Utah 120, Thunder 99
Nuggets from my notebook in the Thunder’s 120-99 loss to Utah.
- The first points of the game for the Thunder came on a long 2-point attempt by Jeff Green off a feed from Russell Westbrook. Long 2-pointers have long been described as the worst shot in basketball, and the Thunder spent the rest of the first half trying to live by them. OKC missed nine of its next 10 shot attempts, many of them long jumpers. The one easy bucket the Thunder got in that stretch was a reverse layup by Nenad Krstic off a pretty feed by Westbrook. But of course, it was waived off because Krstic traveled. That about summed up the kind of night it was for the Thunder.
- Kevin Durant struggled big-time in the first half. But when Durant used a Krstic screen and blew by Andrei Kirilenko and Al Jefferson for a driving dunk, Kirilenko looked at Durant like he didn’t remember Durant having that in his game. It was one of those helpless looks Durant puts in so many defenders.
- KD never could get into a rhythm. His missed his early jumpers and never made the adjustment to go to the basket. And it looked like Kirilenko’s length had a lot to do with throwing off Durant’s timing. Even when KD was open, his rhythm looked bothered, as if he thought Kirilenko was coming from nowhere to contest. By the time Durant did get it going in the third quarter, scoring 13 points on 3-for-5 shooting in the period and making five of six foul shots, it was much too late. C.J. Miles put it best: “Andrei Kirilenko did a good job of contesting his shots. You cannot stop Kevin Durant. He shoots the mid-range shot as good as anyone in the league. Kirilenko tried to make him do more and stopped him from catching any real rhythm.”
- Welcome to the NBA Cole Aldrich. On his 22nd birthday, Aldrich made his NBA debut with 1:29 left in the first quarter. And 28 seconds later, he cleaned up a James Harden miss with a thunderous one-handed putback slam. It brought the crowd to its feet and many fans gave the rookie a standing ovation. Here’s how much Brooks was thinking of his rookie’s performance afterward: “We lost the game,” Brooks said. “We didn’t play well as a team. Cole is like any other player on this team. We’ve got to get better.”
- Deron Williams had six assists in the first quarter. The Thunder had two. Utah had nine assists on 11 made field goals in the period. The Jazz finished with 32 assists!
- The Thunder had 10 assists and 14 turnovers.
- Once again, Green had some success posting up on the left block. He either got baskets or trips to the foul line, mostly against Paul Millsap or C.J. Miles. The most encouraging sign was that Green’s first (and only) assist of the 2010-11 season came out of a post up. When the Jazz’s defense focused in on Green, he turned and found a wide open Serge Ibaka for a two-handed dunk.
- Here’s about all you need to know about how discombobulated the Thunder’s offense was tonight. At one point, Thabo Sefolosha had six field goal attempts and Westbrook had four. Through three quarters, Sefolosha had eight shot attempts and Westbrook had seven. Westbrook finished with 13 shot attempts. It’s clear he’s got to be more aggressive no matter what. “Definitely,” Westbrook said. “I need to figure out a way to get my team going, getting to the line or whatever it is to try to get my team going.”
- Here’s how Al Jefferson summed up Paul Millsap’s 30-point, 16-rebound, six-assist performance. “One word,” Jefferson said. “Beast.”
- The Thunder’s defense has been the biggest head-scratcher. The Jazz shot 53 percent and became the third straight team to toy with OKC’s defense. That will be the team’s biggest point of emphasis. “We just have to get back to playing a defensive brand of basketball,” Brooks said. “It’s been just decent up until tonight, and tonight wasn’t good at all.”
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Is OKC A Western Conference Power?
DETROIT — Of all that’s been said and written about the Thunder over the past six months, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard OKC described as a “power.” That changed Saturday morning, when a quick scroll through Detroit Free Press Pistons beat writer Vince Ellis’ notes and quotes off of Friday’s 105-104 Thunder win.
REASON TO HOPE: The Pistons really didn’t play that well and still were almost able to pull the upset against the Western Conference power.”
Hits you kind of hard, doesn’t it?
After one 50-win season, one All-Star selection, one scoring crown and one Coach of the Year award, national writers suddenly deem OKC a power. Something about it doesn’t add up. Not two seasons after a dreadful 23 wins. And not after only one playoff appearance that ended in six games.
The Thunder being described as a power characterizes all the hype surrounding this year’s team. Oklahoma City is not there yet. The Lakers are a power. The Spurs are a power. The Mavs are a power.
The Thunder is a team of pups, still finding their way and searching for consistency and perennial playoff appearances.
That’s far from a power.
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Thunder 105, Pistons 104
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Don’t forget about the big men.
Nenad Krstic and Serge Ibaka.
They’re the ones most likely to get lost in all of Friday night’s fireworks.
“They both made game-winning plays throughout the game,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks.
The Thunder doesn’t walk out of the Palace of Auburn Hills 105-104 winners without Krstic and Ibaka. Their hustle plays on both ends gave Detroit fits. When it wasn’t one, it was the other. Krstic set them up. Ibaka knocked them down.
Krstic finished with 14 points and seven rebounds. Ibaka dumped in 16 points and a game-high 10 rebounds. Six of Ibaka’s boards were on the offensive end, helping the Thunder to 21-14 advantage in second-chance points. Krstic was just as active around the rim, grabbing five offensive rebounds and muscling his way through contact to convert point-blank buckets.
Ibaka also had two blocked shots, both coming in the fourth quarter. On the first, Ibaka swatted a Rodney Stuckey layup attempt and watched it lead to a lob pass from Russell Westbrook to Kevin Durant, who skied for a tip-in that pushed the Thunder’s lead to 94-87 with 5:50 remaining. Ibaka’s later rejected Stuckey again to preserve a four-point lead with 2:17 left to play.
But it was Ibaka’s final offensive board that figures to be the most easily forgotten pivotal play. Ibaka corralled a miss by Durant with 22.8 seconds left and the Thunder clinging to a two-point lead. Ibaka gathered the rebound, went back up and missed a layup. He grabbed his miss, too, and was fouled on the play. He made one of two at the stripe to push the Thunder’s lead to three.
Game-winning plays indeed.
“That’s what good teams do,” Brooks said. “You have to be able to make plays down the stretch. And we made a few plays.”
And consider this. Krstic did his damage with a busted finger on his shooting hand, a still-healing injury that became more bothersome when Ben Gordon swiped at the ball late in the second quarter. Ibaka, meanwhile, is nursing an ailing right wrist.
“What Nenad did,” Brooks said, “to not touch a ball for six or seven weeks and come out and play the second game of the year the way he played, I thought he was a huge impact.”
Questions linger about the Thunder’s interior. But slowly, the position is beginning to look a lot more like a strength. Rather than one dominant big, however, the Thunder is seeing strength in numbers. No, the Pistons aren’t the Lakers. But the same fight that Krstic and Ibaka showed against the Pistons is likely to show up against the champs.
Throw in a healthy Nick Collison and an eager Cole Aldrich and the Thunder, if nothing else, will have at least 12 more fouls to give.
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Scott Brooks’ Keys To The Game
DETROIT — Thunder coach Scott Brooks before tonight’s game against Detroit gave three keys to his team earning a victory. As you watch tonight’s game, keep an eye on how well the Thunder executes these principles.
- Contain the Pistons guards and wings. Rodney Stuckey, Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, Brooks said, are all capable of having big games if they get hot. The focus will be on limiting their touches and contesting their shots.
- Take care of the ball. Brooks said the Pistons are still known for their defense, and the Thunder’s coach singled out Ben Wallace’s active hands. Regardless of whether the ball is dumped into the post to the big men or guards or penetrating into the paint, the Thunder must be careful to not get stripped and allow the Pistons easy run-out opportunities.
- Get good shots. It sounds simple, but so many teams struggle with it. Brooks said he wants his team to push the ball in transition and get easy offense off the break. If the fastbreak game fails for some reason, the Thunder must be disciplined in its halfcourt sets to get high-percentage shots.
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Getting You Ready For Game Day
DETROIT — Without question, the primary goal tonight is to build momentum and avoid a letdown.
After a hard-fought win over Chicago in the season opener, the Thunder walks into the Palace of Auburn Hills looking to move to 2-0 with a win against Detroit. It’s the home opener for the Pistons, but Detroit’s dominance at home has quickly disappeared. The Pistons finished just 17-24 at home last season, the first time since the 2000-01 season that Detroit failed to secure a winning home record.
Nonetheless, the Pistons have some firepower that the Thunder needs to be careful not to ignite, namely the backcourt duo of Rodney Stuckey and Richard Hamilton, as well as small forward Tayshaun Prince.
The Thunder’s defensive effort will be particularly interesting to watch tonight. OKC played terrible defense for three quarters against Chicago before getting it together and pulling out a win by clamping down and holding the Bulls to 6-for-24 shooting in the final quarter Wednesday night. A more consistent effort has got to be a big focal point tonight.
Keep an eye on the power forward matchup between Jeff Green and Austin Daye. Green has shown improvement posting up from the left block, and although Daye is two inches taller Green is stronger and could have his way down low. Look for Thunder coach Scott Brooks to look to exploit that matchup and try to get Green going early with easy buckets and trips to the foul line.
Another matchup to watch is Kevin Durant against Prince. There was a time that Prince was one of the premier defenders in the league. But even though he’s not what he once was as a defender, Prince still possesses extraordinary length to be a pest to Durant. There won’t be many other defenders Durant faces this season that will have Prince’s skill and physical traits to slow down Durant. If the Pistons are successful in stopping the Thunder, it figures to start with Prince’s defensive effort on Durant.
Kevin Durant Has a Peeping Tom
His name is Mathias Murphy.
He claims to be Kevin Durant’s neighbor.
Really, he’s on Nike’s payroll.
The shoe and apparel giant that sponsors Durant has released a viral Internet campaign that includes snapshots of Durant doing various things at what is supposed to be his new home. Mathias, a spectacle-wearing teenager, presents himself as a Durant fanatic who just happened to be the lucky kid the Thunder’s star moved in next to.
Mathias’ Twitter handle is @kd35sneighbor and his YouTube channel can be found here. Thunder fans might want to follow “Mathias” on Twitter and bookmark the YouTube channel. It looks like some pretty funny videos will be coming out of this campaign.
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Thunder 106, Bulls 95
Nuggets from my notebook in the Thunder’s 106-95 win over Chicago.
- It looks like Nenad Krstic is manning center for the jump ball this year. Last year, Jeff Green did most, if not all, of the opening tips. I never quite understood why that was. But I know that I like Krstic there better. He’s the center. He’s a 7-footer. He should be jumping center.
- Kevin Durant scored the first points for the Thunder this season, a 3-pointer from the right wing with 10:29 to play in the first quarter. It came off an assist from Russell Westbrook.
- Durant got his first “star” call with 8:59 remaining in the first quarter. Bulls guard Keith Bogans was clearly set outside the restricted area. But the refs gave KD a blocking call and a three-point play. We should get used to seeing similar “benefit of the doubt” calls.
- Remember all those odd-ball inbounds plays from a year ago? The ones that led to 26-foot prayers? It looks like the coaching staff spent some quality time shoring up that area. Russell Westbrook scored on a pretty inbounds pass from Thabo Sefolosha with 8:21 left in the first quarter. It was one of the easiest buckets of the night. Keep an eye on how those plays evolve throughout the season.
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Some Notes From Shootaround
Simple logic says that when a coach leaves one team for another and then plays his former team, it’s his new employer that has the edge.
The Thunder has found itself on the wrong side of that scenario as it opens the season against Chicago tonight. Former assistant coach Ron Adams joined the Bulls this summer, taking the same role on new coach Tom Thibodeau’s staff. It’s Adams who was largely credited with buttoning up the Thunder’s defense during his year-and-a-half stay in Oklahoma City.
So you’d think the Bulls would have a leg up on sending the Thunder home losers tonight, right? Well, Adams might not be as helpful as you might think.
“I think very little, if any,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks.
Brooks, of course, served as an assistant in Sacramento during the 2006-07 season before joining the then-Sonics in the same role the following year. The Sonics went 1-3 against the Kings in 2007-08. Prior to his Kings job, Brooks spent the previous three seasons in Denver. The Kings went 2-2 against Denver in 2006-07. The Thunder, meanwhile, has gone 1-7 against Denver over the past two seasons, each game coming on Brooks’ watch against his old coaching buddies.
“Maybe I’m not very good because I knew Denver inside and out and we’ve lost just about every game,” Brooks said only half-jokingly Wednesday morning. “I knew who was going to take the last shot and I knew the play that (Denver coach George Karl) was going to run. And we couldn’t stop Carmelo (Anthony) from hitting the last two shots that he made.”
Brooks said tonight’s game, and all games, will come down to the players.
“Players win games,” Brooks said. “Coaches put players in position to win. But the bottom line is the player has to make those spectacular plays and they have to have great screens and good passes and good weakside spacing for everything to work.
“(Ron) knows what KD does and what he likes. But I think the league knows that. It’s just, can you stop it? Can we execute better than the defense executes? But Ron Adams, he does know our team. But it’s not going to come down to that. It’s going to come down to who plays better. Who executes in the clutch and who doesn’t turn the ball over? Who contests more shots than the other team?”
Adams joined the Thunder from Chicago midway through the 2008-09 season. With Adams on the Thunder’s bench, the Thunder went 2-2 against Chicago over the past two seasons.
So, there, the Thunder has a 50-50 chance at a win with or without Adams assisting the Bulls tonight.
Load Up On Kevin Durant, He’s Ready
Bring it on.
That’s what Kevin Durant essentially is telling opposing defenses this season.
Bring on your double teams. Bring on your traps. Bring on your switches and your beefiest bigs and smartest and strongest smalls.
Durant insists he’s seen it all before.
“It’s been like that for three years,” Durant said. “It picked up a lot during the second half of the season last year, and I expect it to be the same.”
Things are supposed to be different for Durant this season after he took home last year’s scoring title. Defenses, many say, will be more prepared and game plans will be more detailed for the league’s newest superstar — as if they weren’t last year.
Durant doesn’t think any of it will slow him down one bit.
He confidently credited two things as leading reasons: being surrounded by better talent and becoming a better playmaker.
“All of our players are progressing,” Durant said. “They can’t just focus all on me. I think Jeff Green, Russell (Westbrook), we got shooters now in Daequan (Cook) and Mo Peterson. Thabo (Sefolosha), his shooting is getting a lot better. So they can’t focus on me. I think I’m doing a better job of trying to find guys as well. So if I get a lot of attention on me, it’s just an easy pass. Our offense is drive-and-kick and that’s what we’re going to do. I’m looking forward to just going out there and trying to be the best teammate and the best player I can be.”
Durant averaged 30.1 points last year. He became more efficient by earning a league-leading 10.2 trips to the free throw line. But this season, Durant said he wants to boost his assists. He averaged just 2.8 in each of the previous two seasons and holds a three-year career average of 2.7.
“I’ve been trying to get everybody involved but still be aggressive. I can’t let that part of my game leave. I’ve got to be aggressive,” Durant said. “That’s one of the best parts of my game is scoring. I got a knack for scoring so I’ve got to be aggressive. But I also know I’ve got to get my teammates involved a little more. So hopefully you’ll see more assists out of me.”
Forward Jeff Green said Durant’s playmaking skills will naturally stand out more this season after so much attention was placed on Durant’s scoring last year.
“I think (Durant’s playmaking) is much better this year,” Green said. “But you’ve got so much hype on the way he scores, I mean Kevin can do everything. He’s been doing it since last year. But I think this year people will finally notice because you’re already seeing what he can do scoring.”
Green said the rest of the roster needs to step up and take pressure off of Durant by being assertive and making plays when needed. And seeing how Durant has new dimensions, both in his game and surrounding him, Thunder coach Scott Brooks stopped just short of calling his star unstoppable.
“You can’t take his scoring away,” Brooks said. “And the teams that do, it’s very tough…He’s seen a lot, and when you’re as dynamic of a scorer as he is teams are focused on trying to stop him. But we have other guys. Kevin doesn’t need to score 40 for us to win. He wants to be a two-way player.”
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