happen. Bad stretches WILL happen. It's all a part of the process.
I don't see tonight's loss (or the loss to the Mavs) as any indication that it's time to hit the panic button, but I did call it a few days ago when I said the Thunder present a huge matchup problem for us. What tonight (and the last two games along with a few games earlier in the season) demonstrated to me is that if an opposing team possesses a multi-skilled forward, who can drive and shoot and a lightning bug point guard or at the very least, a great pick and roll point guard (Paul + West, Dirk + Kidd, Watson/Westbrook + Durant) , this team is utterly flummoxed defensively -- this is our kryptonite right now and until we either get the personnel who can deal with it, or Nate finds some way to get the current guys to defend it, we're in real trouble when (if?) we get to the playoffs. Of course, there's no reason to sacrifice what is likely a bright future for a knee-jerk short term fix in a trade, but if the right guy is out there and available I really hope KP pulls the trigger sooner rather than later, because there's no reason to wait any longer. For me it comes down to this: there needs to be a veteran on the floor with lockdown skills, a nasty attitude and the willingness to hold his teammates accountable for fuckups. Brandon is a great overall team leader through his on-court/off-court example, but being a leader at the defensive end takes more than that, it takes someone willing to speak up and get in a teammates face. Two weeks ...
To be fair, Westbrook played poorly tonight and had 6 turnovers. The inside mismatch of LMA and Oden and Portland's lack of exploiting it was noticed by me. Portland got outrebounded 43-37. That can't happen against a team like OKC.
Repost from another thread: Green, Collison and Smith played 96 minutes at PF and C. Oden and Przy played 30 combined.
Y'know... I really hate it when Nate goes with the small ball lineup with LaMarcus at center and Travis at PF. LaMarcus is not a good rebounder anyway, and Travis gets bullied inside a lot, so it really exposes our interior. Opposing teams just get dunks or offensive rebounds at will. What happened to going with Oden AND Joel in the lineup? Nate used those two for a brief stint a month or so ago and it worked, just to change it up a little. We have one of the top 3 center combinations in the league, and they aren't getting any time!! Argh....
Well that's why I made the distinction of putting Watson in the mix since he played like an all-star (or the Blazers let him play like one) in a lot of the Thunder's other games, Westbrook has been an unholy terror getting into the paint on dribble penetration ... tonight just wasn't his night. Like I said, I don't think it's time to hit the panic button and start unloading players in the hope of getting a quick fix, but something's gotta give, and that's something KP, Nate and the players are hopefully thinking about right now. Who knows, maybe an embarrassing loss like this is going to be a spark that pisses everyone on the team off and they start taking it out on the opposition ... or not, and the season spirals out of control into a morass of ineptitude and under achievement Good times!
Sergio should be given credit for his success in shutting down Westbrook tonight. He did an excellent job of containing him, was a definite force on the defensive boards, and practically doubled the pace the team was playing when he came back in. Roy grabbed a ton of rebounds also, mostly offensive. Watson had 11 assists off the bench, but they were mostly perimeter passes to Durant for long jumpers. Bayless was ignored by Roy in the 4th quarter and barely touched the ball. This is becoming a problem, this Roy save the day thing. It's a team game, and 1 on 5 won't bring a title. The 2 centers were not used much simply because they can't run that fast. Good coaching move from Brooks to go all out. It took Nate too long to adapt.
I've been saying that for a while. The NBA has about the best 250 basketball players in the world. There are good players playing elsewhere, but this is essentially THE LEAGUE. Even a guy who is a scrub in the NBA...most scrubs, were the stars of their college teams. A guy who averaged 20+ PPG in college may not average 5 in the NBA. Regardless, these guys are talented. To rip a line from "Outliers" they have put their 10,000 hours in. They are the best of the best. All it takes is for a couple of "better" players to be off and a couple of "lesser" players to be on. I'm not saying that's what happened tonight because I didn't watch the game and only have the boxscore. It seems that Durant/Green/Collison worked us pretty well though....those are their better players after all.
I was pessimistic before this game, not after, since I already had a strong feeling we would lose it. When did we last beat a good team that was at full strength? What was discouraging was seeing their coach say Durant wasn't really up for this game, he's up for every game, because he really loves to play. And I still think that is Oden's problem, he doesn't really love to play, and I'm not sure how that got past the psychological analysis we must have done on him before drafting him.
When was the last time we lost a game with all of our starters? Webster has been out, so it hasn't happened! Every team has injuries, and we've had Oden, Roy, Rudy, Webster, and Blake all miss time. I'm interested to how you determine is someone really loves to play basketball without knowing them or having even spoken to the man. I suppose you think everyone shows their emotions the same way, but I disagree. The talk coming out of the draft was how badly Oden wanted to win, but you never heard that about Durant. This is such a great thread because people around here freak out so easily. When we win, it's no big deal because we were supposed to, but when we lose, the sky is falling, our coach is horrible, and we need to change our lineup. Deep breath people!
I heard KP himself say that Durant was a "killer" and I never heard him say that about Oden. And yes my thoughts on Oden are entirely my speculation based on my observation of human behavior for 60 years. I hope I am wrong.
