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JAMES HARDEN
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KEVIN DURANT
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SCOTT BROOKS
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Thunder guard James Harden says his head doesn’t hurt anymore and he’s ready to get back to playing basketball.
“It’s been kinda crazy (this week) but I’ve just been trying to relax and do what I have to do in order to get back on the court.”
He was back on the practice floor today for the Thunder and he’ll be back in action at Chesapeake Energy Arena Saturday night against the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
Harden wanted to talk more about that than he did the shot to head he got from Lakers forward Metta World Peace but he did admit, “I was shocked at first and then I was just trying to get up and get back in the game but we’ve got the best training staff in the NBA and they did a good job of not allowing that to happen.”
Harden also said he’s not been contacted by World Peace although, “I’m thinkin’ he apologized in an interview, I don’t know,” and Harden said, “I don’t know,” if the elbow was intentional and, “I can’t comment on (the suspension) that’s the NBA’s job.”
What Harden did talk about is how good it feels to be back in action, in uniform, instead of hanging out in street clothes.
“I’m happy to get back on the court and help my teammates win basketball games,” he said, “coming off the bench being that guy to go to is definitely something to look forward to, especially playing against Dallas.”
Harden helped settle things down against the Mavericks last season in the Conference Finals when Russell Westbrook struggled. This season the Thunder has won three of four games against their rivals from south of the Red River.
“We still have a bad taste in our mouths (from the loss in the Conference Finals), Dallas is a great team and they have one of the best players to ever play the game in Dirk (Nowitzki) so it’s gonna be a fun series.”
A lot more fun for Harden since he will be playing instead of just watching.
Randy Renner has covered Oklahoma sports for 30 years and currently writes for NBA.com.
delonte west quote today "it was a slow process but its a fo sho process, one game at a time"......no idea what this is in talking about
@OBoymuzik Anytime I hear Delonte West talk I feel my brain no think good no more.
I'm just checking in. Been staring at the countdown clock on the Thunder's homepage counting down to game 1. Well, back to work. See ya.
I do not think LAL will beat Denver in their series. Haven't heard any of the talking heads entertain this as a possibility, in fact, I'd estimate there are as many projections for them making the finals as there are for SA or OKC. Afflalo plays Kobe as well as anyone, they've got several 7-footers & the manimal to throw at Bynum & gasol, la's got no one who can guard Lawson or gallo. We could potentially face Dallas, Denver & Memphis on the way to the finals, I like our chances.
In the end, the Thunder end up 2nd best on offensive efficiency and 11th on defensive efficiency.
@Crow espn has us 9th, but their formula might be slightly different
@f5alcon yeah their pace calculations tend to be different that basketballreference's.
@Tequila or Failure @f5alcon and the fact that what happened in 20111 playoffs repeated itself in 2012 regular season and that the results were both extremely negative gives me some confidence for the stats and observation that the starters are very likely not actually good on average against dallas and pretty likely at least sorta bad against them, even if not as 'turrible' as the stats say.
@Tequila or Failure @Crow @f5alcon of course the sample sizes are tiny but it is all we have for exactly these matchups
@f5alcon At least it isn't Chandler who destroyed perk last year.
@Crow @f5alcon Pretty small sample size on these one year, 4-game okc v Dallas lineup plus-minuses to put too much stock in them, Crow. Have hard time believing that collison instead of serge against there 1's will serve us better. Agree though that perk shouldn't play a ton in this series.
haywood does foul a lot though when out there with perk
@f5alcon www.nba.com/advancedstats/player-vs-player.html#Kendrick-Perkins-vs-Brendan-Haywood|2570,2217;year=201112;season=r
in limited minutes of course
@f5alcon haywood on the court dominates perkins on the court this season individually and teamwise
@f5alcon yeah fisher,westbrook,harden was done mostly very well,with collison or perkins or other
@f5alcon go to harden and collison a lot, thunder should do ok. stay with bad perkins lineups at their peril.
@Crow yeah this series there isnt much for perkins to do, haywood is not an offensive threat. I wonder how much of the fisher,westbrook,harden lineup we will see, brooks seems to like it, but cook played well the last two games.
@f5alcon all 5 of the best lineups used over 50 minutes had collison in them... but perkins is going to get more minutes.
@f5alcon Lineup performance is some combination of random and meaningful. 3 of the top 6 biggest minute lineups for each of Westbrook, Harden, Durant and Perkins are negative and often very negative.
@f5alcon Durant at PF lineups generally did bad. 3 guard lineups were a mix of about even amounts of bad and good.
@f5alcon Normal Thunder starting lineup was -18 against Dallas in 21 minutes. A repeat of the awful perfomance against Dallas last playoffs... but actually much worse. The only improvement was that instead of playing the starters 15 minute per game like they did in the last playoffs, Brooks gave up after 10 minutes per game this season. I'd rather he give up in 5 or less.
@f5alcon Normal Thunder starting lineup was terrible against Dallas. Sub Harden for Thabo and they broke even.
@f5alcon Basically all the best performing lineups against the Mavs had Harden-Collison in them though not all such lineups were good. The two bigger minute lineups with Westbrook Harden Durant and Collison both did very well.
@f5alcon The good times for the Thunder starters came when the Mavs were playing reserves at center. When Haywood was out there the Mavs rolled big time against the Thunder starters.
@f5alcon Dallas tends to do better on average against good offensive teams than good defensive teams.
If Dallas plays good defense it will be at minimum a tight series.
Cheers dt folks . . . to the end of the regular season on this playoff eve! How can a place where nobody knows your name feel like a place where everybody knows your name?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvRGh2NEjSU
Yea Right! Thunder win 4-1 vs Mavs
Dang Harden looks cut in that pic
@OkcBaby He looks like Jesus. Black Jesus.
@ILikePancakes @OkcBaby You mean Jesus.. Jesus wasn't white.
@jaybound To be fair, he also likely wasn't black though, think more arabesque, and not the geometrical art form.
Dallas wins in 6, Thunder don't know how to close ball games.
@jaybound your lack of faith, i find it...disturbing . You do realize we beat dallas in the regular season. Last year we were up twice on them in the 4th quarter and squandered that away. Im not afraid of a tyson chandler less and j.j barea less mavs. Do unless dirk wants to drop 50 on us a night, vince carter hits miracle 3's, and kid drinks some fountain of youth, they aint winning. Theres a reason most of american has us winning by 85% or more.
@Legendary_dork @jaybound if you want some confidence in the thunder this series...go watch the mavs interviews from today, they sounded terrible
@jaybound We are still very mentally fragile, so all the expectations may get into their heads.
@ILikePancakes @jaybound oh ye of little faith....
@jaybound @ILikePancakes Don't underestimate the power of playoff intensity on these guys. The last few games they just appeared to be over the regular season. I can't say I blame them. A WCF rematch is just the dose of "put up or shut up" they need
@MD4Okc @ILikePancakes Oh, I want to believe in this team, I really do. But I just know that we will have a good lead on Dallas, something like up 11 mid 4th quarter and end up losing the game.
looks like ill have to drink nyquil tonight like last year around this time to fall asleep because i'm so amped up for the game tomorrow
Well, it's the last day of sane-person-looking fingernails for me. Brace Yourselves. The Playoffs are here.
DailyThunder got a little refresh in time for teh playoffs
:-]
IMO the Thunder ended up with the toughest first round opponent among the top 4 seeds in the west.
@Crow Clippers would give us more trouble
@ILikePancakes I wasn't thinking matchups directly, more standalone opponent quality. We have different views. It is not a clearcut thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okj3_vGi6SU
This is hillarious.
@ILikePancakes rad rad ... rad. rasberry redbull!
@ILikePancakes Too funny!! National Basketball Academy. Lol.
@SeanzieCrews Ronaldo. The fat one.
@ILikePancakes @SeanzieCrews Chicken Nuggets
@SeanzieCrews The scores were priceless.
Seventy Six... Ers...
@ILikePancakes Just tweeted them to see about getting an OKC one up. I'm literally still laughing, that was a great find.
@ILikePancakes This is awesome, they should do this for the thunder game.... we'd get a lot of apple turnovers
Soccer and Basketball combined? I don't know what to think about this.