vs. 
San Antonio Spurs (28-13, 11-9 road) vs. OKC Thunder (33-10, 18-3 home)
TV: ESPN (Cox 29, HD 720); FS OK (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: 8:30 CT
Offensive Rating: Thunder – 109.3 (2nd), Spurs– 108.4 (4th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder – 102.6 (12th), Spurs – 103.9 (14th)
Pace: Thunder – 93.3 (4th), Spurs – 91.8 (13th)
View from the enemy: 48 Minutes of Hell
The Thunder are well past measuring bar games. They’re good. We know this. It’s not going to take a win over the Spurs to further illustrate that. But here’s what tonight’s game means: It means the Thunder will have a 2-1 season series lead on the Spurs and it’ll put them up five over them for the top seed. Lose, and things tighten a bit and what was once taken for granted a bit, that No. 1 Western seed could be up for grabs.
Hard to imagine OKC dropping a second straight game at home, but this one will be tough. It’s a big game and you’d expect the Thunder to show up and be ready.
San Antonio coming in: The Spurs last played Wednesday beating the Magic. They were actually in OKC last night, while the Thunder were playing in Denver.
Three Big Things
1. Drive, and kick. The Spurs obliterated the Thunder in the pick-and-roll in San Antonio the last time they played. If there wasn’t a lane to the basket, there was an open shooter standing on the perimeter. The Thunder have to help, rotate and recover better and challenge shooters. Having Thabo back, who is probably OKC’s best perimeter defender, should help. But it’s about the big man playing the roll man better. I’d expect OKC to go small quite a bit with Nick Collison and Serge Ibaka getting minutes at the 5.
2. Jar Jar Parker. He exploded for 42 in the last meeting and seemed to make everything he put up. He’s playing incredible basketball and unless Russell Westbrook is keyed in on getting past that screener and cutting off Parker at the elbows, he could be a problem again. When Parker has his jumper falling, he’s as difficult a guard there is in the league.
3. Manu. This is the first time the Thunder have had to deal with Ginobili this season. He seems to always come up with big steals, shots and plays against OKC so you can be sure his name has been circled in tonight’s scouting report.
Tip at 8:30 CT. Go Top Seed.
KD just tweeted and say Tough one for us tonight, we all gotta stay positive though!
Perk is just slow.. physically and mentally.. he doesn't read into the pick and roll plays until he is already getting burned, his rebounding leaves a lot to be desired, especially against athletes he should be able to dominate physically, his shot selection is atrocious not to mention the fact that he has no shot to begin with.. the man is just a prime example of wasting space on the court.. he provides so little when compared to what he often costs us in turnovers and offensive inconsistency, the man just needs to go, and needed to go before the trade deadline.. soo much for that
@ChilamBilam12 we are going to have to package him and ibaka something that im willing to do.
Teams are gonna have a bad stretch of games, it happens. You can't tell me the thunder still aren't the favorite in the west because they have played poorly in their last couple games.
@KylerHallmark We just need KD to get back to being KD and we'll be fine. You know "easy 30" KD, not hard 25 KD.
@Old Man Game @KylerHallmark Exactly. No energy from him the last few games.
@Old Man Game @KylerHallmark i think KD will be back to normal i am not worried about him
@KylerHallmark Magic says at half Thunder Spurs and Lakers are the 3 team in the west are likely to win the west
@tydude exactly the Thunder are good, really good. The Spurs have had their bad stretch here and there, and the Lakers haven't proven to me yet they can win on the road consistently. I'm not worried the Thunder are just fine in my opinion
@tydude Oh I know. People around here have gotten spoiled because the Thunder have gotten so good so quickly.
@KylerHallmark when i was living in Los Angeles and after a lakers loss they are not like this they like ok lets move on
@tydude Hahaha I know man. Too many people on here are treating this like OU or OSU football
@KylerHallmark its not like college football that you can go 14-0 on the year
@tydude Exactly. People need to chill out, we don't need to fire anybody or get rid of anyone. If you would have told me 3 years ago that the Thunder would have the best record in the league I probably wouldn't have believed you
@KylerHallmark we can't win all 66 games
lots of mad bros on here..
@J on your Bs you should of been on here like 5 seconds after the game
@tydudewhining sure makes people feel better i guess
without going through all 1289 comments, why didn't wasn't Cook suited up tonight? Was it ever explained on TV?
@geebee shoulder soreness. occasionally, he'll where a giant ice pack on his shoulder. i've seen him with it since the playoffs last year. it's probably a reoccurring injury that flared up on him.
@geebee shoulder injury
man Brooks is an idiot.. i just hate listening to the mans post game speeches.. "well we just didn't play well to start the game" "really like our effort late" "still have some issues to work on".. can we please get a SVG press conference just once, where he calls out the athletes for their poor decision making, or actually shows some emotion, like he actually gives a damn about what just happened to his team on national television?. there can't be many other fan bases that love their athletes as much as we do why seemingly wanting to strangle their coaching staff game in and game out
@ChilamBilam12 brooks sounds like the positivity bus book Presti was so impressed with a few years ago. I say that as an observation.
do we know officially what happen to Perkins tonight did he get ejected from the game???
@tydude I think Brooks woke up and realized he wasn't getting the job done against the Spurs shooters.
@Old Man Game @tydude he was also terrible with tp pick and rolls perkins is done im sorry yall
@tydude @Old Man Game Im not against giving away Ibaka, hes going to have to go sooner or later packing him , perkins and a pick is a GOOD offer for alot of teams.
@Lost Ones @Old Man Game like getting rid of Harden Ibaka No way
@tydude @Old Man Game I think we have to take the hit, and try to get a big in the offseason through trade. might have to package a few players.
@Lost Ones @Old Man Game lets see what they do with Perk during the off season
I know no one is as mad about Perk's playing as Perk is, but it's gonna take more than being mad to fill the sometimes, maybe often hole we have down low. Not taking away from his brilliant games, which he has had. But they are getting swiftly erased.
How much does Portland wanna firesale...?
@walrusmuse someone forgot to clue the players into the tanking aspect of blowing a team up.
HATE TOO ADMIT BUT THE PLAYOFF ROAD IS GONNA BE TOUGHER THIS YEAR!
@kdub our team will be ready for the playoffs
again.. i just don't understand what happened between last night and tonight.. how do we go from playing one of our most complete games of the season, to playing one of our completely worst?. the inconsistency of this team just boggles the mind
@ChilamBilam12 Don't read into too much, its just 1 game. Spurs shot the lights out. They're not going to do that on a consistent basis
@neo12 everyone seems to be shooting lights out against us recently.. our defense, or lack of defense for that matter had a lot to do with it
@ChilamBilam12 We werent that great last night remember it took a 4th qtr run to get a lead.
@Lost Ones @ChilamBilam12 we took over in the 3rd quarter
one of the rules on the message board
1. No profanity. If you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandmother, don’t say it here. If you have any question about a specific word, don’t write it. It’s probably bad. Also no pseudo-swears — using symbols (#$&%) or putting an asterisk (*) in the middle of the word aren’t acceptable. I don’t care how much cursing is part of your everyday life. If you want to comment, you won’t do it. This should be a place all ages can enjoy. I’m not going to list all the offensive words that aren’t acceptable, so use your judgment. If you didn’t hear it in Toy Story, it’s not going to fly.
@tydude Are you kidding about this? Are you actually offended by reading F#%* or something similar?
@Old Man Game @tydude as much as i hate to admit it, the dude is right boys.. and i was one of the worst offenders tonight which i apologize for.. but this is an intense game and for a group of fans that care so much about this team it is hard to prevent sometimes, but we all need to work on cleaning it up a little
@tydude @nomad Well I remember being 10 and I can tell you I learned the F word, at school, way before that age and by that time I was a seasoned pro of its usage.
@nomad @Old Man Game i never been on the message boards when i was 10 i will be watching tv or playing video games
@Old Man Game @tydude And honestly, when I was 10 I had no desire to read a message board.
@tydude Dude, kids encounter much worse than anything on this site every day at school.
@tydude @walrusmuse @ChilamBilam12 @Old Man Game
I understand that this is a public site for all to enjoy young, and old, but honestly no parent needs to let their kid go online unsupervised, even less on a blogish/commenting website where grown adults are. This isn't a basketball court, scratch that street ball is worse.
@tydude @walrusmuse @ChilamBilam12 @Old Man Game If you are a parent and letting your kids roam the internet you need to have your children taken.
@walrusmuse @ChilamBilam12 @Old Man Game they could be like a 10 year old on the site that we don't know and if he saw a bad word on the site and went to the parents and start saying and the parents says where did you learn that word he says dailythunder and then they will contract Royce and he can get into trouble that is why that is a rule
@ChilamBilam12 @Old Man Game @tydude also a spelling offender apparently.
@ChilamBilam12 @Old Man Game @tydude i agreee, as an offender tongiht myself.
@Old Man Game @tydude this is the 3rd time hes posted it, corny as ..... you know what
@tydude @Lost Ones @Old Man Game
Royce doesn't banned unless its personal attacks on people. So what if we curse. Alot of us are grown men, and women. Not like we haven't done anything worse then saying a little curse word. Not saying i don't take the rules serious in any way, but honestly say a curse word here and there isn't bad. Now saying F... F.... F.... F..... F.... is/
@tydude @Lost Ones I haven't seen anyone get banned over that yet. Personal attacks yes but just general exasperation type cursing about our blankity blank coach etc. doesn't rate from I can tell.
@Lost Ones @Old Man Game i don't care if you cuss on here but i am folioing the rules on the site so i don't get banned
@Old Man Game ask Royce Young who is charge of the chat
@tydude I'm asking you. You're the one who brought it up.
@tydudeSIR YES SIR
@tydude hush up
@Lost Ones that rules was made by Royce young not me
@tydude I know im telling you to hush up