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Thunder vs. Nuggets: Pregame Primer

by Royce Young on January 20, 2013 at 4:41 pm 1,916 Comments

vs.

OKC Thunder (32-8, 13-5 road) at Denver Nuggets (24-18, 15-3 home)

TV: 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: 7:00 CT

Offensive Rating: Thunder – 113.0 (1st), Nuggets– 108.3 (8th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder – 103.0 (6th), Nuggets – 105.9 (15th)
Pace: Thunder – 92.6 (8th), Nuggets – 94.1 (5th)

View from the enemy: Roundball Mining Company

A couple things working against the Thunder tonight: 1) The Nuggets are very good at home and 2) the Nuggets are probably still a little unhappy about the whipping OKC put on them a few days ago. In looking over this six-game road trip, this one in Denver kind of looked like a potential swing game to me. A 2-0 start could really put 5-1 or for sure 4-2 in play. A loss makes a successful trip much more challenging. Keep Reading…

TGR 88: 3 up, 3 down

by Thunderground Radio on January 20, 2013 at 9:21 am 674 Comments

Thunder fans! Thanks again for taking the time each week to listen the podcast. The download numbers keep rising and we’re still having a ton of fun. We’d love to hear your comments about how we can improve each episode. This week’s episode we give or deep thoughts about the three games this past week as well as…

Should Serge Ibaka be an All-Star?

Has Kevin Martin hit a slump?

KD on Manti Te’o?

Have sports become too much about personal drama?

Is 3-2 in the five-game road trip sufficient?

Download, listen and comment.

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Saturday Morning Cartoons: Ru$sell

by Royce Young on January 19, 2013 at 12:33 pm 1,085 Comments

Happy weekend. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Kevin Durant, you guys.

This just needed its own post. It’s too good.

Oh, I forgot to add this: In an issue of Us Weekly or something, Westbrook said he liked listening to Taylor Swift before games. I asked him about that and he said he likes Taylor Swift and Katy Perry before games. I said, “Are you being serious?” and he said, “Yeah, they got good stuff.” So no big shock to see him singing along with Ke$ha.

Behind 52 from KD, OKC survives in Dallas, 117-114

by Royce Young on January 19, 2013 at 12:43 am 355 Comments

BOX SCORE

Survive and advance.

That’s the kind of feel tonight’s game had for the Thunder. Just win the stupid thing and then get the heck out of town. With it kicking off a daunting six-game road trip, starting 0-1 in maybe the most winnable game would’ve been fairly terrible.

For a while, it appeared to be of the mostly ho-hum-taking-care-of-business variety. Then it went into holy-crap-what-a-bad-loss territory. Then is just became an awesome game in general. One thing we definitely learned: If the Thunder are up three with a few seconds against the Mavs, prepare yourself for five more minutes. Keep Reading…

Thunder vs. Mavericks: Pregame Primer

by Royce Young on January 18, 2013 at 5:10 pm 2,137 Comments

vs.

OKC Thunder (31-8, 12-5 road) vs. Dallas Mavericks (17-23, 11-7 home)

TV: ESPN; 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: 8:30 CT

Offensive Rating: Thunder – 113.0 (1st), Mavs– 103.6 (20th)
Defensive Rating: Thunder – 102.9 (6th), Mavs – 106.7 (22nd)
Pace: Thunder – 92.5 (8th), Mavs – 93.9 (5th)

View from the enemy: The Two Man Game

To the road they go. The Thunder take off for six games away from the comfort of The Peake playing the Mavs, Nuggets, Clippers, Warriors, Kings and Lakers. But it starts in Dallas with a semi-resurgent Mavs team.

On the brink of complete implosion, the Mavericks have somewhat righted themselves as of late. They’ve won four straight breaking a stretch where they had lost 10 of 11. The Mavs have been disappointing for sure, but they have lost seven games in overtime this season, so they’re not too awful far from being a .500 team. Keep Reading…

Checking in on the Thunder narrative

by Michael Kimball on January 18, 2013 at 1:04 pm 217 Comments

Sam Forenich/NBAE/Getty Images

(Editor’s note: Michael Kimball is an occasional Daily Thunder contributor and Thunder season ticket member whose archive can be seen here. Regular readers will recognize it as the work of Patrick James, a name he used at DT when working full-time for his then-employer, The Oklahoman. He graduated in 2007 from the University of Oklahoma with a journalism degree and was a student media colleague of Royce Young’s, including a brief stint as Royce’s cruel and unfairly demanding supervisor. You can follow him on Twitter here.)

Roughly halfway through the season, Kevin Durant is an All-Star starter, Russell Westbrook is on the verge of being named as a backup, a third Oklahoma City player is on the bubble and the Thunder are sitting pretty in the playoff race.

What else is new?

The answer for most close Thunder watchers is, well, sort of a lot, but sort of not much at the same time. It’s kinda complicated. Let’s go ahead and get the words “James Harden” out of the way right here, because that’s obvious. Some things have changed. Keep Reading…

Friday Bolts – 1.18.13

by Royce Young on January 18, 2013 at 10:31 am 201 Comments

Zach Lowe of Grantland on OKC’s offense: “Again: You could define “greatest” in other ways if you’d like. Michael Jordan shooting 54 percent with sky-high usage rates in his prime is pretty nutty, though 3s were not a big part of his game for much of that time. Everything Wilt Chamberlain did was pretty nutty. Steve Nash was typically just over 50 percent in his four campaigns, but he shot proportionally more 3s and had free throw percentages approaching 94 percent (on relatively few attempts, compared to the Nowitzki/Bird/Durant trio). Bird shot fewer 3s — about three per 36 minutes — but he attempted more 3s by himself in the mid- and late-1980s than two or three teams each season. Context matters. Please don’t call Larry Bird an “overrated shooter” without doing your homework. Durant has a half season to go, obviously. But appreciate what’s going on here. This is one of the greatest offensive seasons in the history of basketball, and the amazing thing is, he’s still not the best player in the league or the MVP.”

Kobe Bryant in an interview with ESPN the Mag: “Who would you most like to play one-on-one, either active or retired? Jordan. No question. What would happen? I’m not sure, but he would win some and I would win some in a seven-game series. It would probably come down to the last few shots. You versus LeBron? Who wins? Me. No question. As far as one-on-one, I’m the best to ever do it. Damn. That’s pretty confident. LeBron is a terrific all-around, five-on-five basketball player who’s an all-time great. But I’d get him. Who could get you? Kevin Durant is the guy that would give me the most trouble. With his length and ability to use the dribble he’d be tough.” Keep Reading…

Screened Out: The Thunder’s unsung offensive stars

by Royce Young on January 17, 2013 at 2:16 pm 160 Comments

Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images

Ever heard of Roland Harper?

I hadn’t either until I Googled. He was Walter Payton’s lead fullback. Played seven seasons in the NFL, all with the Bears, all ramming his head into linebackers to open holes so that Sweetness could gallop his way to 1,500-yard seasons. The job of a lead blocker is mostly thankless, but extremely valuable and necessary. For an offense that relies on the ground for production, that role can almost be as important as the guy carrying the ball. Almost.

You can see where I’m going with this. Being a screener is the fullback, the offensive lineman of the NBA. It’s the guy that does the dirty work while his All-Star teammate gets freed up for a clean look. One guy is a three-time scoring champ, the other averaging 5.7 a game. One is basketball poetry, rising effortlessly into the air to drop a pure 18-footer. The other is just bumping into another guy to create a little space. Keep Reading…

OKC Thunder (32-8, 13-5 road) at Denver Nuggets (24-18, 15-3 home)

OKC Thunder (31-8, 12-5 road) vs. Dallas Mavericks (17-23, 11-7 home)

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