Wednesday Bolts – 3.13.13
arnell Mayberry on Ronnie Brewer: “A defensive identity was being built, on the backs of a motley crew that consisted of Reggie Jackson, Kevin Martin, Thabo Sefolosha, DeAndre Liggins, Nick Collison and Hasheem Thabeet. They did the dirty work. They didn’t mind. They just got the job done. And then Oklahoma City started overthinking. The Thunder inexplicably went away from what was working, sitting various pieces that comprised that effective combination and slowly suppressing the successes the second unit had enjoyed. When the trade deadline arrived, the Thunder acquired Ronnie Brewer for peanuts. He appeared to be a perfect fit, a defensive-minded player with a pristine reputation who could step in and immediately help revive the second group’s one-time tenacity. Wrong. Brewer hasn’t played. Not much, that is, and the question many now want an answer to is why?”
KD on his shot attempts: “I can do whatever I want on the offensive end,” Durant said. “I can come down and take 30 shots. That’s not the right brand of basketball for me, to just come down and shoot. It’s not because of the defense limiting me to 13 shots. I could have shot more than that, but I was trying to make the right basketball play.”
The Thunder’s win differential could be historic.
Berry Tramel on Derek Fisher: “Monday night in San Antonio, Brooks played Fisher 12 minutes, 17 seconds. That’s basically a full quarter, which in truth was the first half of the second quarter and the first half of the fourth quarter. During that time, the Spurs outscored the Thunder 35-14. That is not a misprint. Fisher’s futility was not the worst raw plus/minus in the box score. Kevin Martin was -22, in 20:28. Nick Collison was -24, in 16:44. But per-minute, Fisher was the worst and was about as worse as you can get. The Thunder was outscored 1.7 points per minute with Fisher on the court. Collison 1.4. Martin 1.1. Plus, we know Collison can play. Things usually get better when he’s on the court. Martin, we know is a valuable scorer. He’s no James Harden, but he’s handy to have around. Fisher, exactly what does he do? He’s not really a point guard anymore. Wasn’t last season for the Thunder. Isn’t this season for the Thunder. Offensively, he’s a standstill shooter, and he’s not bad. Six of 15 on 3-pointers with the Thunder so far. But it’s a legitimate question of whether he can guard anyone anymore.”
Amin Elhassan has Westbrook as one of his indispensable point guards: “But the simple fact is the Thunder need Westbrook to play aggressively — he’s the only player on the roster (other than Kevin Durant) who can generate offense for himself and others. Nearly a third of his field goal attempts come at the rim, with many of those attempts occurring in transition situations, and he is a strong finisher, shooting about 60 percent in that area. This aggressiveness opens up assist opportunities to his teammates, and it should come as no surprise that the Thunder score five more points per possession when Westbrook is on the floor. Replacing Westbrook with a backup point guard (or even a more deferential starting point guard) would create a tremendous amount of defensive pressure focused on Durant (particularly in the 1-3 pick and roll sets OKC likes to run), which would severely limit the ceiling of Thunder success.”
Is time running out for the Thunder?
Ben Golliver of SI.com on MVP: “Durant headlines a strong list of candidates for second place. The sixth-year forward is heading for his fourth scoring title in a row and, even more remarkably, is still tracking toward the 50/40/90 shooting club while on pace to launch more than 1,400 shots. Continuing at that volume from the field and accuracy with his two-point shooting (50.5 percent), three-point shooting (41.4) and free-throw shooting (91) would put Durant in a club with only one other man: Larry Bird, who did it in 1986-87 and ’87-88. Durant’s Thunder join the Heat and the Spurs as consensus title favorites, and he ranks second to James in PER with a career-best 28.6.”
