Wednesday Bolts – 12.5.12

Darnell Mayberry: “You can tell the Thunder gets up for games in New York. They can say whatever they want about marquee games being “just another game.” But its baloney. Bull crap. OKC came to Brooklyn, felt the buzz in the building and wanted to put on a show. And that’s exactly what the Thunder did tonight.”

Tyler Parker of Baller Ball on KD’s near poster from God: “I say this with sincerity: What a cool miss. I think I speak for basketball fans and lovers of effortless scoring everywhere when I say that if you harm a hair on Kevin Durant’s head, Andray, I will come to your home and politely cry like Garth from Anchorman at your doorstep until you open the door and I ask you why you would do such an awful, miserable thing. Durant wouldn’t hurt a soul. He’d hurt their eyes with Thunderstruck, sure, but he wouldn’t hurt their soul.”

Would D.C. rather have RGIII, or KD?

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “And through it all, Westbrook and Durant will still need Perkins to be a buffer for them. This is a committed roster, an organization that has created a culture of accountability inside and outside the locker room. From the front office of Sam Presti and Troy Weaver, to coaching of Brooks, this is a franchise that’s been unblinking with confronting its issues. They happen everywhere. With success, with talent, there come desires unmet, expectations unfulfilled. Those are everyday issues for the Thunder now. Long after the game ends, the phone rings for Kendrick Perkins and his message is unwavering: Get over yourself and get to work on whatever is necessary to win basketball games. That’s the program here, that’s the value of leadership that transcends all those statistics, all those metrics, all those things that’ll never measure how a franchise keeps itself together.”

Westbrook’s favorite Jordan’s: “The XIs. The Cool Greys. I probably won’t play in those this season. I like to keep those nice.”

Photos of Westbrook wearing the new XX8′s. Naturally, Russ kind of makes them look cool.

The Brooklyn Game: “In a game without starting center Brook Lopez and backup power forward/Flail Boy Magic Mr. Floptastic/the league’s leading rebounder by percentage Reggie Evans, the Nets fell behind big in the first half. Down 61-48, the Nets clawed back in the third behind their starting five and noted inventor of palindromes Jerry Stackhouse, but didn’t have the shooting touch throughout the night to finish this one with a win. Still, the Nets played almost even with one of the best teams in basketball without two of their key players and a third (Joe Johnson) forgetting to play for the first 41 minutes, so… moral victories!”

From Elias: “The Thunder shot 40-for-66 from the floor (60.6%), including 7-of-14 from three-point range, and they made 30-of-34 shots from the line (88.2%) as they won their first game in Brooklyn. It was only the third game since the inception of the three-point line in the NBA in 1979 (and the first since March 1996) in which the SuperSonics/Thunder franchise had a field-goal percentage of 60 percent or higher, a three-point percentage of 50 percent or higher and a free-throw percentage of 80 percent or higher.”

ESPN Stats and Info: “The Thunder have now topped 100 points in 10 straight games. That’s the longest such streak for the franchise since December 1997 when it also had a 10-game streak. If the Thunder extend the current streak to 11 straight, it will be the franchise’s longest since January and February 1995 (19 straight).”

Howard Beck of the New York Times: “The chase began early and turned into something of an all-out sprint by prime time: the Oklahoma City Thunder sprinting across the Barclays Center court, the Nets pursuing furiously, doggedly, down to their last kick and their last flailing jumper. Kevin Durant dunked and dazzled, Russell Westbrook shimmied, and the Thunder piled up points at a dizzying rate Tuesday as the Nets tried in vain to match one of the N.B.A.’s most electrifying offenses.”

John Hollinger of ESPN.com says Jeff Green was one of the bad signings of the summer: “The reaction to his four-year, $34 million deal this summer was one of nearly universal bafflement, and that hasn’t gone away in the wake of his modest start. Green can score at a decent clip and is doing so again, averaging 16.5 points per 40 minutes, but his PER would be his lowest since his rookie year. Even playing with Rajon Rondo as a set-up man, he hasn’t been particularly efficient because he’s a weak long-range shooter and doesn’t generate a ton of foul shots. Meanwhile, he doesn’t bring a whole lot else to the table. In theory, he was supposed to provide a big wing who could help guard the LeBrons of the world, but it hasn’t worked out that way yet in practice.”