vs. 
New Orleans Hornets (7-23, 4-9 road) vs. OKC Thunder (24-7, 12-1 home)
TV: FS Oklahoma (Cox 37, HD 722, Tulsa Cox 27, DirectTV 679, UVerse 754)
Stream: Click here
Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM, 97.1 FM Tulsa)
Time: 7:00 CT
Offensive Rating: Thunder – 108.7 (2nd), Hornets– 98.8 (27th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder – 102.5 (15th), Hornets – 104.6 (21st)
Pace: Thunder – 93.4 (4th), Hornets – 88.1 (30th)
View from the enemy: Hornets 24/7
And just like that, back at it again. Less than 24 hours ago, The Peake was full of confetti after probably the best regular season game in OKC history. It was an exhausting overtime win for the Thunder, something that saw 51, 40 and a triple-double. It was wild, incredible and fun.
But the Thunder have to forget all about it and turn around and do it again. Luckily, it’s against a banged up, bad New Orleans team the Thunder should handle. But if not, last night’s win was all for not. Essentially the Thunder would be trading a great win for a bad loss. Which is no good. You can’t let last night’s incredible finish beat you tonight. You’ve got to move on.
New Orleans coming in: New Orleans last played Friday, so they’re well rested.
Three Big Things
1. Fatigue. The Thunder are surely going to be worn out. But they’ve just got to dig deep and play on. No way around it. It’s either that or going halfway and keeping it close to where you have to battle in the fourth quarter or you lose.
2. Chris Kaman. Essentially, he’s the key for the Hornets. He did well in stretches in the first meeting between these two teams (didn’t play in the second) and with basically the entire rotation out for New Orleans, he’ll be the focus. Whether it’s Ibaka or Perk, you can’t sleep on Kaman.
3. Show something. In all honesty, I’d love to see the Thunder make a little statement here. Not because it’s the Hornets, but OKC has every excuse to come out flat and play a lackluster game. Instead, how about coming out hot and letting Westbrook and Durant sit the fourth?
Tip at 7:00 CT. Go Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
I remember this place...
Guess TC won't show up :(
http://www.dailythunder.com/2012/02/okc-keeps-it-pretty-boring-and-handles-the-hornets-101-93/
Denver have the second game with OT
@shiki i fell bad for Denver
Nice to see Perkings get some defensive rebounds but six turnovers? Come on... progress is progress though.
Portland down almost 30 to the Lakers just halfway through the second?!?
@ThunderChick2010 Lakers borrowed KD for a half.
@ThunderWins Is this still because of "THE CALL!" ?
Portland sucks. Badly.
37-7,lakers lead 30 against Porland
@shiki unbelievable.
@nomad@shiki Portland falling apart.
@The_Beard_Knows@nomad still don't want them first round.
@ThunderWins@nomad@shiki "THE CALL" strikes again!!
Batum finally scores to stop a 21-0 run by the Lakers. Boy "The Call" just killed the Blazers
8 minutes to go in the 2nd quarter and the Blazers have 9 points against LAL....
Game over Spurs win again
@ThunderWins eff.
Denver is down 1 against T-wolves,last game made 2 teams tired
Some catch-up comments:
Westbrook has improved his mid-range game. He is now basically league average from mid-range. I was a bit slow recognizing the change. Still takes a lot though. Top 7% on mid-range attempts. Congrats on a great game Sunday. He has been a strong closer, a valuable and rare skill.
When I mentioned player offensive efficiency over the weekend I was referring to Offensive Rating which can be found at basketball-reference.com. Offensive Rating is a measure of player efficiency. But if it was unclear what I was referring to, this is a late clarification.
top 10 on efficiency / Offensive Rating this season:
Offensive Rating 1. Tyson Chandler-NYK 136.4 2. Ryan Anderson-ORL 128.3 (better than many give him credit for) 3. James Harden-OKC 125.1 4. Chris Paul-LAC 122.8 5. LeBron James-MIA 120.0 6. Danilo Gallinari-DEN 118.7 7. J.J. Redick-ORL 117.3 8. Kevin Love-MIN 117.3 9. Nicolas Batum-POR 116.5 10. Joakim Noah-CHI 116.4
top 10 career
1. Steve Kerr 122.06 2. Reggie Miller 121.48 3. Chris Paul 121.04 4. Magic Johnson* 120.79 5. John Stockton* 120.55 6. Kiki Vandeweghe 119.49 7. Sidney Moncrief 119.40 8. Charles Barkley* 119.31 9. Adrian Dantley* 119.30 10. Steve Nash 118.55.
Ibaka had a career game. Congrats. He seems to have about 33-40% strong games and the rest are just ok or less. If he can get his strong games over 50% of the time he might become an All-Star fairly soon as some suggested early in the season, going more by potential than stats, as has been my habit. He wasn't at that level early on but he has improved. Defensive player of the year requires more than blocks but he is special on blocks. Might be hurting his defensive rebounding though. At by far his lowest level on that. Somebody else (and / or Ibaka) needs to pickup the slack on the defensive boards.
@Crow Just looking at those two sets of top 10 doesn't really impress me much with the statistic. PER seems to be more bonafide.
@HookemKD I prefer to look at both and others. Each has strengths & weaknesses.
KD is just a few points behind Lebron now, I think being above him in at least one statistical category will be important for a run at MVP...not that it matters in the title pursuit.
@The_Beard_Knows agreed, if he gets scoring title, MVP might be KDs
@RRRWHOAAAA KD is ~40 behind Kobe, lot of season left obviously, but I agree that Kobe seems determined to take the scoring title no matter how bad his FG% or how much it hurts the team in the process. KD puts up his ridiculousness when the TEAM needs it. KD is not putting up 50 unless RW tells Serge to inbound to KD. Given his focus, it is kind of amazing that KD is even in the running.
in an odd way, im kinda glad cook isnt shooting well... were still winning, and id rather him get all the misses out of his system before april
Deron just said "Lin's a great story and even today he had a great game but it's gonna be overshadowed because of mine" WOW, he really doesn't like Lin
@LPCes99 If you would be an all-star guard and some guy would come out of nowhere and get more attention than you, you would be mad too.
anyone just saw the Jeremy Lin interview just now? LOL an Asian reported asked him "why do you beat championship team but cant beat no good team?" LMAO, Lin had to hold his laughter, CLASSIC!
@LPCes99 and race relations
@LPCes99 this whole lin thing is terrible for the sport.
@Lost Ones@LPCes99 Terrible? LOL how is this going to be terrible? It draws in casual fans and changes absolutely nothing for people who do follow the NBA closely.
@RRRWHOAAAA@Lost Ones@LPCes99 Again, how? How is it bad? Does it change your view of the nba at all?
Does it bring things out of proportion? Yes. Does it also provide vast amounts of coverage? Yes. Without ESPN, you'd get to watch so much less then you currently do. You have to take the good with the bad
@MissYouCole@Lost Ones@LPCes99
espn's influence is bad for the sport
@Lost Ones @LPCes99 It's great for the sport actually.
another thing that may hurt perks production is that because its a shorter season, there is less time for him to rehab and to do whatever he did in the summer to get in shape... playing in games might not be enough for him, may need private conditioning workouts every other day or so to stay at top shape
Perk will be better next year... The shortened season hurts players like Perk the most, people who were recently injured, have played a lot of bball years, and arent naturally great athletes
@RRRWHOAAAA nah perkins is done, he runs like a log gets outrebounded with front position.
@Lost Ones we were happy with his production the first few games of the season, and he seems to always play better when he has some rest... give him time...
but hey, i guess we need someone to complain about
even tho we have the best record in the league
@persiansooner@RRRWHOAAAA@Lost Ones if Perk doesn't improve next year i say lets trade him
@RRRWHOAAAA@Lost Ones The one thing I gotta give to him is his free throw shooting improvement. You almost never see a bad ft shooter REALLY work on it over the summer and come back next year as a decent one.
Im glad you are more rational then a bunch here that want to Amesty him
Spurs Jazz tied at 80 going into 4th
@ThunderWins
who hit the three with 1 second left????
@CDSpark@ThunderWins go jazz
@ThunderWins @RRRWHOAAAA @CDSpark That guy is clutch
@RRRWHOAAAA@CDSpark Gary Neal of course.
I was really happy with Perk on D. He needs to learn to not touch the ball on offense unless it is to get and pass out an offensive rebound.
@Thunder247 and keep working on his conditioning he used to be able to dunk the ball!
@ThunderWins@Thunder247 this is perk full year since his ACL injury
@ThunderWins Fortunately, he is only 27 (despite the fact he looks 40) and stands a good chance of making a full recovery.
He's still not played close to how he used to play in a Celtics uniform. It sometimes takes 2 years to recover from ACL injury.