vs. 
OKC Thunder (32-9, 13-6 road) at Los Angeles Clippers (32-10, 19-4 home)
TV: NBATV; FSOK (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: 9:30 CT
Offensive Rating: Thunder – 112.9 (1st), Clippers– 110.4 (4th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder – 103.3 (7th), Clippers – 100.9 (5th)
Pace: Thunder – 92.8 (8th), Clippers – 92.0 (10th)
View from the enemy: ClipperBlog
So this is a pretty big game.
For the first half of the season, the Thunder are the top team in the West. But depending on the result of tonight’s game, will they start the second half that way? The Thunder already took down the Clippers once, albeit in OKC and with the Clippers clearly underperforming. Was that a result of the way the Thunder played them, or just a bad night for the Clips? We’ll probably get a little more clarity on that tonight.
One thing is for sure: The Clippers are legit. Forget the name on the jersey, forget their history. This team is every bit the contender they appear to be. They’re a real threat to the Thunder’s Western Conference title chances, and something as simple as maintaining a home court edge over them could be what separates the two teams.
OKC’s already up 1-0 in the season series so not only would the Thunder gain another game on the Clippers in the standings, but they’d inch closer to holding the tiebreaker as well. It’s not just your every day regular season game. This one is bigger, for real reasons.
Clippers coming in: The Clippers played last night, losing to the Warriors.
Three Big Things
1. Thabo on CP3. Chris Paul has been working his way back from a bothersome knee injury the past few games and didn’t play well last night against the Warriors. He also played horribly in the first meeting with the Thunder as Scott Brooks rolled out a wrinkle using Thabo Sefolosha on him. Thabo’s length took away CP3′s midrange game and with Serge Ibaka patrolling the paint, anything easy at the rim
2. Live-ball turnovers. Like zombies feast on brains, the Clippers’ lifeblood is live-ball turnovers. Give it away to the Clips in the open floor and it’s basically an automatic two points. Combine the fact that those transition plays build momentum on their home floor, bring the crowd into the game and can rattle you, the Thunder can’t be giving the ball away 20 times. (Of course, they turned it over 19 times in the first meeting and won by sort of handily, but do that on the road and it’ll cause big problems.)
3. Bench issues. The Clippers clearly have an edge with their second unit. It’s one of the best in basketball with Jamal Crawford, Eric Bledsoe and Matt Barnes. OKC’s bench has been a question all season long. In the first meeting, Kevin Martin outplayed Crawford and the Thunder second unit held their own. With a game tomorrow night against the Warriors, I’m sure Scott Brooks would prefer not to play Durant and Westbrook 45 minutes tonight, but he’s going to need the bench to step up if that’s going to be the case.
Tip at 9:30 CT. Go Big Game.
How many comments so far?
http://dailythunder.com/2013/01/thunder-coast-over-the-clippers-109-97/
Onr of Nick's best games yet
Just got home from watching the game at the bar, pretty drunk, but looked at the box score. When was the last time nick collision played 41 minutes for us???? And perk only played 7 minutes and had 4 fouls.. What happened there? Is there more to read in to this?
@booles nope. perk sucked tonight so we had to play collison more
I like pie
Alright I"ll just start posting random stuff
C'mon, 3000 comments!
@Lambchop why'd you change your avi back
@MD4Okc This is my original one. It was asserted earlier that i was the the Thndercaster! Just thought Id allevieate these silly notions
@Lambchop I was confused when i saw the other one. figured i missed something. always a pleasure, carry on...
Not sure if this was mentioned before but Nick Collison was a +20 tonight Highest on the team
blazersedge Report: Lakers to consider possibility of Dwight Howard trade? bit.ly/XyzZn4
@gnayggAnyone wanting to kill their team I can't think of a better way to start off
@gnaygg If they trade dwight this little lakers experiment will go down as the biggest failure of all time.
I'm really glad that we can shut down Jamal Crawford. I really don't see him having any +50% shooting nights against us if we play in the playoffs.
@OBoy Jones III If I remember correctly we used liggins on him in the first half and crawford couldnt do anything! Im surprised we didnt see liggins in the second half
@OBoy Jones III Remember no Chris Paul though. He would have gotten better looks
@1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @OBoy Jones III Having thabo (and liggins!) helps alot too
@1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars he went 7-18 against us in the first game of the season. The key is not letting him get off to hot starts.
And we outrebounded them 37/35
Sure hope Russ doesn't wear his Inigo Montoya shirt on the plane tonight...
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/inigo-montoya-shirt-leads-awkward-flight-220153812.html
I started saying "We got this" when I woke up this morning, gimme five
Haha Kmart was pretty good
Happy with Martin's performance tonight. Thought he should have had a couple more touches. Had his offense working.
All this game showed me is that durant is a great player, and our bench sucks.
I read your posts in Droopy Dog's voice.
@justin_mia might want to get your molars checked out
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@MJOKC @Lost Ones Thank you KMart for showing up.
@Lost Ones LOL
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@MJOKC They're not stifling us defensively like they did last year, that's for sure.
@MJOKC It was concerning how easily Blake Griffin scored on everybody. And how DeAndre Jordan makes Perkins look like a garden gnome.
@justin_mia @MJOKC I'm not even drinking tonight and you're cracking me up. First egregious, now garden gnome. The obvious question is ...are a mummy and garden gnome of the same value, or does one exceed the other in value? I'm going to go out on a limb and say mummy = garden gnome.
@justin_mia @El Prez @MJOKC Foul trouble might have been the best thing for us.
@El Prez @MJOKC Perkins sometimes has this undead malaise where he just can't move at all laterally. That's when he's a mummy. DeAndre Jordan and JaValle McGee make him look like a garden gnome when they jump for rebounds and their arms extend eight inches higher than Perkins'.
@justin_mia @MJOKC Are you suggesting a very large garden gnome is all that's needed to stop Dwight Howard?
@courtsense @justin_mia @MJOKC What did Howard have last time? 23 and 18? Are we still going to continue this myth that Perkins can guard him?
@courtsense @justin_mia @MJOKC This year.
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@MJOKC That's not true. I think he's useful against every other playoff team in the West. Memphis. San Antonio, and Utah especially. and LAL if they do sneak in somehow.
@MJOKC I don't believe he is useless but big athletic centers kill him. Denver and LAC are the two playoff teams that are bad matchups for him. LAC probably worse than Denver.
@justin_mia @MJOKC Do we have anyone to guard those guys on this roster?
@MJOKC Crawford plays better then this normally. We gotta keep playing good D on him everytime.
Remember when we went 1-3 against LAC last year and how it totally sucked? Much cooler this year.
Sullinger me if you must but I just saw Kyrie dropped 40.
So far, Clips have used 2 different PG's on us, and neither had a good time.
@mb22 Reggie Jackson wouldn't have fared any better. I do think some team is going to max Bledsoe when he is up though and maybe regret it
@1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22 I don't see this at all. Especially with PG being such a deep position. Jrue Holiday, Ty Lawson, etc. all better than him and weren't close to max players.
@1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @ThunderWins @AIaska @justin_mia @mb22 the pg position is loaded he's not getting a max
@1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @ThunderWins @AIaska @mb22 I don't think he cracks $10m a season. George Hill got 5/40. I think he ends up in that ball park.
@ThunderWins @AIaska @justin_mia @mb22 They'll settle for him after they strike out again on every all star free agent. Max was wrong, should have said overpay. #Yeshrug, he will get a huge deal and not live up to it.
@AIaska @justin_mia @1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22 Max player Cuban for you
@AIaska @ThunderWins @1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22 I agree.
@AIaska @justin_mia @1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22 Dallas could use him badly LOL
@ThunderWins @justin_mia @1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22 I don't think he's even a starting point guard on a decent team. He's a good back up but that's it for now
@justin_mia @1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22
Everything that I have seen says that they are not giving him a max.
@justin_mia @1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22 Bledsoe is hyped though he's going to get paidl.
@1 Knee 4 Points 5 Rebounds 35 Million Dollars @mb22 That would be the worst max of all time