What the heck just happened??? Did we enter an alternate reality???

What team was that?

What the heck just happened??? Did we enter an alternate reality???

That was a great game. The commentary on how we play to our opponents level is true. We are really good against good teams, and we are really bad against bad teams.

It all seems to be getting better though with each game. The rest of the season and playoffs will be exciting.

It all seems to be getting better though with each game. The rest of the season and playoffs will be exciting.

Well so far we’ve destroyed both teams in the Finals last year. They play like that in the playoffs and, not setting my hopes that high now but, we hang a new banner this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h14C_QOOEOE
Cavs embarrassing loss to Thunder.

Cavs are really bad right now. But OKC was on it. That combination almost got us a 150 point game.

All I know is I'm going to be pissed if Presti sends Ferguson away in a trade, because that dude could be future.

^^^ Abrines is the only one (wishing Singler) that would be trade bait. Abrines has some value...

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Oklahoma City Thunder 109 - Brooklyn Nets 108

Box score: http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975443

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Oklahoma City Thunder 121 - Washington Wizards 112

Box score: http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975457

Look at those Thunder on a 6 game winning streak against teams they had been losing to.... Could it be they're starting to figure things out?

Said I wasn't going to complain, or worry, about this team until after the All-Star break and it's looking like that may have been a good goal to set for them.

^^^^^^^^
That was the prudent approach for a team with the amount of key personnel changes plus addition of All-star/HOF-level players into the starting line-up who were being asked to adapt to new roles and a very different style of play than they had been used to. I have been pretty consistent in this attitude myself over the course of the season, and I’m glad I stuck to my guns.

Paul George's offense has arrived in OKC.

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Oklahoma City Thunder 121 - Detroit Pistons 108

Box score: http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975470

Carmello Anthony 25,004 career points.
Westbrook triple double 31pts, 11 reb, 13 ast
Thunder 7 game win streak

Roberson out for the season. There goes any slim title chance hopes we had

Roberson out for the season. There goes any slim title chance hopes we had

Yeah, probably. Massive loss. But maybe OKC can find an expiring 2 from a bad team before the trade deadline. No one can replace Roberson defensively, but maybe there’s a 2-way player that could help. Unfortunately, I’m afraid OKC might have to mortgage it’s future to get any player worthwhile.

Well, at least Huestis and Ferguson will get a lot of experience out of this.

Not sure Thunder was truly in the mix for a championship this year but yeah, that definitely takes a hit. That said, if it would cause one or more players to become more intentional on defense to make up for the loss - especially Russ, who could surely be elite - and if someone like T Ferg or Huestis steps up in a big way, plus maybe one personnel move, I think they could still do about as well as they probably would have anyway. Not to minimize the Robes loss, which is massive.

Yea this pretty much just removed our entire weapon against GSW/HOU. I feel so bad for Roberson, the dude finally had his role down to a science. The look on Russ's face when he saw Roberson laying there and Roberson was saying "yea it's done" was completely heartbreaking. Roberson is still young, hopefully this isn't going to alter his career's big picture like this same injury has done to many before him.

Shooters can somewhat afford to be a step slower after serious injuries. Defensive specialists can’t afford to lose that step so this is not good news at all.

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Oklahoma City Thunder 122 - Philadelphia 76ers 112

Box score: http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975482

Great win tonight. OKC needs to figure out a way to get a consistent player who the team can count on because they have a lot of young, inconsistent ones (Ferguson, Huestis, Abrines, Grant). Unfortunately, OKC can't take on much more money. Here are some shooting guard possibilities who are on reasonable contracts:
- Avery Bradley
- Marco Belinelli
- Tyreke Evans
- Rodney Hood
- Caris LeVert
- Joe Harris
Any of those guys would be a significant upgrade.

Clippers are currently blowing it up. I am sure Presti is on about 3 phones right now.

Clippers are currently blowing it up. I am sure Presti is on about 3 phones right now.

Blake to Detroit - Tobias Harris and 2 others to Clips.

Who's next on the Clippers chopping block, DeAndre Jordan?

Blake had an opportunity to return home, oh well, he'll love Detroit.

Russ was due for a bad game. And we still had a shot to win it. Heustis made like 3 bone-headed moves right @ the end that sealed it for WAS.

Also are we back to freezing out PG in the 4th now???

Russ was due for a bad game. And we still had a shot to win it. Heustis made like 3 bone-headed moves right @ the end that sealed it for WAS.

Also are we back to freezing out PG in the 4th now???

It was just a really bad game all around. Russ was bad, Anthony wasn't hitting, Huestis made really dumb mistakes in quick succession, as did Adams who passed up a wide-open dunk (literally no one was standing near him--Russ's face was hilarious) and then unnecessarily fouled in the last 40 seconds, sending them to the free throw line. But we are in the middle of a tiring schedule.

One thing that’s showing up big tonight. Russ is, and always has been, an extremely lazy defender. When Roberson went down there’s s hope he’d step up... he’s been worse. Sometimes he’s just mentally lazy (e.g., go for easy steal instead of playing sound D), but a lot of times he’s just physically lazy. I get that he has a big offensive load, but it’s frustrating. Nothing new, but frustrating. /rant over

One thing that’s showing up big tonight. Russ is, and always has been, an extremely lazy defender. When Roberson went down there’s s hope he’d step up... he’s been worse. Sometimes he’s just mentally lazy (e.g., go for easy steal instead of playing sound D), but a lot of times he’s just physically lazy. I get that he has a big offensive load, but it’s frustrating. Nothing new, but frustrating. /rant over

A thousand times this ^^^

For all the crap people give Harden for his defensive abilities (or lack thereof), Westbrook is a legitamately bad defender a lot of times. It's frustrating, because he has all the athletic tools to be at least a passable level defender. Frustrating.

A thousand times this ^^^

For all the crap people give Harden for his defensive abilities (or lack thereof), Westbrook is a legitamately bad defender a lot of times. It's frustrating, because he has all the athletic tools to be at least a passable level defender. Frustrating.

On cue: Russ literally didn’t even pay attention to his man on an in bounds play with 1 second left and gave up the game winner. Again, not surprising. Russ has always been like this and it won’t change, but it sure is frustrating.

Roberson hides a lot of the team's deficiencies on defense as a whole, but especially Westbrook's.

Westbrook could essentially do what he wanted on the defensive end; cheat, go for steals, etc, and Roberson would be able to switch over and cover his man. Without him, Westbrook can't do that and it really shows. He has no idea what he's doing half the time on defense.

It'll be interesting to see if/when Presti makes any moves to help out.

Man... Another game winner against OKC.

PG is playing out of his mind right now, if we can get the defense back to something manageable sans Roberson, we will be a legit team. Russ is in a small slump, but he is still clutch. And I agree with the posters above, if he had just stuck to his man - we would likely be fighting in OT in DEN.

The team is still trending in the right direction. It’ll be interesting to see who/if OKC can get in the coming days...

We really didn't deserve to win after we let them score that many points in the first half and they got revenge they wanted for this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVW2TqpFpAs last night

There was a report out that the in bound player (Jokic) took four small steps which should have been called as a turnover. He also went to the 5 second count. Another turnover. The refs swallowed their whistles again.

With the come back in the last 6 minutes, I have confidence that we would have won the game in overtime. Oh well.

On cue: Russ literally didn’t even pay attention to his man on an in bounds play with 1 second left and gave up the game winner. Again, not surprising. Russ has always been like this and it won’t change, but it sure is frustrating.

To be fair, here's another take on that final play:

@HPbasketball: On the final play, as I discussed on @FredKatz’ podcast: I genuinely don’t think Russ was being lazy. He’s tracking Jokic’s eyes, which go to the rim. He’s worried about a lob. It’s bad awareness, not effort. He closed out like a demon, too, got a piece of the ball.

https://twitter.com/HPbasketball/status/959473745797640192

This makes every game winner hit against the Thunder this year (3), being possible only because the refs did not make the correct call.

feelsbadman.jpg

Really awful stretch by OKC with their 4th straight loss. There are several problems, but one primary one is they have 6 guys are on their roster right now that are not competent NBA level players: Terrance Ferguson (he’ll likely be good in 3-4 years), Alex Abrines, Josh Huestis, Kyle Singler, Nick Collison, and Dakari Johnson. Ferguson needs to come out of the starting lineup. He’s absolutely killing it. None of those guys are able to play at the level of a bad NBA player. The team just lacks depth because of it. A trade has to happen, it likely would mean further mortgaging the future, which OKC has already done in trading away future first round picks. Maybe they can get a buy out candidate. Let’s see what Presti can do.

I can't even be too disappointed because I think the season essentially ended the moment Andre Roberson went down. Like Dan said, a trade has to happen, but they'll have to mortgage their future to get anyone of value. They simply don't have many assets.

I'm pretty concerned about where the franchise will be if Paul George leaves. Even with him off the books, the Thunder don't exactly have a plethora of cap-space or valuable assets. They may be in 6-4 seed purgatory for years, which is terrifying.

I’ll also point out that even without Roberson, this team is not as bad as they’ve played the last four games. Even without a move, they’ll play much better than this.

Just today ESPN posted this Rachel Nichols interview: http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=22302112

I think there is an excellent chance of PG staying if they continue to progress as a team, if he remains convinced Presti and the ownership are in it to win it, and if the Thunder can figure out how to make the dollars work (possibly the most difficult part of the equation).

I don’t get this “the season was over when Andre went down” narrative. Did anyone really think we were contending for a championship this year? After KD bailed, I think last season became a “let Russ off the chain” year, and a chance to prove to Russ once and for all that the organization was fully behind him in front of his long term deal. I think THIS year has always (mostly) been about auditioning the organization for PG (seems to be working pretty well) plus hopefully making a deep run. Maybe if we were lucky they’d throw a scare into teams like Houston and Golden State. But if they accomplished these things they’d be in a position to seriously contend next year after making a few more moves. I think all of that is still totally in front of them.

I just don’t get the “OMG our championship has been derailed” line of thinking. Even if everyone had managed to remain healthy I’d have given the Thunder way less than a 10% chance of winning it all. They just need to remain relevant and find a way to build on the moves made this year.

I agree with the fact that they weren't going to win it this year even healthy. My definition of "season" was maybe making it to the WCF and seeing what they could do against Golden State. They aren't anymore unless Ferguson turns into MJ.

So, yeah, they need to hopefully right the ship enough to keep Paul George here. He seems to like it, and the interviews are nice, but Durant and Paul George himself said similar kinds of things before they both left for other teams.

I trust Presti has a game plan for both possible outcomes of PG's free agency.

The difficulty is keeping their heads above water and making moves to do so while they are handicapped by little assets and little money to go around. Presti is gonna have to work his magic.

I don’t want to bore with my analysis and kooky tinfoil hat theories on Durant’s departure, but I think both situations were/are pretty different. George could always jump for a team with better ring chances but I don’t think the Lakers or even Clippers are a threat to lure him anymore. OKC is in a strong a position.

I don’t want to bore with my analysis and kooky tinfoil hat theories on Durant’s departure, but I think both situations were/are pretty different. George could always jump for a team with better ring chances but I don’t think the Lakers or even Clippers are a threat to lure him anymore. OKC is in a strong a position.

I agree to an extent. The Durant situation was certainly unique and if Golden State didn't get Curry on such a steal of a contract, we aren't even having this conversation lol.

By the way, even in that interview he indirectly address the differences in the situation. Yeah, PG said he was focused on winning a championship in Indy right up until he was traded, but that was his job. He didn’t say he was staying or wanted to stay, and in fact telling the team a season out that he planned to sign elsewhere was actually the decent thing to do. It allowed them to make moves and get value for his expiring contract (which turned out to be great fortune for Indiana with the addition of Oladipo and Sabonis). Not to mention he was TRADED. Not sure why Pacers fans are so salty besides the fact that he admitted he didn’t want to stay. It was a no-win for him no matter how he handled it.

Durant on the other hand led everyone to believe he was staying via a bunch of unnecessary comments - “I want to see my jersey retired here,” et al - dithered long enough in free agcency to kill a deal for the Thunder to get Horford, and then bounced, leaving the team completely empty-handed. Forget about jumping to a team - a rival no less - that was already winning championships, not bothering a simple “thank you for supporting me” on the way out the door, letting people dog/blame Russ, negative comments in the media, and all of the other sorry crap, the fact that he essentially sabatoged the team on the way out was the most inexcusable part as far as I’m concerned.

The situations really could not be more different.

Roberson helped this team be competitive with top teams. OKC could have been a legit top 5 team. If this team squeaks into the playoffs and loses in the first round in 5 games then PG could be more inclined to walk. PG has said himself that he wants to see the progress of the team. So it is important for this team to play well this season. There’s a big difference between being a top-five team and being a top 15 team. We’ll see what happens with the roster and how the team bounces back over the rest of the season. But make no mistake, Roberson was a big loss for this season because this team may have moved from competitive to uncompetitive with top teams.

^^^^^^^^^
There’s still time for a move or moves, plus lots of talk both from the team and the media after tonight’s game that they had definitely built the team play around Roberson’s strengths and were obviously going to have to restructure a bit, but that they felt confident because they had already been able to change longstanding individual playing styles to fit the team’s identity once, and should be able to buckle down and to the same thing again. I don’t sense any panic or surrender, so I won’t be doing those things either.

There's a big difference between players changing their individual playing styles and players being asked to do things they can't. The changes Melo and others made to their games made sense from the beginning, but it was just tough to change habits. That is not the case now. The roster is flawed without Roberson because (a) his defense covered a lot of Russ and Melo's inabilities/mistakes and allowed PG and Adams to thrive. There aren't players on the roster to fix that now. And, (b) Presti's numerous mistakes with the end of the bench parts of the roster are all of a sudden a serious problem. We have 7 non-NBA players on the roster (Ferguson is just young, but the other 6 maybe wouldn't play any minutes on any team) and 7 NBA-level players. There's just no depth. So, we'll see what Presti can do, but Roberson's loss could result in the Thunder getting blown out in the 1st round again and PG leaving because of it.

We'll see. I think the team will player better than this, but I think you're underestimating the possible PG implications of going from a competitive playoff/top 5 team to an uncompetitive top 15 team that gets run out of the first round like last year.

Well, we still have a few days ‘til the trade deadline, and as far as the reports I’ve seen Avery Bradley is still in play, along with some other options. That said, I’m still convinced that even as-structured with a few elevations in individual play they are *capable* of winning at least one series and contending for another. Depends a lot on seeding, of course.

All I know is that it would only take a scroll back through this very thread to see tons of posters wanting to put a fork in the team in December, before the Thunder gelled and spent over a month as the hottest team in the league, record-wise. I’ll also point out that I was advising staying the course back when things were looking bad in November-December.

IF Lebron goes to Houston PG13 will sign with the Thunder. If Lebron goes to the Lakers it a 90 percent chance PG13 is going to the Lakers.

So OKC coming in on a 4-game L streak and bleeding out of our patella tendons.

Warriors coming off a loss to Denver with an additional day of rest over OKC.

Warriors haven't lost two games in a row in almost 3 years.


Game is @ 9:30, liquor stores close @ 9:00.

I don't see how this OKC team doesn't make it out of the 1st round if they're in the Top 5. They're just too disruptive defensively when they want to be and I think that they have the means offensively.

From there, I still don't think we're in a position to gauge where the Thunder are at. With Roberson I think they were the only legitimate threat to Golden State based on the fact that OKC's defense can go toe to toe with Golden State's offense - so the deciding factor would have been how ridiculous Curry and Thompson play along with if OKC could have a great series offensively.

At this point I think they need to get to the 3 seed to have a decent shot at the WCF. I think they could play Houston pretty well.

At any rate, injuries aside, Golden State should waltz to another Championship again with no more than 3 losses. You simply can't answer a team that could vie for the greatest collection of talent in all of sports history.

Well of course OKC keeps their perfect record against the top teams by absolutely crushing the Warriors.

Melo basically didn't play. And Adams only played the second half because of this pathetic ref show.

Honestly PG is re-signing with OKC, there is no way he leaves this potent team to the garbage Lakers when OKC steps up like this on the big stage.

Seeing PG put the snake on skates tonight was like that final step. Grant was HUGE in this game. He has fit his role amazingly since Roberson went down.

I want to double post to say this.

Looking @ the Eastern Conference right now, it is a total sh!tshow in Cleveland and the Celtics aren't nearly as strong as they looked early. If OKC can get through the West in the playoffs, it may be the best shot @ a championship we have had since 2012. The Champion is in the West.

Presti is going to have a sleepless night and day trying to decide if he is going to pull a trigger and go all-out to get a defensive piece in here and go for broke.

I want to double post to say this.

Looking @ the Eastern Conference right now, it is a total sh!tshow in Cleveland and the Celtics aren't nearly as strong as they looked early. If OKC can get through the West in the playoffs, it may be the best shot @ a championship we have had since 2012. The Champion is in the West.

Presti is going to have a sleepless night and day trying to decide if he is going to pull a trigger and go all-out to get a defensive piece in here and go for broke.

They won't beat the Warriors this year - But if KD takes his option this summer the Warriors would *still* be over the Salary cap with just 7 players on the roster. They will have no bench moving forward and Iggy is past his prime.

I think if they find a way to trade off Carmelo into somebody's cap space and can keep Grant, re-sign Felton, and find another solid 4 or 5 to come in they've got a real shot next year. Melo's just way too expensive for what he brings to the table.

^^Obviously assumes we keep Paul George^^

I mean, I guess you can trade away Ferguson since he's really not going to be a major contributor in this team's title window (next 3/4 years)

Incredible game tonight! Russ and PG played great games. A big thing is that Josh Huestis was able to contribute, but I'm still not convinced the Thunder can rely on him in the playoffs. This team still needs to make a move.

Having said that, I still don't think OKC is a threat to Golden State or Houston as constructed. Those teams are complete and OKC still has majors flaws. Those flaws will get exposed in a playoff series.

We'll see if Presti can get anything done for a shooting guard.

I mean, I guess you can trade away Ferguson since he's really not going to be a major contributor in this team's title window (next 3/4 years)

It's an interesting dilemma. There's a lot of reasons to keep young talent: cheap contracts, brighter future (this is more important than most think), future asset (once he's gone OKC has nothing). But, Ferguson is probably 2-3 seasons away from being a significant contributor and this is a win-now team that doesn't want to waste Russ' prime.

Supposedly, there's been a lot of interest in Ferguson, but OKC is not taking calls on him.

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Oklahoma City Thunder 125 - Golden State Warriors 105

Box score: http://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400975549

^^^^^^^
Games like this are why I remain (mostly) an optimist.

^^^^^^^
Games like this are why I remain (mostly) an optimist.

Yep.... I think as long as we don't have to play Dallas or Sacramento in the first round of the playoffs. We may have a chance! ;)

:wink: