Power Lunch Chat with Darnell Mayberry
Thunder 101, Jazz 87
Scott Brooks will coach the Western Conference All-Stars.
Observations from the Thunder’s 101-87 victory at Utah on Friday night. Forgive the delay in posting. Massive wireless issues for me in the Great Salt Lake:
- The Thunder’s victory clinched Scott Brooks becoming the Western Conference coach at the Feb. 26 NBA All-Star Game in Orlando, but director of team operations Marc St. Yves was the only person to shake Brooks’ hand on the court afterward. Why? Russell Westbrook didn’t know the win sealed the deal. Nick Collison knew, but forgot, same goes for Kevin Durant and Nazr Mohammed. It wasn’t that no one cared. It’s just their minds didn’t refocus immediately after the game.
- Durant playfully suggested Brooks’ first duty as All-Star coach might be to start Westbrook, even though fans voted for Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant as the starting guards. “Yeah, yeah,” a smiling Durant said when asked if Brooks should wield his power. “He might tell CP to sit down for a little bit to start.”
- Brooks’ effectiveness as the Thunder’s coach was clearly evident Friday. Based on answers given by several players that day, Brooks is dealing with the team’s turnover issue the right way – not with humiliation and threats but rather with calm concern. In addition, roughly three hours before the game at Utah, Brooks and Durant sat and chatted one-on-one for 20 minutes in the front row along the baseline. Judging from Brooks’ hand gestures, he appeared to be sharing advice on options Durant might have coming off the dribble and how a play could develop. The 46-year-old Brooks has the perfect temperament to handle a young and extremely competitive group like the Thunder. Brooks doesn’t get near enough credit. Perhaps his appearance at the All-Star Game will change that.
- Westbrook said Brooks becoming an All-Star coach is far-reaching. “It’s great for the organization, the city, the community. It’s truly a blessing to see what’s going on around here (OKC),” Westbrook said. “We’ve got a lot of talent on this team, but at the same time, we’ve got to be coached. He’s a guy who keeps us steady and keeps our head above water.”
- You must check out Nick Collison’s appearance with Dan LeBatard in “Highly Questionable.” With seven minutes left Friday against the Jazz, Collison drove hard to the basket and converted an acrobatic scoop layup with the shot clock winding down. At that exact moment, I thought, “Shooter!” Listen to the interview and you’ll understand.
- EnergySolutions Arena was another tough venue for the Thunder, just like the four previous stops during the road trip at San Antonio, Portland, Golden State and Sacramento. However, I’ve never heard the Jazz’ building so quiet. The Thunder did a superb job of not allowing the sellout crowd of 19,911 to take control. Winning helps, of course, but other than going on a scoring spurt, what’s the best way to take the home crowd out of a game? “Get fouls called, get some steals, get to the free-throw line,” Westbrook explained. By the way, all five arenas were sold out for the Thunder’s visits.
- Westbrook isn’t crazy about doing interviews, but one of his favorite subjects is discussing the Thunder’s ability to bounce back after a loss. “Oh, definitely,” Westbrook said after OKC upped its bounce-back record to 25-7 the past two seasons. “In this league, you can’t afford to lose three or four in a row and be an elite team. We know that and we’re getting better each and every season, and in every game. When we lose one, we take it personal coming back the next day to be ready to play.”
- The Thunder is now 34-10 in the regular season since center Kendrick Perkins joined the starting lineup last March. “Pretty impressive,” Perkins said, eyebrows raised. “I’ll take 24 games over .500 any day.”
- Perkins won the 2008 world championship with the Boston Celtics, who went 66-16 (.805) that season. The Thunder is 21-6 and has a similar winning percentage (.778). Perkins said even great teams still lose games. The trick is letting the losses go while not forgetting what happened. “Obviously, we’ve let a few slip away this year that we still think about, but we know what to do about it now,” Perkins said.
- An .800 winning percentage is truly impressive. Look at it this way: For every game that team loses, it must immediately go on a four-game winning streak to make up lost ground. The Thunder would have to finish 53-13 this season to reach .800 or higher.
- On Thursday, OKC had 23 turnovers. On Friday, it had 17, which is still about four or five too many, but it’s far better than 23. Pointing out the obvious, the Thunder sure looks much prettier when it’s collecting steals and not handing over the ball. “Oh, gosh,” reserve guard James Harden said with a smile. “It’s always such a relief when you get easy buckets on the road. It calms the crowd down. They’re game-changers.”
- Rookie guard Reggie Jackson missed his first five shots Friday and attacked the basket with 10 seconds left in the third quarter rather than playing for one last shot. He’s a rookie and has a long ways to go. Better decisions and less hesitation running the half-court offense are Jackson’s biggest challenges.
- I miss watching Eric Maynor play. Then again, I knew I would.
Darnell Mayberry returns in this slot on Tuesday. Commence cheering.
- JOHN ROHDE
Power Lunch Chat with Darnell Mayberry
Spurs 107, Thunder 96
Nuggets from my notebook from Saturdays loss at San Antonio.
- In answering one of my post-game questions, Kendrick Perkins told the story of this game. It was a simple response, but it easily was the most disturbing thing about tonight’s performance. “They just out-smarted us in every way,” Perkins told me. I thought the Thunder was past that point in its development. I thought OKC could now handle a Spurs team that is missing its best player and, really, is now reliant on one aging future Hall of Famer, a speedy point guard and a bunch of role players. I was wrong. This looked liked the Spurs-Thunder matchup of three years ago, when San Antonio used to take OKC to the woodshed and teach it a lesson in Basketball 101. We’re supposed to be beyond those days. You can make one excuse after another for this type of performance. You could say it happens. You could say the Spurs are great at home. You could say the Thunder was on the second night of a back-to-back. But that’s not what happened here. The Thunder looked over-matched and out of its league for the last 43 minutes. The Spurs, as Perk said, simply out-smarted the Thunder. And by the time the trip to the woodshed had ended, San Antonio had taught OKC yet another lesson.
- Russell Westbrook got the biggest schooling tonight. At least you can only hope he learns from this one. It’s not so much that Tony Parker went completely off on him. It’s much more about how Russ couldn’t control his emotions and figure out a way to contribute nearly anything positive once the snowball started its descent. We saw classic bad Westbrook tonight. Poor defense. Forced shots. Frequent complaining. Inadequate focus. Costly turnovers. The usual. Tough night. Tough, tough night.
- Westbrook’s mano-a-mano mindset clearly started with four minutes left in the second quarter. That’s when Westbrook and Parker hit the floor while fighting for a loose ball. It’s worth noting that replays clearly show that Parker pushed Westbrook just before the scrum. But Westbrook got up fuming, and it was downhill from there. Over those final four minutes of the first half, Parker scored five points on 1-for-2 shooting with an assist. Westbrook scored two points on 1-for-2 shooting with an assist and a block. The battle boiled over in the third quarter and got ugly for the Thunder.
- I hesitate to include this because I have no idea what the conversation was about. But referee Dick Bavetta appeared to try to calm down Westbrook as the Spurs shot free throws with 4:20 remaining in the third quarter. Bavetta put his arm around Westbrook as he bent over and whispered for a while in his ear. It didn’t look like Westbrook had any reaction at all to whatever was said. He just walked away when Bavetta was done.
- Parker finished with 42 points, the most any player has scored on the Thunder this season. He did absolutely whatever he wanted to do against the Thunder tonight. He got into the paint. He created open shots for himself and his teammates. He knocked down jumpers. He dished dimes. And he took amazing care of the ball, playing 40 minutes without turning it over a single time.
- It’s debatable how much blame Westbrook deserves when it comes to the Thunder’s pick-and-roll defense. That’s where Parker really had his way. Defending the pick-and-roll is really a team game. The guard’s got to start with pressure. The big has to show hard. And everyone else has to be on a string, with help to help the helper on the weak side. That’s at least three things that need to happen on every single pick-and-roll, maybe even four. It’s not going to be perfect every time. But I do know that a team has no shot at success if the guy leading the defense — the point guard — doesn’t bring the right amount of intensity. Unfortunately, that’s what I saw out of Westbrook tonight.
(more…)
Thunder 101, Grizzlies 94
Nuggets from my notebook from Friday’s win over Memphis.
- Kevin Durant is indeed The Real McCoy.
- The way KD took over the game tonight just leaves you shaking your head and admiring his greatness.
- Durant scored 16 of his game-high 36 points in the final quarter. It was one less than the Grizzlies had as a team!!
- More impressively, 14 of KD’s 16 fourth-quarter points came in the final five minutes with neither team ahead by more than five points. Those are all clutch-time points, folks.
- Memphis coach Lionel Hollins on KD: “He’s a great player. I mean, that’s all you can say. He’s a great player. He made great plays and great shots down the stretch. He took over the game. He’s going to be one of the all-time greats if he stays healthy.”
- I said this tonight on one of our award-winning video recaps (you don’t really believe that do you?). I was more impressed with Durant’s rebounding in the second half than his scoring down the stretch. The points will be what’s remembered, and rightfully so. But KD’s rebounding is more of a testament to his development into an all-around player. Better yet, a cold-blooded killer. He had zero at the half. He finished with 10, including four in the fourth quarter. It helped the Thunder take control of the boards in the decisive fourth quarter after Memphis manhandled OKC for the first three.
- OK, back to KD’s scoring. Dude had missed all five of his 3-pointers before burying perhaps the biggest shot of the night with 53.8 seconds remaining. Said KD: “That 3, as I was shooting, it looked good. But I was missing. So it was just a matter of time before one of those were going to go down for me.”
- Durant said he liked the 3 more than the beautiful, off-balance J he hit over Rudy Gay with 22 seconds left. “Because I had missed five of them that looked good,” Durant said. “But that one finally went in for me and it was a critical part of the game. So it was a big shot.”
- Consider this the second time Durant has stolen shine from a teammate. James Harden was about to be the player of this game before Durant decided to turn deadly. Harden ignited a 22-10 run that turned an eight-point deficit at the start of the fourth period into a four-point lead with 3:14 left to play. Over that run, Harden scored or assisted on 14 of the Thunder’s points.
- When it’s a close game in the fourth quarter, I don’t like to see much of anything out of the Thunder’s offense except the ball in Harden’s hands. That’s the only time I can relax. And it’s the only time I know something good will happen.
- One thing I didn’t like about Harden tonight. He got the Durant treatment by the Grizzlies after getting hot and didn’t respond that well. Tony Allen switched onto him, and Memphis even sent a few doubles his way. But when Allen began playing more physically in denying the ball, Harden couldn’t get open. Keep an eye on that. If teams start doing that, the Thunder’s saving grace is gone.
- Daequan Cook got the start again for the injured Thabo Sefolosha and played his tail off…defensively! Cook started the game 0-for-4 from the field but was a pest at the other end. He blocked a putback attempt by Allen, broke up an alley-oop intended for Gay, boxed out Marc Gasol so well he pushed him all the way under the net and blocked another shot by Allen. And that was all in the first five minutes. Cook’s final line was five points on 2-for-7 shooting with seven rebounds and three blocked shots in 32 minutes. Be honest. You’d love it if Kendrick Perkins provided that production.
- Perk’s actual line: five points, one rebound and one blocked shot in 30 minutes. Insert Scott Brooks‘ favorite line here.
- Is Cook making a case to remain in the starting lineup even when Sefolosha returns? Some already think he deserves it. And as I wrote after the Mavs game, at least one player thinks he’s a good fit in the first string. I doubt it will ever happen. But Cook has quietly become a much better defender than he was when he first got here. And, although I don’t know where he ranks among other shooting guards, his rebounding appears to be above average. And we all know his shooting gives the first five a different dynamic. Could it at least be worth Brooks considering?
- Brooks on Cook: “D.C. was all over the ball. He was all over the floor. It’s a nice luxury to have one of the best 3-point shooters play the defense that he plays. He plays hard. He’s always in the right spot. He’s a great help side defender.”
- It seems Cook will get some more time to present his case to crack the first five. As our man John Rohde reports, Sefolosha will be sidelined a tad longer.
- So much for Perk chilling out on the techs. One game after he told me he would, he was whistled for a double technical foul after getting tangled up with Gasol. It was Perk’s ninth of the season. He’s now four shy of an automatic one-game suspension. With 44 games left, I’m not sure Perk has enough chill in him.
Clippers 112, Thunder 100
Some observations from the Thunder’s 112-100 loss against the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday night at Staples Center:
- First thing’s first. Here it is.
- There’s really not much I can add, except that it was the most vicious dunk I’ve ever seen in person, and I’ve been there to witness some pretty wicked dunks from Blake Griffin the past few years – a baseline slam soaring in from the left wing in Norman comes to mind when he scrapped his head on the backboard, which thankfully was padded. I was seated behind the basket where Griffin threw down the dunk of the year in the NBA on Monday night against the Thunder. Truly scary. I can’t imagine what it looked like from Kendrick Perkins’ point of view. Glad I was lucky enough to see it. A truly amazing athlete, Griffin.
- Griffin’s dunk easily beat what LeBron James did Sunday as the NBA’s top dunk this season. James jumped over a crouching, 5-foot-somethin’ John Lucas III. Griffin threw it down over the 6-foot-9, 267-pound, get-outta-my-face Perkins. Any questions? Heck, even James himself chose Griffin with this tweet – @KingJames (LeBron James): “Dunk of the Year!! @blakegriffin just dunked on Kendrick Perkins so hard!! Wow!! I guess I’m #2 now. Move over #6“
- OK, one more look. Post-game reactions on the dunk:
- Griffin: “When they play the replay over the Jumbotron, you hear the crowd. DJ’s reaction is always my gauge on what the dunk was like. I think that time he screamed, grabbed me and bear-hugged me. I figure he thought it was cool.”
- Clippers point guard Chris Paul: “That’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen, just like the dunk (Griffin had) against the Knicks (last season). You’re watching the game, and I’m playing the game. So I can get excited for a split second, but I have to keep everyone locked in and let that one go.”
- Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro: “He’s going to do that when he gets moving. I thought it was a great pass and obviously a great finish. He’s such a tremendous athlete, you’re going to see things like that once in a while just because of his aggressiveness and the way he attacks the basket.”
- Perkins: “It happens. At the end of the day, if you’re a shot blocker, you’re going to get dunked on. It was a great play that he made. Obviously, I wish I wasn’t in it, but it was a great play that he made.”
- Thunder All-Star Kevin Durant: “Man, I don’t care about that dunk.”
- Back to the game. The Thunder took a 4-0 lead and then stunk. If Durant and Russell Westbrook hadn’t shown up offensively, we’re looking at a 50-point loss. Seriously. Hey, bad games happen, and this was one of them. However comma, the Clippers are starting to figure things out, which is trouble for the rest of the West. Thunder coach Scott Brooks said it was the best team OKC has played thus far and he’s right. Now the fun begins for the Clippers, who play seven of their next eight on the road, just like the stretch the Thunder currently is experiencing right now. Keep an eye on the Clippers. They were wicked good on Monday.
- Brooks said his team is at its best when it defends, and he’s right, but OKC also has the ability to score. They’ve got the two-time scoring champ, fercryinoutloud, and a sidekick scoring 20-something. There’s no polite way to put this, but imagine how good the Thunder could be if it shared the ball like the Clippers? LA had 28 assists on 45 field goals. OKC had 15 assists on 38 field goals. Look, I know Durant and Westbrook have the ability to score off the dribble and not off the pass and James Harden is like a knife through butter, but there’s nothing prettier to watch in basketball than good ball movement. Nothing. You’re telling me whipping the ball around and finding Durant or Westbrook or Harden or anybody for an open shot would be a bad thing?
- When Brooks shows his team footage of this loss, I hope he doesn’t do it for defensive purposes. I hope he tells his players to watch how the Clippers did it offensively. LA had six players score in double-digits and three had 20 or more points. Three guys took 16 shots each, and the other three took 11, nine and seven. Good luck defending that.
- Clippers guard Chauncey Billups has played a lot of basketball. He’s in his 15th NBA season and also has played internationally. At no time does Billups recall any team going on a 12-0 run in a span of 51 seconds by hitting four straight 3-pointers, which is precisely what LA did to deflate OKC at the end of the first half Monday. “I don’t believe I have,” Billups said. Not even during Team USA’s 121-66 victory over Angola at the 2010 FIBA World Championship, or four days earlier in a 35-point win over Tunisia? “Maybe. Maybe,” Billups said with a smile.
- With the acquisitions of the three C’s (Chris, Chauncey and Caron), the Clippers instantaneously have transformed themselves from three-plus decades of being a punch line to being a potential powerhouse.
- Brooks: “They are good team. They are the best team we’ve played all year. They have everything – a talented team, their bench is really good and they played well. Give them credit. They took it to us and we have work to do.”
- Nick Collison: “They’re good. Man, they’re a really good basketball team. I was impressed with them. They have a lot of guys that can play. We can play much better, but they do a good job of moving the ball and finding open players.”
- Bad news arrived 90 minutes before tipoff when Brook announced Thabo Sefolosha would not play because of a sore right foot. He remains day-to-day. OKC’s rhythm and substitution rotation was completely out of whack all night. Would the Thunder have won had Sefolosha played? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The entire dynamic of the game likely would have been different. Sefolosha has now missed two starts and OKC has lost both games (at home against Portland being the other). Games like Monday’s are why Sefolosha starts, why he must start. This is not to pin the loss on Harden, but if Harden starts and he’s off the mark, you get what you got on Monday — the Thunder hanging on for dear life.
- Collison on the importance of Sefolosha: “We definitely missed him out there. Defensively, he’s as good as there is. Offensively, he does a lot of things, too. He’s kind of like the motor oil out there offensively where he does a lot of small things that make things go smoothly. He makes a good hard cut to get somebody else open. Obviously, defensively he’s great, too. We gave up a lot on the perimeter and he would have helped. He allows our second unit to play with James. It’s a big loss. Hopefully he can get healthy. We need him back.”
- Brooks said the Thunder has played one bad game. Ever the realist, Collison smiled and clicked off all four losses: “We didn’t great in D.C. In Dallas, um … against Portland …”
- Larry King walked by roughly 5 feet in front of me. Dude looked old. Then again, he is 78 if my math is right (did I carry the one?). King’s seventh wife (eight marriages), Shawn, looked half his age – and she’s 52.
- At Dallas on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
- JOHN ROHDE
Power Lunch Chat with Darnell Mayberry
Now Kevin Durant is asking the questions
Prior to Friday night’s game against Golden State, Thunder All-Star Kevin Durant approached television commentator Matt Steinmetz of CSNBAYAREA.COM and asked some questions about the alleged controversy between Durant and teammate Russell Westbrook.
Here is what transpired, according to Steinmetz.
Nick Collison goes all GQ
Thunder reserve forward Nick Collison will be writing blogs for GQ.com throughout the 2011-12 season. He has posted two entries so far. The second appeared four days ago. Much like on the basketball court, Collison’s work for GQ has been superb.
You can find Collison’s work at “Balls Out” here. Here is the opening paragraph for his Jan. 20 entry. As you can see, Collison did not “bury the lead.” Great stuff.
I’m writing this while sitting on a plane after a game. I just finished eating some delicious teriyaki chicken wings and drinking an Arnold Palmer. My seat is comfortable and covered in leather. I have about four feet of legroom between my seat and our shooting guard James Harden, who is sitting at a hardwood table playing cards with three other guys. I have wi-fi, and I’m listening to the new Roots album. The previous ninety minutes were spent finishing off a win, sitting for ten minutes in a portable cold tub (think: inflatable kiddie pool with 50 degree water), then a shower, a quick security screening, a short bus ride, and a walk onto one of the chartered Delta Planes we always fly on. A U-Haul truck filled with the bags of personal stuff and equipment of our 42-person traveling party has already been loaded into the belly of the Airbus 319 that comfortably takes us to the next city. (Our travel party includes fifteen players, seven bench coaches, one video guy, and a training staff consisting of two strength coaches, a trainer, a physical therapist, plus two PR guys, an equipment manager and his assistant. The rest of the group includes our general manager and a couple other front office guys, as well as our local TV and radio crew.) When we land we will hop on a bus and head to a beautiful Four Seasons Hotel. Our bags will be delivered to our rooms, which we do not have to share with a roommate.
This is how NBA teams travel, and it is awesome.”
Thunder 99, Pistons 79
Nuggets from my notebook from Monday’s win over Detroit.
- I don’t know about you, but I knew this game was going to be a blowout when Russell Westbrook shredded the Piston’s defense and threw down a tomahawk dunk to make it 6-2.
- I was convinced when Westbrook threaded the needled with an on-the-run, behind-the-back pass to Kevin Durant to make it 8-2.
- Not very often two Top 10-worth plays by the same team are turned in within the first 2 1/2 minutes of a game. Westbrook did just that.
- Westbrook on his two early highlights: “I just tried to keep the excitement in the game. I just tried to keep the fans involved and keep my teammates involved as well.”
- If you ask me, this was by far Serge Ibaka’s best game of the season. He started off providing weak side defense at the rim and his presence was a big part of the Thunder shutting down the Pistons’ attack early. Ibaka then rebounded like a mad man. Only thing he didn’t do tonight was knock down shots, which (I may be in the minority on this) you can live with when he has nights like this. Ibaka finished with a game-high 10 boards and a season-high tying five blocks.
- In his last three games, Ibaka has now pulled down 29 boards and blocked 12 shots. Said Westbrook: “He’s back to protecting the paint and rebounding. In the last five or six games, he’s gotten people scared to come in the paint. I’d be scared if I was them, too.”
- Thunder coach Scott Brooks started Kendrick Perkins on Greg Monroe and Ibaka on Ben Wallace. I wasn’t sure about that one at first because of Monroe’s athleticism. But it was a brilliant matchup. Perk’s superior man defense limited Monroe’s effectiveness, and with Ibaka on a non-factor offensively in Wallace he was allowed to roam and provide that great weak side help. Well done by Brooks.
- Worst part of this game was Nick Collison not returning after halftime due to a sprained left ankle. He’s listed as day-to-day. A shame, really, because you never want to see bad things like an injury happen in a blowout.
- Detroit made its first shot. The Pistons then missed 15 of their final 17 in the opening period.
- Westbrook’s post-up game looked much better tonight. I’m nowhere near ready to say that it’s a good option yet, largely because he abused a rookie in Brandon Knight. But the first move Russ hit Knight with, a Dream shake-like fake that led to a smooth jumper was jaw-dropping no matter who it was scored against. It was by far the most impressive move we’ve seen out of Westbrook in the post. Give me more of that regularly and I can live with Westbrook on the block.
- KD missed the Dirk twice tonight. He’s like 0 for his last four on the Dirk…and I’m still not sure he’s hit one at home.
- The Thunder scored 15 of its 19 fast break points in the first quarter. There have been entire games this season in which the Thunder hasn’t had 15 fast break points.
- How sweet is home for James Harden? He scored his 18th points with 4:52 remaining in the second quarter. That total was more than his point production in any one game on the Thunder’s recent three-game road trip. Harden finished with 24, two shy of his career-high, on 8-for-11 shooting.
- Thanks to Harden coming back to earth, the Thunder finally made some 3-pointers. OKC was 7-for-16 tonight, and Harden was 5-for-6. In the previous two games, the Thunder was 8-for-26 from deep.
(more…)
