Comments on: Four burning questions: Are the Thunder still favorites in the West?

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 05:00:14 +0000

I totally agree with Troy’s comment. After watching the Thunder tonight, I am convinced we have all the strengths and talent needed to win. We even have Finals experience. Brooks ran his best game using 4 men off the bench. Winning a championship is up to him. Except maybe including enlisting Durant. The two of them will need to corral and then harness Westbrook’s ego. Sure it gives him confidence, but that thing is like a yin-yang. His strength is his weakness. They need to figure out a way to get him to mature into the basketball player we all know he is capable of being– an elite of the elite.

By: Troy

Troy — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:14:59 +0000

The contenders in the Western conference are the teams mentioned above, but they have some critics behind them. The Spurs have an emotional coach Popovich that called his team “soft” because they lost to the Clippers and that is his way to ignite them. The Lakers have an identity crisis, as having fired their coach, wanting their old coach back but management did not and settled for D’Antoni. Memphis are a hungry, young team, that’s venting their anger on the Thunder due to their lost in the 7 game series and their coach is one who teaches hard and rough plays to get the other team rattled and settling for jumpers and three’s. The Clippers are also a young bunch, that is blended by veteran and mature players that run the point position, know how to win games and a cunning, strong coach who knows his players and studied their opponents plays.

With that in mind, the next move will be coach Brooks, just like a chess game. Will he have that extra play or move to get his team to the next level or will he be the same old self with nothing to surprise their opponents. He should have something drawn up for his power forward, center and sixth man, off the bench. He needs more than three scorers every game and get more rebounds than the usual single digit rebounds from his players. As I see things, the Thunder need a big man coach to be able to communicate with the center and power forward players. They need scoring from their big guys, because the other teams know by now to win games, get the two stars out of their comfort spots. If they had more scorers, then by logic, no man to man defense can stop the five Thunder players to get points for the team!

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:48:58 +0000

The biggest disappointment is Westbrook and Brooks, who has not changed their ways until now. Will they ever change, probably not. To win the championship, as displayed last season, all of the team must sacrifice their egoes and are willing to be aggressive and not timid, work as a team and not being selfish, to go for loose balls and not watch, be better passers and alert of where the ball is, become aware of the intentions of every teammate to anticipate the next move, willing to box out the other team to gather the rebounds, make assists than forcing shots, know if their shooting percentage is better than average, if not stop shooting the ball and do some defense and lastly, the coach needs to get everybody involved in the game and not let the players by themselves. Voice out the problems and rectify the weaknesses!

As we have experienced last season, the Miami Heat were all in the game to win, by passing the ball to open three pointers or driving hard to the basket to collect fouls, while the Thunder were not playing defense and leaving their assigned opponents to help out their big guys who really did not need any help and leaving open the Heat’s three pointer man. The coach should know the opponents strengths and weaknesses, in order to point out to his players what to expect and how to overcome the opponents strengths. The coach has to do this and not only to come up with plays for his team.

I hope this helps!