Thunder 100, Heat 87
The date was Feb. 28, 2009.
That’s when the Thunder recorded its fourth road win last season, a full four months into the season.
Shocking isn’t it?
But in what’s become the latest bit of evidence of how much Oklahoma City has improved, the Thunder secured its fourth road win Tuesday night at Miami, just three weeks into the 2009-10 season. It was a dominating 100-87 win over Miami at American Airlines Arena, one that bumped the Thunder’s road record to 4-2, or half its win total from last season’s 41 road games.
Good teams win on the road, and Tuesday’s win proves the Thunder is blossoming into a good team. This 6-5 start is no fluke. Oklahoma City has a better road record than it does at home (2-3). Granted, Miami is far from the toughest place to win in the league. Heat officials were so desperate for fans that two entire sections in the upper deck were allowed to move down to the lower bowl. But the Thunder has also gone into Detroit, San Antonio and Los Angeles and won, holding off talented Pistons, Spurs and Clippers teams in the fourth quarter with solid late-game execution and exceptional defense.
Road wins are vital for any team looking to land in the postseason when the regular season music stops in mid-April. Seven of last season’s 16 playoff teams finished above .500 on the road. Another two, Portland and Houston, were one game under .500 away from their home buildings. The Thunder could be on that same track, especially when you consider OKC’s two road losses, at Houston and at Sacramento, both came down to the fourth quarter, the Kings loss ending with a last-second shot that could have forced overtime.
Since that letdown in Sacramento, the Thunder has now won three straight road games. Oklahoma City’s 4-2 road record now trails only Phoenix (6-2), Portland and Dallas (both 5-2) in the Western Conference.
The best sign is that the Thunder is succeeding because of a commitment to defense. The Thunder held Miami to 43.1 percent shooing and limited a hot-handed Heat team to 5-for-18 shooting from behind the 3-point line. OKC now ranks fourth in opponent scoring, allowing just 90.1 points per game. The Heat’s point total was the seventh time in 11 games that the Thunder has held an opponent to less than 100 points. On one of the four occasions that a team did score in triple digits on the Thunder, it took the Los Angeles Lakers overtime to notch its 101-98 win.
One thing that has been proven early this season, though, is the Thunder, because of its youth, is as erratic as it is stingy. The Thunder followed up big wins against San Antonio and Orlando with heart-breakers against Sacramento and the Clippers. Oklahoma City very well could travel to Orlando for Wednesday’s game against the Magic and get run out of Amway Arena.
But the Thunder is now conscious of how to win and confident it can clinch victory on anyone’s court. And at this rate, would anyone really be surprised if the Thunder beat the Magic in Orlando on Wednesday, even if Oklahoma City didn’t see road win No. 5 until March 10?
Thunder 83, Clippers 79
While you were cozily tucked in late Wednesday, perhaps uninterested in staying up past midnight to watch the Thunder take on the Blake Griffin-less Los Angeles Clippers, Kevin Durant was busy delivering his breakthrough performance in Game No. 8 of what many consider the season that will be his coming out party.
Durant dominated the Clippers in every respect before the final buzzer sounded on the Thunder’s 83-79 win, undoubtedly assembling his best and most complete outing of his two-plus years.
On this night, Durant arrived, his coronation unfortunately coming courtesy of L.A.’s forgotten team, which had only a generously-announced 14,248 spectators sprinkled throughout Staples Center as witnesses.
Statistically, Durant has had more impressive showings. His line Wednesday — 30 points, 10 rebounds and four assists — won’t wow you because it’s what we’ve come to expect of Durant. On numbers alone, this wasn’t even Durant’s best night in Staples Center. He poured in career-highs of 46 points and 15 rebounds against the Clippers last January, getting to the foul line 26 times and swishing 24 freebies. Both the attempts and the makes from the stripe stand as franchise records.
But this game wasn’t about numbers. It was about winning, which the Thunder failed to do against a short-handed Clippers team last winter despite Durant’s career night. It was about the mega-talented Durant, maybe for the first time, coming to the realization that he is capable of doing whatever he needs to do on the court to lead his teammates to victory.
Durant hunkered down on defense, playing the passing lanes and pestering his man to come up with steals and deflections. Durant played point forward offensively, controlling the ball and the pace of the Thunder’s offense throughout much of his 36 minutes, 22 seconds. He created for himself and others, refusing to settle but rather weaving his way into the lane for easy baskets or showing off an improved mid-range game with pull-up jumpers. Durant’s first 3-point attempt didn’t come until the opening seconds of the second quarter.
And this time, on a play that illustrated everything he did right offensively, Durant netted the big shot.
The Thunder took a 78-71 lead with 5:43 left to play but scored just one point over the next five minutes as the Clippers crept back to tie the score at 79-all. Thunder coach Scott Brooks then ran an isolation for Durant on the left wing. With Al Thornton defending closely, Durant drove left with two dribbles before reaching the baseline. He stopped and hit a step-back jumper over Thornton with 38.9 seconds remaining.
“That’s what I do,” Durant said. “That’s what I’m here for is to make big plays, miss or make.”
It wasn’t the make that stood out. It was the decision-making.
Equally impressive, although it will be overshadowed, was the play in which Durant didn’t take the shot. It came on a sequence that saw the Thunder aiming to milk the final 27.3 seconds off the game clock with the shot clock showing a 4.3-second differential. With all eyes on Durant as he stood near halfcourt, much like he did against the Lakers before settling for a 28-footer, Durant jabbed right took one dribble left and passed to a wide open Jeff Green after Marcus Camby helped. Green swung it to Kevin Ollie in the left corner. Ollie missed a 3-point attempt but retrieved the rebound and iced the game with a pair of free throws with 1.8 seconds remaining.
“We’ve definitely made some strides,” said Nick Collison. “I think we’re just starting to learn how to play. What I like is we have a lot of guys just concerned with winning and making winning plays.”
Durant did both Wednesday and assumed his rightful place at the front of the line on a night that you might have viewed simply as Game No. 8 of his third season.
Kings 101, Thunder 98
A viewer asked the Fox Sports Oklahoma crew the most compelling question of the night via text message.
“Why does the Thunder play to the level of its competition at times?”
I’m wondering the same thing following Tuesday night’s 101-98 loss at Sacramento. I’ve posed a variation of the question to Kevin Durant and Co. on more than one occasion this season, inquiring whether the team gets more juiced when playing against the league’s best teams.
I was met with company line after company line, from everyone except wily veteran Kevin Ollie, who before playing the Los Angeles Lakers said, “I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t get any extra motivation.”
Said Durant, “I get up for every game no matter who we’re playing. I get up for the Lakers the same way I do for Portland or Sacramento.”
The problem with taking that stance publicly comes when you run into nights like Tuesday that clearly prove otherwise. Not singling out Durant. He actually played well and gave good effort on both ends. But what’s been identified is the issue of inconsistency throughout the entire team. Granted, on Monday I wrote that the Thunder is now beating teams its supposed to beat. But in that same space I also pointed out that OKC is far from out of the woods and has work left to be done.
The latest defeat was a prime example of the labor that lies ahead but is to be expected from a team filled with 25-year-old-and-younger talent.
But explanations for effort are harder to articulate when, two nights after manhandling the defending Eastern Conference champions, you get outplayed from start to finish by a Kings team missing its best player, guard Kevin Martin. Had the Thunder got up for the Kings like it did for Orlando on Sunday or the Lakers last week this game would have easily been a blowout. Instead, the Thunder is 3-4. Instead, the Thunder never led by more than four. Instead, the Thunder shot 39.7 percent against a Kings team without any interior resistance and reverted to haphazard defense.
“We just have to play better,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks.
The worst of it was that the Kings outrebounded the Thunder 51-36, including 15-8 on the offensive end and scored 20 points in transition. Jason Thompson had 21 points and 14 rebounds. Numbers like those make it easy to challenge the Thunder’s claim that it treats every opponent the same. Easy because the rebounding numbers against a much better Magic team two nights earlier read 45-30 in favor of the Thunder. Easy because a much more talented post player, Dwight Howard, was held to 20 points and seven boards when the Thunder’s players had it set in their minds that he wouldn’t be the one who beat them.
“We didn’t rebound the ball well. That’s the bottom line,” Brooks said. “We gave them 15 offensive rebounds. Jason Thompson was really a force down there. He had a lot of easy buckets around the basket. He was physical and it was just too many second-chance points.”
The good news is that the Thunder still only lost by three and Durant short-armed a 3-pointer in the final seconds that could have sent it to overtime despite the team’s effort on both ends ranking as arguably the second worst showing of the season behind the Houston debacle. A lot of shots that ordinarily go in rimmed out tonight. Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Thabo Sefolosha went a combined 7-for-27.
Some of the shooting woes could be attributed to a lack of ball movement. And some of the lack of ball movement probably could be attributed to shooting woes. The Thunder tallied just 15 assists one game after recording a season-high 27. The 16 turnovers marked the second time this season the Thunder finished with more giveaways than assists.
But again, despite it all, the Thunder had a last-second shot for a chance to play five extra minutes. Eliminate some inconsistency and we’re talking about the Thunder’s continued improvement right now.
“We didn’t play as good as we wanted to but we still hung in there on the road,” said Harden. “But there are some good teams that are going to stick in there until the fourth quarter and you hopefully pull it out. It was one of those games where we tried to (win it) in the fourth quarter. It just didn’t go our way.”
Thunder 102, Orlando 74
The stat of the night?
Three Thunder players with at least five assists.
Russell Westbrook had a game-high 10. Kevin Durant and James Harden had five apiece.
Ball movement was the name of the game Sunday against Orlando and the key to the Thunder’s 102-74 victory inside the Ford Center. Oklahoma City had 27 assists on 40 made baskets and 14 assists on their first 17 made field goals.
This, just three games after the Thunder recorded only six assists in a nine-point loss to Portland.
“We played as good as we could possibly play,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks. “We did a good job of playing 48 minutes of team basketball. It was probably our best ball-moving game.”
Through spacing the floor and sharing the basketball, the team’s most critical offensive principles, the Thunder got high-percentage looks and broke out of an early season scoring slump.
Sunday’s point total tied the Thunder’s season-high, set on opening night against Sacramento. The Thunder’s 57.1 percent shooting from the field and 56.3 percent shooting from the 3-point line were season-highs. So were the 27 total assists.
“We were making our shots, but we were making our shots because we were passing the basketball,” Brooks said. “We had 27 assists. That’s great basketball. We had some bad offensive basketball when we had six assists the other night and 15 a couple of games later. We have to move the ball. We have to keep everybody involved. Five guys need to feel a part of it because that’s what it’s going to take on both ends of the floor.”
At halftime, Brooks showed his team film of the exceptional ball movement. Through the first 24 minutes the Thunder had 15 assists on 21 made baskets. OKC had just four turnovers. It led to a 53-44 advantage at the break.
“It’s a lot easier,” said Harden about the offense when the ball moves. “It’s a lot of us who can score, who can put the ball in the basket and make plays for other people. Everyone did it tonight.”
Rockets 105, Thunder 94
So you liked seven seconds or less in the Valley of the Sun, huh?
How about four seconds or less in Houston?
Against the Thunder on Friday night, the Rockets took Phoenix’s patented high-octane, fast-breaking offense and turned up the tempo even more in their 105-94 win over Oklahoma City at the Toyota Center. On the Thunder’s makes, misses and turnovers, Houston routinely ran up the court and had a shot up before five seconds had ticked off the shot clock.
The Thunder never looked interested in getting back and, even though OKC was well within striking distance of the Rockets’ five-point halftime lead, the writing was on the wall as the two teams headed for their locker rooms. By then it was clear that if the Thunder didn’t focus on getting back the contest would quickly turn into a blowout. And that’s about what happened — even if the scoreboard read the Thunder was within eight inside the final two minutes.
This game was not as close as even the final 11-point margin indicated.
A smaller, less athletic Rockets team bullied the flat-footed Thunder. In the paint (54-44 paint points) and in transition (22-10 fast break points). Houston, with a 6-foot-6 inch starting center in Chuck Hayes, even had more blocked shots (10) than the Thunder (eight). The Rockets’ 6-foot backup point guard Kyle Lowry was credited for four blocks.
Credit Lowry, and starter Aaron Brooks, for pushing the pace, too, and making things uncomfortable for the Thunder all night. Lowry had eight assists in 20 minutes off the bench. Brooks had six. The Thunder had just 15 as a team. Most of their dishes were the result of run outs or breakdowns in the Thunder’s defense in the halfcourt.
“They just played much tougher than we did tonight,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said.
It’s not like the Thunder didn’t know what type of game Friday night’s would be. Oklahoma City got a sneak peak of this same Rockets squad in the third-to-last game of its preseason schedule. And Brooks knew full well what to expect after walking out of Houston the first time following a 20-point loss.
“We know they’re fast,” Brooks told me following Thursday’s practice. “After leaving that (preseason) game in Houston, I came away knowing that that’s a fast team that knows how to pass the basketball. And we have to do a better job of containing the ball and creating some difficult passing lanes for their little guards.”
The Thunder fell to 2-3, its third straight defeat, because it failed to adhere to the scouting report.
It didn’t help that the Thunder’s offensive rhythm was nearly as out of sync as its defensive principles. Only Russell Westbrook (game-high 33 points) and Kevin Durant (27 points) finished in double-digit scoring. Together, their 25 of 47 shooting helped the Thunder shoot a respectable 43.5 percent. The other three starters shot a combined 6-for-27.
The Thunder had as many assists (15) as turnovers, and over its past three games has now tallied 44 assists to 55 turnovers, a sign of just how much the team has struggled offensively of late.
“We’re about team basketball,” Brooks said. “We all have to play together as a team…We have to regroup and refocus our effort. Our identity is we have to defend. We have to score off of our defense and tonight we did not do that. We were taking the ball out of the basket throughout the game.”
Thunder 91, Pistons 83
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Last year, the Thunder took two steps back in games like this.
On the road. Bait for a team’s home opener. After a blowout home win.
It used to be the perfect storm. Friday night it was a piece of cake.
For a moment, though, it appeared as though not much had changed. The Thunder scored just 38 first-half points on 39.5 percent shooting. A talented Pistons squad that’s loaded with offensive weapons wasn’t having much trouble putting the ball in the basket in the first 24 minutes. And what we thought was a new and improved Russell Westbrook was regressing by the second, reverting to playing faster and turning over the ball at an alarming rate.
Even when the Thunder took a 10-point lead on two occasions in the fourth quarter, the outcome seemed in doubt. You might have reached ‘Here-we-go-again’ mode when the Pistons clawed within four with 4:27 remaining after surging to an 8-0 run.
But then it happened. The Thunder showed us this year would be different. Westbrook turned the tide when he hustled back instead of hanging his head after Ben Wallace blocked his layup. The Thunder’s point guard returned the rejection on Ben Gordon and helped the Thunder salvage it’s four-point lead. He made two free throws to push the lead to six. After Gordon netted one of two free throws, Westbrook found Nenad Krstic under the rim to bump the lead to seven.
And when Gordon split two more free throws, fundamental ball movement found Thabo Sefolosha in the corner for a 3-pointer that gave the Thunder a 84-75 lead with 2:03 remaining. The crowd filed up the Palace’s steps. The Pistons never got closer than five.
“This was one of our better wins since I’ve been here in terms of holding a team off and being able to get stops when we needed to in the fourth quarter,” said Nick Collison. “We never gave up that bad spurt where a team made a run on us. That’s something we struggled with in the past…It’s good to see in a tough game on the road that guys are still trying to do the right thing. A less experienced team like we were last year, those are the times guys kind of break away from the game plan and don’t make good decisions. But tonight, everybody played well.”
And the Thunder is 2-0.
Thunder 102, Kings 89
So what did we learn about this year’s Thunder squad after one game?
If Wednesday night’s season opener taught us anything it was that this team can be pretty good when it plays hard for 48 minutes. The 102-89 win over Sacramento proved that the things the organization has preached since moving here in July of last year — teamwork, energy, effort, commitment and patience — can indeed pay off.
“It was a good start,” said coach Scott Brooks. “I thought we played some pretty good basketball.”
The Thunder has become a more confident group. That was perhaps the biggest revelation on opening night. You can see the progression in almost everything the players do, everything they say.
Kevin Durant was spotted at his locker before the game, slouched in his office-style chair with his long legs stretched out. He seemed calm, prepared for anything that was about to come his way. Less than an hour before tip-off, he looked every bit as at ease as he claimed to be only a day earlier, on the eve of his third NBA season.
And after the wire-to-wire win, the Thunder’s dressing room was far from festive. Players hardly flashed smiles, let alone celebrated the opening victory. Media members filled the room with more noise than the guys who had just put on the show. It was almost a surreal scene considering it was one that rarely played out after big-time wins last year.
“It’s an encouraging start,” said Nick Collison, “but there’s 81 more games.”
Kings 104, Thunder 89
Don’t think this game didn’t matter. Not for a second.
If for some reason you’re still under the impression that Thursday night’s 104-89 loss to the starless Kings was simply a throw-away game, the last of this exhibition season, carefully chew on Kevin Durant’s words.
“It always means something when we step on this floor,” he said. “We’re a young team. We want to get better every time we step on the floor. Tonight was a tough one. We took some steps back.”
Steps.
Plural.
This was the third straight loss by at least 15 points. The third straight time a team has drained at least 10 3-pointers. The third straight game the wanna-be-defensive-minded Thunder allowed 104 points or more. The third straight game in which the opponent has shot better than 50 percent from the field.
In no way is it time to panic. It’s certainly way too early for that. But while the outcome doesn’t matter in these tune-ups, the performances and the trends certainly serve as warning signs.
After seven preseason games, the Thunder has demonstrated an inability to put together 48 minutes of quality basketball. It’s the same flaw that plagued this bunch last season. Some of this preseason’s blunders can be attributed to odd lineups and funky rotations, to subs closing out games and philosophy taking precedence over the outcome. But mostly, the Thunder showed the same imperfections during times its main unit was on the floor and times when the team tried to successfully close out a game with a win.
Have we forgotten Phoenix’s 26-9 fourth quarter on Oct. 12 that erased a 20-point lead before the Thunder prevailed by five in overtime? Lose that game and this exhibition season goes from 2-5 to 1-6, from decent to disappointing.
“It’s definitely a concern in our minds because we want to change it,” said Shaun Livingston. “That’s not how we want to come out and start the season. I know that we are going to come out better opening night. We know we are better than that.”
Desmond Mason, Thunder Part Ways
Desmond Mason’s days in a Thunder uniform have come to an end.
For now.
Oklahoma City has decided to go in a different direction and will not re-sign the former Oklahoma State standout and fan favorite, The Oklahoman has learned.
Mason, who is an unrestricted free agent this summer, became a casualty of the Thunder’s commitment to developing its young talent and was the odd man out on a roster that is one player below the NBA maximum of 15 allowed.
The Thunder remained open to the possibility of re-signing the 31-year-old Mason throughout the summer and had ongoing discussions with his agent since the start of free agency on July 1. Mason made $5.3 million in the final year of his contract last season and is believed to have been seeking a deal in the same neighborhood this summer.
Contract negotiations were believed to have been more exploratory in nature, comprised of more casual discussion rather than concrete proposals. Mason’s camp is believed to have been seeking a multi-year contract of at least two seasons while the Thunder was willing to agree to nothing longer than a one-year deal.
But it appeared less likely Mason would return with each transaction the Thunder made since February.
Q&A With Kevin Ollie
It was long overdue but I finally got in touch with Kevin Ollie, the veteran point guard the Thunder signed on Aug. 1 to add stability and leadership to the lead guard position. Throughout our 18-minute conversation, Ollie talked about why he joined the Thunder, why he thinks something special is being built in Oklahoma City, his goals of a coaching future, the impact of assistant coach Maurice Cheeks’ addition and how he plans on mentoring Russell Westbrook while competing with Shaun Livingston for backup minutes.
Ollie, who turns 37 in late December, is regarded as one of the classiest guys in basketball and that characterization was evident in our brief chat. He was thankful for the opportunity to continue his career and eager to meet his new teammates and start training camp. He was insightful, introspective, eloquent, humble and gave the impression of being an extremely hard worker. Thunder fans definitely will take a liking to Ollie’s personality, and if he provides anything of value on the court this season that will just be icing on the cake.
DM: What attracted you to the Thunder?
KO: From Day One they gave me a call and expressed interest and had a strong belief in me and my talents and what I can bring as an asset to the team. So I really appreciate their involvement from Day One. And once I met Sam Presti and coach Brooks I just fell in love with the organization. They do everything in a classy way, and I just believe that they’re building a winning program there that I wanted to be a part of.
