Russel Westbrook is a great, great basketball player. He's one of the top 5 scorers in the NBA. Problem is, he's not Kevin Durant. Durant is number one. To put it in old school terms, Durant is Jordan, and Westbrook is Pippin.
So for the first two years (the team's only been around for four), Westbrook got labelled as a ball hog who shot too much, because that's what he was. Just because you're the guy who sets up plays doesn't mean you get to shoot a 3 pointers every single time. It was frustrating times.
Now, I think, Westbrook gets it. In the clutch, the ball goes to Durant, not Westbrook. Problem is the other night, Durant wasn't getting it done, so Westbrook stepped up and scored 43 points -- simply amazing, especially against the bigger Heat.
So people weren't mad about that. They were mad that in the last 15 seconds he made two terrible plays, which makes people say "HE LOST THE GAME FOR US" which isn't exactly true, but they were terrible plays.
NBA 2012 Playoffs
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Flack
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The analysis of the sports media on one's team is usually terrible. They don't watch the regular season games, so they have no idea what has and hasn't worked throughout the year. They then purport to be experts when they know far, far less than any passionate fan.
Good sports journalism, for television at least, would have a few guys watching all the games for contenders and then let those guys be the analysts when those teams got far into the playoffs. It wouldn't help when a situation like the Arizona Cardinals go to the Super Bowl (although, Christ, how difficult could it be to find people whose job it is to speak articulately and watch sports) but it would be better than the slop we have now.
Good sports journalism, for television at least, would have a few guys watching all the games for contenders and then let those guys be the analysts when those teams got far into the playoffs. It wouldn't help when a situation like the Arizona Cardinals go to the Super Bowl (although, Christ, how difficult could it be to find people whose job it is to speak articulately and watch sports) but it would be better than the slop we have now.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!
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Flack
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At the end of the game, the Thunder were down by 4. The Heat won a jump ball with 18 seconds on the clock, but only 5 seconds on the shot clock. Ideally, the right play would have been to force the Heat to shoot a tough shot (and hope they miss), score a quick 2 at the other end, do a quick foul, and hope the shooter missed 1, making it a 1 possession game. Tough, but there was still hope.gsdgsd wrote:...people were still throwing fits about his performance.
Instead, Westbrook ran over and quick fouled someone (I forgot who), who made the free throws, giving the Heat a 6 point lead with about 15 seconds left.
So, you know, it's sports. People are saying he lost the game for us, but no one said that when he scored 43 points. James Harden, (again, the 6th man of the year), was 0-4 in the 4th. Free throw shooting was again atrocious. Yes it was a bad play by Westbrook, but in the 1st quarter the Thunder were up 33-19, so there were a lot of other bad plays that put them in that position. Oh well.
If the Thunder can win tonight that'll bring the series back to OKC. 1-3, we are all being told, is insurmountable, but it would be nice to see them back in OKC with their backs up against the wall and see how they play.
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Flack
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"In an NBA Finals full of 50-50 calls, LeBron is winning 100 percent of the time"
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/1937 ... f-the-time
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/1937 ... f-the-time
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Flack
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Well my friends ... YOUR Oklahoma City Thunder imploded.
A couple of times, it was close, but it never really felt close. The Thunder simply had no way to stop Miami. At one point in time I noticed the Heat had Wade and James on the court (two guys that can drive to the hoop any time they choose) and three 3-point shooters. If you don't double team LeBron or Dwayne Wade, they'll drive in and dunk. If you do, then you end up with Mike Miller draining 7 of 8 3-pointers, not to mention Battier hitting another 4.
If anything, I wish you guys could have seen the Thunder play earlier this year. They were great. For most of the season, they had the best record in the west. Going in to the playoffs, we played Dallas (the defending champions) and the Spurs (who were undefeated in the playoffs). We swept Dallas, and after going down to the Spurs, came back by beating them four games in a row. It was a great season. It was a great run. It just wasn't our year.
With Chicago out of the east, the story wrote itself before the games were played. LeBron James, the Whore of Akron, would win it all. There was a great shot on the local news of one of the refs giving the Heat's coach a high five near the end of the game. That pretty much sums it up.
You can blame some of what happened on bad calls and NBA royalty, but not all of it. You can blame a few points on bad calls (and everybody agrees, the Thunder got some bad calls), but you can't hang a 25 point deficit on one. No, the Thunder walked on to the court with their heads down, and walked off it the same way.
It's disappointing, not to lose, but to lose badly. I thought the Thunder looked terrible out there and I'm sure people across the country were wondering how we got to the playoffs (much less the finals) playing like that. I don't know how or why, but the Heat got under the Thunder's skin, and crawled out just in time to go collect their rings.
But, the grapes are not too sour. We have a great team and made a great run at it. We just fell apart at the end; it's like when that niece you like flunks a test. We've got next year, and this is Oklahoma, so you can be sure that every one in this state will ... well, be watching the OU Sooners, but after THAT, we will be Thundering UP!
A couple of times, it was close, but it never really felt close. The Thunder simply had no way to stop Miami. At one point in time I noticed the Heat had Wade and James on the court (two guys that can drive to the hoop any time they choose) and three 3-point shooters. If you don't double team LeBron or Dwayne Wade, they'll drive in and dunk. If you do, then you end up with Mike Miller draining 7 of 8 3-pointers, not to mention Battier hitting another 4.
If anything, I wish you guys could have seen the Thunder play earlier this year. They were great. For most of the season, they had the best record in the west. Going in to the playoffs, we played Dallas (the defending champions) and the Spurs (who were undefeated in the playoffs). We swept Dallas, and after going down to the Spurs, came back by beating them four games in a row. It was a great season. It was a great run. It just wasn't our year.
With Chicago out of the east, the story wrote itself before the games were played. LeBron James, the Whore of Akron, would win it all. There was a great shot on the local news of one of the refs giving the Heat's coach a high five near the end of the game. That pretty much sums it up.
You can blame some of what happened on bad calls and NBA royalty, but not all of it. You can blame a few points on bad calls (and everybody agrees, the Thunder got some bad calls), but you can't hang a 25 point deficit on one. No, the Thunder walked on to the court with their heads down, and walked off it the same way.
It's disappointing, not to lose, but to lose badly. I thought the Thunder looked terrible out there and I'm sure people across the country were wondering how we got to the playoffs (much less the finals) playing like that. I don't know how or why, but the Heat got under the Thunder's skin, and crawled out just in time to go collect their rings.
But, the grapes are not too sour. We have a great team and made a great run at it. We just fell apart at the end; it's like when that niece you like flunks a test. We've got next year, and this is Oklahoma, so you can be sure that every one in this state will ... well, be watching the OU Sooners, but after THAT, we will be Thundering UP!
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."
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Flack
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Hah, that was great. Cuban can be a jerk but he's pretty smart and super interesting. His biography was great. A few years ago my wife found a confusing typo on their website. A few days later, Cuban e-mailed her, thanked her, and sent us two tickets to a Mavs game.
Yesterday, around 1:30pm, the Oklahoma City Thunder arrived at Will Rogers World Airport here in OKC. After the plane landed, the players were brought by bus out and around to a grass area that's out in front of the airport (ICJ and Vark have both seen it). There, around 4,000 people were waiting to welcome them home. People were cheering and holding up signs and waving at the players, each of which took the mic and made brief speeches to the crowd.
At least four people were treated for heat stroke. While one was being wheeled to an ambulance she commented to a reporter, "it was worth it."
There are several pictures of the Heat celebrating their victory. One has Chris Bosh pouring a bottle of champaine over his head. The caption to the photo notes that the bottle cost $75,000.
Win or lose, I wouldn't trade the Thunder for the Heat for anything.
Yesterday, around 1:30pm, the Oklahoma City Thunder arrived at Will Rogers World Airport here in OKC. After the plane landed, the players were brought by bus out and around to a grass area that's out in front of the airport (ICJ and Vark have both seen it). There, around 4,000 people were waiting to welcome them home. People were cheering and holding up signs and waving at the players, each of which took the mic and made brief speeches to the crowd.
At least four people were treated for heat stroke. While one was being wheeled to an ambulance she commented to a reporter, "it was worth it."
There are several pictures of the Heat celebrating their victory. One has Chris Bosh pouring a bottle of champaine over his head. The caption to the photo notes that the bottle cost $75,000.
Win or lose, I wouldn't trade the Thunder for the Heat for anything.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."
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Flack
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Here was my parting messages in regards to the Thunder on my blog.
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Rarely can a person determine the outcome of a professional basketball game by a single shot, much less the first one. But in Game 5 of the NBA finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Miami Heat, when LeBron James (as he has done before) waltzed through a crowd of defenders and threw down a monstrous dunk, I turned to Mason and said, "It's over." The score was 2-0, Miami.
Of course we, the Thunder fans, had to endure two-and-a-half more hours of pummeling before facing the inevitable truth; at least this year, the Thunder had no answer to LeBron James' Miami Heat. After winning game one, it felt like the Thunder were not only a step, but an entire game behind the Heat. Miami adjusted their attack in game two and overcame the Thunder. In game three, it felt like we were doing what we should have done in game two. In game four, we were playing game three. And in game five ... hell, in game five, there were times when it felt like we weren't playing at all. I'm sure the Thunder learned a lot of lessons during their 2012 playoff run, but if there was one thing we all learned, it's that you can't spot a team (much less the Eastern Conference Champions) 20+ points and expect to come back.
It appeared that the Thunder's game plan was to not let LeBron James beat them. To that end, they double teamed him every time he was within half a mile of the paint. This left Miller and Battier open outside the arc, which the Heat reminded the Thunder of by dropping 14 3-point shot in Game 5. That's not just incredible, it's a playoff record. By focusing on James' layups, they forgot about his passing ability; in a sense, their efforts to stop James from beating them allowed James to beat them.
There was a lot of talk of bad calls in the finals, calls that went in James' favor. And not just talk by Thunder fans (let's face it, that's what sports fans do). CBS News recently ran an article titled In an NBA Finals full of 50-50 calls, LeBron is winning 100 percent of the time. Even the ABC commentators during the game repeatedly made reference to "phantom fouls," calls that went in the Heat's favor that even using slow-motion replay, they could not spot. I try not to let sports-based conspiracy theories cloud my enjoyment of the game, but there were definitely times throughout the series when it felt like the league had already decided that this was James' year to win the title and they weren't going to let actually playing the games get in the way of that. Late in Game 5, Derek Fisher grabbed LeBron James, committing a hard foul to prevent the shot. Fisher walked away with a Flagrant One foul; how dare he stop the (self-proclaimed) "king" from dunking on him?
Derek Fisher is 6'1" and weighs 210 pounds. LeBron James is 6'8", and 250 pounds. I sure hope LeBron James is okay.
The most disappointing part of losing the Finals isn't losing; it's that, while on a national stage, the people I've been raving about the Thunder to didn't get a chance to see how good our team is. Based on their performance against the Heat, people (and rightly so) have begun questioning how the Thunder made it to the Finals and what they were doing there.
All I can say is the Thunder is a great team. They've given us, Oklahoma, a reason to be proud. And, they're young. Durant and Westbrook, both of whom have signed for 5 years, are 23 years old. Harden, the NBA's 6th Man of the Year, is just 22.
Here's a picture of me when I was 22:
In my defense I was running around the house pretending to be a homeless garbage collector. Still, point taken.
The thing is, when you're an Okie -- and make no mistake, the Thunder players are Okies -- you play with style and class, even when you're losing. Other than Fisher's horrible mistake of trying to block James from dunking, there were no hard or flagrant fouls, no technical fouls out of frustration. The Thunder continued to play. Even when they were losing, even when all legitimate hope was lost, they continued to play with dignity.
Can the same be said for the Whore of Akron? With three minutes left in the game the Heat's starters stood on the sidelines, laughing and clapping and cheering. Whoever said "money can't buy happiness" isn't a fan of professional sports.
"It's about damn time," LeBron James said, in regards to the victory. Yes, the victory that was owed to "the king." After watching LeBron James on the basketball court, I can tell you that he is definitely one of the most talented guys I've ever seen on the court. It's too bad a championship ring still can't make the guy likable.
So now all the ex-Seattle fans can be happy we lost, and all the Cleveland fans can stay mad that LeBron got what he wanted by abandoning them. Seems like a lot of negativity to me. Me, I'm going to focus on the positive, what what the Thunder did this year. Their third year in the league (last year), they made it to the playoffs. Their fourth year in the league (this year), they made it to the finals. To get there, they beat the returning champions (the Dallas Mavericks) in round one, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in round two, and the team with the best record in the west and undefeated (at that point) in the playoffs, the San Antonio Spurs. The Thunder had an amazing run, are an amazing team, and we look forward to a rematch next year against the Miami Heat in next year's finals (that is, assuming that a healthy Chicago doesn't squash them).
Thanks for an amazing year, Thunder. See you in 2013.
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Rarely can a person determine the outcome of a professional basketball game by a single shot, much less the first one. But in Game 5 of the NBA finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Miami Heat, when LeBron James (as he has done before) waltzed through a crowd of defenders and threw down a monstrous dunk, I turned to Mason and said, "It's over." The score was 2-0, Miami.
Of course we, the Thunder fans, had to endure two-and-a-half more hours of pummeling before facing the inevitable truth; at least this year, the Thunder had no answer to LeBron James' Miami Heat. After winning game one, it felt like the Thunder were not only a step, but an entire game behind the Heat. Miami adjusted their attack in game two and overcame the Thunder. In game three, it felt like we were doing what we should have done in game two. In game four, we were playing game three. And in game five ... hell, in game five, there were times when it felt like we weren't playing at all. I'm sure the Thunder learned a lot of lessons during their 2012 playoff run, but if there was one thing we all learned, it's that you can't spot a team (much less the Eastern Conference Champions) 20+ points and expect to come back.
It appeared that the Thunder's game plan was to not let LeBron James beat them. To that end, they double teamed him every time he was within half a mile of the paint. This left Miller and Battier open outside the arc, which the Heat reminded the Thunder of by dropping 14 3-point shot in Game 5. That's not just incredible, it's a playoff record. By focusing on James' layups, they forgot about his passing ability; in a sense, their efforts to stop James from beating them allowed James to beat them.
There was a lot of talk of bad calls in the finals, calls that went in James' favor. And not just talk by Thunder fans (let's face it, that's what sports fans do). CBS News recently ran an article titled In an NBA Finals full of 50-50 calls, LeBron is winning 100 percent of the time. Even the ABC commentators during the game repeatedly made reference to "phantom fouls," calls that went in the Heat's favor that even using slow-motion replay, they could not spot. I try not to let sports-based conspiracy theories cloud my enjoyment of the game, but there were definitely times throughout the series when it felt like the league had already decided that this was James' year to win the title and they weren't going to let actually playing the games get in the way of that. Late in Game 5, Derek Fisher grabbed LeBron James, committing a hard foul to prevent the shot. Fisher walked away with a Flagrant One foul; how dare he stop the (self-proclaimed) "king" from dunking on him?
Derek Fisher is 6'1" and weighs 210 pounds. LeBron James is 6'8", and 250 pounds. I sure hope LeBron James is okay.
The most disappointing part of losing the Finals isn't losing; it's that, while on a national stage, the people I've been raving about the Thunder to didn't get a chance to see how good our team is. Based on their performance against the Heat, people (and rightly so) have begun questioning how the Thunder made it to the Finals and what they were doing there.
All I can say is the Thunder is a great team. They've given us, Oklahoma, a reason to be proud. And, they're young. Durant and Westbrook, both of whom have signed for 5 years, are 23 years old. Harden, the NBA's 6th Man of the Year, is just 22.
Here's a picture of me when I was 22:
In my defense I was running around the house pretending to be a homeless garbage collector. Still, point taken.
The thing is, when you're an Okie -- and make no mistake, the Thunder players are Okies -- you play with style and class, even when you're losing. Other than Fisher's horrible mistake of trying to block James from dunking, there were no hard or flagrant fouls, no technical fouls out of frustration. The Thunder continued to play. Even when they were losing, even when all legitimate hope was lost, they continued to play with dignity.
Can the same be said for the Whore of Akron? With three minutes left in the game the Heat's starters stood on the sidelines, laughing and clapping and cheering. Whoever said "money can't buy happiness" isn't a fan of professional sports.
"It's about damn time," LeBron James said, in regards to the victory. Yes, the victory that was owed to "the king." After watching LeBron James on the basketball court, I can tell you that he is definitely one of the most talented guys I've ever seen on the court. It's too bad a championship ring still can't make the guy likable.
So now all the ex-Seattle fans can be happy we lost, and all the Cleveland fans can stay mad that LeBron got what he wanted by abandoning them. Seems like a lot of negativity to me. Me, I'm going to focus on the positive, what what the Thunder did this year. Their third year in the league (last year), they made it to the playoffs. Their fourth year in the league (this year), they made it to the finals. To get there, they beat the returning champions (the Dallas Mavericks) in round one, Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in round two, and the team with the best record in the west and undefeated (at that point) in the playoffs, the San Antonio Spurs. The Thunder had an amazing run, are an amazing team, and we look forward to a rematch next year against the Miami Heat in next year's finals (that is, assuming that a healthy Chicago doesn't squash them).
Thanks for an amazing year, Thunder. See you in 2013.
--+--
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."
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Flack
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I don't really remember how or why, but for some reason (I'm sure alcohol was involved) I came up with a "character" named "Alfonzo" (who said his own name as "Alpondo") so sometimes I would put on that hat and run around the house and annoy the roommates. Who knew one of them would have a camera waiting for me one fateful Sunday morning? Alpondo didn't, that's for sure.
Man, say what you want about being a starving college student, but I haven't been that skinny since ... that day.
Man, say what you want about being a starving college student, but I haven't been that skinny since ... that day.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."