Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com: “Durant also made a few nice plays as a half-court improvisor. It’s fun watching Kevin Durant be a playmaker, something that’s starting to happen a little more regularly. The pindown from Perkins has been Durant’s morning coffee within the Oklahoma City offense over the past year. So it was nice to see the Perkins screen result in a pass to the big men when Leonard tried to top-lock the action. Perkins rumbled hard to the hole, where Durant found him to extend the Thunder’s lead to seven.”
Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com: “Russell Westbrook was wearing huge brown glasses after Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, glasses that were as showy and useless as he was during the game. See, his glasses had no lenses. I’m not telling you he was wearing clear lenses. I’m telling you, he had no lenses. Just huge brown frames. For show. Which offers a certain symmetry, given the way Westbrook played for the Oklahoma City Thunder in their 101-98 loss to the Spurs on Sunday night. A three-point game? Sounds close. Sounds exciting down the stretch.”
Matt Moore for PBT: “Are there tangible things Durant can do better? It’s hard to say. Should Westbrook or Harden improve? Undeniably. But Durant has the most advantages, as usual, more than usual. It was clear from the start. Durant is going to have to be more than just a scoring machine. He has to be dominant in every area, making a difference on every level. That’s how good the Spurs are.”
Berry Tramel: “Kevin Durant was finding ways to score and Russell Westbrook was throwing himself all over the court with unbridled energy and Thabo Sefolosha and his defensive-minded big men were keeping the Spurs at bay. Through three quarters, the Thunder looked all grown up. Looked capable of knocking off the Spurs, who hadn’t lost in 46 days. Looked capable of making the NBA Finals. Then suddenly, the Thunder looked scared. Dazed. Confused. Young. Awfully young.”
Darnell Mayberry: “This has got to be a gut-wrenching loss for the Thunder. Every player knew they let one slip away. A nine-point fourth quarter lead, on the road, in a game you had to have to snatch home-court advantage. You can only shake your head after the way the Thunder tightened up and blew this one. It was there for the taking, and the Thunder couldn’t take it. It’s the same old story when these two teams meet. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this has the potential to be pretty demoralizing.”
Jan Hubbard of SI.com: “While four key players for the Thunder are 23 or younger, they have obviously benefitted from deep playoff runs the last two years. They play loosely and confidently. But the issue that arose Sunday was whether they can play with focus and, when needed, restraint. When they were at their best in Game 1, that’s how the Spurs played — well, like that with a nice dose of nastiness thrown in for the head coach.”
Fran Blinebury of NBA.com: “These were the Spurs that nobody had seen in more than a month while they were rolling over opponents by more than a dozen points a game. These were Spurs not cutting diamonds, but using jackhammers. These were the Spurs that Gregg.i.am demanded to see and that No. 3 coaxed and cajoled and inspired through the fourth quarter, some of the attitude that is unmatched anywhere. Well, almost. “You wanna see nasty?” asked a grinning Jackson. “Go interview my wife. That’s nasty.” Note to Durant: Run if you see Mrs. Jackson loosening up.”
J.A. Adande of ESPN.com: “Hope is a dangerous concept in the NBA this time of year. There’s much more comfort to be found in probabilities and trends. The good news for the Thunder is that Harden shot 59 percent against the Spurs in the three regular-season games and got to the free-throw line seven times per game. The bad news is the Spurs didn’t have Ginobili in those games. And right now San Antonio has the O.G. Ginobili, and the Thunder have a duplicate made by a copy machine that’s low on toner.”
The Flaming Lips wrote a Thunder song.
Ethan Sherwood Strauss of HoopSpeak: “When Harden predictably slashed towards his open strong-side lane, he was easy to time-up, easy to thwart. When Harden attempted to go against the grain on the left side of the court, his shaky right hand was an issue. On the right side of the court, he was shaded so heavily that leftward drives weren’t a consideration. It’s impossible to prevent James Harden from beating his man left when he has the rock on the court’s left side. Perhaps Popovich knew that he couldn’t prevent this anymore than the Drug War could prevent drug use. So instead of fighting the inexorable, the Spurs dealt with the predictable–like one of those savvy Nordic nations. In doing so, San Antonio made their success inevitable.”
Jesse Blanchard of 48 Minutes of Hell: “In that fourth quarter the San Antonio Spurs attempted 18 free throws. Prior to that they managed a meager seven for the game. Some of the credit belongs to backup center Tiago Splitter for drawing two quick fouls to start the fourth. Though his free throw shooting has dropped of a cliff in these playoffs, his ability to draw fouls still remains an overall plus, especially when it helps get the Spurs in the bonus early–at which time Manu Ginobili feasts on drawing fouls and getting free throws (five fourth quarter attempts).”
Thunderman, not an ESPN commentator but, we lost the game because the Thunder failed to play like a championship caliber team, but rather like a bunch of school yard guys playing pickup and calling their own fouls as a bailout for poor passing,shooting or overall play.
You lose one game to an excellent team and people act like your the biggest joke in the world! I can't stand some of these commentators at ESPN.
By one crude measure the player whose career most resembles Perkins' is Scott Pollard. Pollard never had a good playoff series after age 27 and was out of the league at 32. Perkins has not had a good boxscore performance in the playoffs since he was 24.
Wow, Gregg Doyel looks terrible.
@Lasers I bow to Mr. Doyel's superior knowledge of being useless. He's obviously more familiar with it than the rest of us. On the other hand, Doyel's article does serve a purpose. It makes me appreciate Royce's writings even more than I had before.
What a terrible looking man.
http://www.dailythunder.com/2012/05/practice-report-bouncing-back-moving-on/
@Legendary_dork yes a practice report time
You guys can blame brooks and the refs, but maybe we didnt play a good game. Russ and harden struggled to make shots and get calls. And when the game was closing out, KD just couldnt find an open shot. Also the defense at the end was horrendous. We couldnt stop manu. He just drove in and no body was there to help. You can say ibaka wouldve helped, but you dont know that for sure. Dont worry, this is only one game of a seven game series. This team is good enough to win the next 4 games against san antonio. I still think thunder in 6 will happen.
@EatSleepThunder the fact that russ and harden were BOTH not doing well sums this game up. We lost by 3 yet the spurs fans, analyst, and everyone wanna think we got blew out. One miss and we would be in over time. Theres SO many factors that could of determined our win last night. so we have to play better. we CAN and WILL do this
@Legendary_dork @EatSleepThunder Exactly. KD missed a dunk, Russ missed a dunk, Harden missed layups, refs missed calls, defensive players missed rotations. There's a whole lot that goes into a win or loss.
@ThunderChick2010 @SB718 @Legendary_dork @EatSleepThunder Nope this lose was totally on Brooks playing Ibaka so few minutes, and sitting him out the entire 4th quarter. That is where ALL the blame lies.
@SB718 @Legendary_dork @EatSleepThunder
Agree . . . and my comment above was agreeing with you. Hard to draw the line between analysis and blame--especially after a loss.
@ThunderChick2010 @Legendary_dork @EatSleepThunder This isn't First Take blame doesn't have to be spread after every game. The other team played better when it mattered most.
@SB718 @Legendary_dork @EatSleepThunder
Plenty of blame to spread around . . .
@EatSleepThunder What is this sense thing you're making?
Blaming the loss on the coach, and blaming the loss on the officials are two totally different things.
Joey Crawford wasn't the one who let his Center that absolutely gave up on defense play the last 10 minutes of a close game, whic allowed 11 points in the paint to end to quarter.
He wasn't the one who went away from KD's post ups, even though he had been having success with it all night whether it ws agains't Leonard or Sjax.
He wasn't the one who sat down the best shot blocker in the league against he Spurs best lay up line litterally.
He wasn't the one who didn't put in Thabo earlier to hep contain Manu when his PnR finally started clicking.
He wasn't the one who couldn't realize that Westbrook getting all those close shots after broken plays as actually falling into Popovich game plan. He gave Russ that look all night, Gee i wonder why. Had Russ hit them all i would be a different story, and it would have backfired on Greg, but i didn't.
Need i go on?
NBA Finals will begin on June 12th not the 10th according to ESPN ad
watching the fix on TBJ right now and they say what the world did Scott brooks do to bench both Thabo and Serge
Thanks to all of you complaining about Brooks. I have been complaining about him for 2 years, with his sometimes ridiculous rotations. My husband nd I actually argue about this. I think his job is safe this year, as even if we lose this series, we have not taken a step back from last year. Next year will be Scotties test. imo, we don't take the next step, he gets canned. Ibaka on the bench was utterly ridiculous imo, I'm no coach, but dang. Thabo should have played more too I thought.. But the Thunder wrapped this game up in a pretty box with a pretty bow on top and gifted it to the Spurs imo. THUNDER UP and Scottie, get a clue.
@ocdred
We don't have two years to spend. There are teams out there that are litterally willin to give Ibaka a near max contract, same with Harden. We wouldn't be able to match that. If i were a 22 year old basketball player, and i noticed that my coach doesn't have confidence in my abilities to end a close game, but clearly its becaue he's an idiot. The management won't do anything abut it, i much rather leave and get paid 4 million extra if thats the case.
What Ibaka and Harden need to keep in mind is that, if they are the max contract player on a new team, that means they'll have a lot less help than they have in OKC...which translates to fewer playoff runs and less chance of winning it all.
after a long hard day of work and dealing with spurs fans *apparently theres LOTS where i work* im still pissed at this game. Im more mad at the spurs fans screaming, GAME OVER. THUNDERS DONE. OUR SPURS PLAYED HORRIBLE AND WE STILL WON ect..ect... First off the REASON they played horrible was cause of our defense you tards. Also, in the 4th quarter we HAVE to stop getting complacent. we do it far to much. Russ you cant go in hero mode, sorry but you were playing emotional last night. Kd CANT shoot 2 times in the 4th quarter, ever again. I FORBID IT. Harden, you gotta attack the rim homie. Brooks, i still think you stupid for NOT having ibaka in the 4th quarter. HE IS AN OPTION other than perk. overall, this game was winnable. Crawford is a joke.
@Legendary_dork Chill out, buddy. The Thunder did play great D - nobody is denying that. When watching the Clips series, I kept noticing that when the Spurs were struggling, it was for no other reason than they were just missing open shots, but they were getting all of the shots they wanted. Last night was different - OKC was in all the passing lanes, getting steals, getting strips at the right place, etc. It was a great defensive performance for a non-Eastern Conference team.
That being said, you have to stop with the "Well, if OKC had just made one more three!" stuff. You can't just arbitrarily add points to the score and then get mad because nobody is recognizing how "lucky" the Spurs were to win. They were up by 10 with like a minute and a half left, and the lead was only 3 after Harden hit a meaningless three at the buzzer - hardly a "lucky" win.
Have you guys watched the 4th quarter?! KD and Russ were absolutely EXHAUSTED. What is the first organ that gets less blood when you're tired? your brain. They couldn't make plays because they lost their legs.
This series is special in regard to how hard Thunder needs to work defensively. This is not the give-the-rock-to-Kobe/Dirk ball. Every guy on the floor for the Spurs is a threat for 48 minutes, you just can't hide KD in defense anymore for him to rest. a tired KD is a bad KD, so Scotty[...doesn't know...] must give him more rest or Thunder will lose every 4th quarter in this series.
Manu 26 points last night most of it the 4th quarter and if we had serge in the lineup and blocked and stop alot of manu shots he will likely would of make like 15- 16 shots
BTW I don't know if y'all noticed there were actually 3 officials last night. Joey Crawford, as bad as he is, doesn't make EVERY call. Marc Davis (who was also there last night) is probably a worse referee (just ask Celtics fans), just less well know and less confrontational.
Having said that referees who are bad at their jobs doesn't equal NBA conspiracy. That game didn't even remotely compare to Game 3 in LA.
@SB718 I'm watching the replay with great intent on who makes the calls in the 4th... though my only complaint in the 4th against the ref's was the light fouls being called one end and the grope fest on KD that, again seems to go overlooked. I think the only bad call was RW's charge against the 2 guys... he clearly missed Duncan and the other guy was clearly sliding under him. pretty sure that was JC making the call, thought waiting for the replay to verify.
@SB718 that flopped during the 2nd half Joey let that foul go but Marc Davis called it
Y'all do realize tydude is a troll right?
@Lost Ones
Surely, you jest.
@Lost Ones
He's not a troll dude. Why would a troll post in every single thread this entire season?
@Lost Ones i am not a troll i am the biggest thunder fan out there
@tydude Sorry dude but you are a troll.
Can game 2 come any sooner?
@EatSleepThunder only 1 day 6 hours 25 minutes till game 2
Honestly i'm just going to straight up say it, blaming the lose on the refs is a cop out, and a sorry excuse. It's not like it went down to the final shot, and they caled Perkins for a offensive screen. KD actually got some bail out calls in the 3rd if you want to be so critical on the refs. Yes, Joey Crawford did kinda F'd us a few times last night, but in the end he's not the one who had that bad line up to end the game. He's not the one who didn't play defense. He's not the one who couldn't make shots all night.
@ElMexiThunder Same as blaming it on the coach
@John64 @ElMexiThunder
Haha no, its not the same at all.
@ElMexiThunder this wasn't like game 3 when Joey gave lakers 46 free throws
@tydude
I mean the arguement doesn't make sense. Why would the NBA rather have the Spurs in the finals instead of us, when we're clearly the bigger money maker. Hell the NBA would be getting tons of more media attntion if we had pulled out the win last night as well. Its one of two things, 1. We're much better then the Spurs(then we all thought), and he NBA is tryng to keep the Spurs from getting swept, or a gentlemens sweep, or 2. Joey Crawford just straight up doesn't like us.
Thunder a young small town team making it to the NBA Finals will got alot more attention then they are getting right now and we will get more fans on the bandwagon and ratings in OKC will go up big time
@tydude @ElMexiThunder Agreed. Not blaming loss on the refs, i am simply stating that a couple obvious and crucial calls/non-calls through the course of the game makes it tough when the margin is those few plays.
Oh and harden stepping out bounds to end the 3... ugh... small things...
Watching game 1 again on NBA TV and officiating missed a couple things in addition to some ticky-tack or missed calls. KD dunk on Duncan that was missed and not called a foul. Fish's 3 that was only a 2.
But in retrospect - The Thunder despite poor shooting and the defensive collapse in the 4th played a solid game - as did the Spurs. What I deduce from watching the game again - this thing is close... very very very close.
@ThunderBelize if they counted Fish as a 3 pointer we will be down by 2 and if we made those 2 miss dunks we will be up by 2 and we could win the game
@tydude @ThunderBelize They also missed KD's goaltend though, which'd give 2pts back to the Spurs
@Lasers @tydude reinforces the frustration with some obvious calls being missed... going both ways, I guess. Missed calls are part of the game... granted... and I don't blame the loss on the refs.
Acutally just watched the o-foul on Manu in the last minutes... wish they'dhow the other angle.. tough to see...
oh the bright side of the note we have a better record then Tulsa Shock who is 0-3
I know officiating sucked last night but like i just posted. The officials aren't the ones who gave up 11 points in the paint in the last 6 minutes of the 4th quarter. The Center we had out there wasn't playing Defense because he was afraid of picking up his 6th foul. So we never got a stop, there was a sequence where Tony got an And 1, then Manu went in there and got two lay ups. Perkins was the last line of defense on all possessions by which he layed no defense because of the situation. Is that really the official's fault, or the dumbass coach who didn't put the best shot blocke in the league who wasn't in foul trouble to protect the paint.