Friday Bolts – 6.1.12
.com: “Playing Sefolosha doesn’t come without a perceived cost — traditional size — and Scott Brooks has needed some time to fully embrace the viability of his small unit — but he’s come around. Whatever ultimately happens in this series, Game 3 of the Western Conference finals could go down as an important watershed moment in the development of the Oklahoma City as a perennial contender for the foreseeable future. It was the night Brooks embraced the innovation and, possibly, the night Durant went from a small forward to a power forward.”
Andrew McNeill of 48 Minutes of Hell: “Despite how bad it looked, the Spurs don’t need to shake things up. Simple adjustments and an improved effort should be enough to beat the Thunder. You don’t make wholesale changes to a team that just won 20 games in a row.”
My column for CBSSports.com giving some well deserved dap to Thabo and Scotty.
J.A. Adande of ESPN.com: “Emotion can be fickle, as difficult to control as fire. The Thunder showed the good and bad signs of it in the first quarter. They jumped out to an 8-0 lead. But the Spurs held fast and soon took the lead, then the Thunder made the mistake of fighting a war on two fronts, getting caught up with the officials as well as the Spurs. Westbrook smacked the scorer’s table after an out-of-bounds call didn’t go his way. Durant picked up a technical foul while on the bench, yelling about a charge called on Harden. But the Thunder were too relentless.”
Brilliant feature on James Harden by Justin Verrier of ESPN.com: “Pera had spent his first seasons at Artesia campaigning on Harden’s behalf, telling recruiters what he had here; there were few listeners then. But even the coach who had helped mold his game was initially struck by just how freakin’ good he was, particularly his knack for scoring. There was only one problem: He wouldn’t shoot in practice. “I’d be like, ‘James, what are you doing?’ And he’d say, ‘Nah, Coach. I don’t want these guys to think I’m a ball hog. I want to play my game, let them know I’m a good teammate. … When it’s time to shoot in a game, I’ll shoot,'” Pera said. “That’s kind of the way he approached things. “I thought it was brilliant by James, to bring his teammates into him. We talked about it, and I told him, ‘Hey, you’re smarter than me. [Laughs.] I should’ve told you to do that.'” Always in search of a good shot, Harden often deferred on the court, to the point where Glasser almost felt the need to remind him that he was supposed to take over. But there also were games when he wanted to prove himself.”
A pretty video about local artists supporting the Thunder.
John Hollinger of ESPN.com: “All that said, Oklahoma City’s best and most important adjustment may have been completely unintentional: Slowing the game down. You read that correctly. The young, athletic Thunder have little chance of winning an up-and-down, end-to-end game against the veteran Spurs. Everybody has been saying the opposite, and everybody is 100 percent, dead wrong. The Thunder’s best hope, if not their only hope, is to limit the pace to something less frenetic.”
Jenni Carlson on Perk: “Apparently, the Thunder big fella had heard about the less-than-complimentary things the network announcers had said about his pick-and-roll defense in these Western Conference Finals. And apparently, he didn’t like it. After at least two first-half defensive stops aided by his play, Perkins stared down the broadcast crew. “Talk about that,” he yelled.”
Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com: “This was a clinic by the Thunder, very few possessions wasted, very few open teammates ignored. This wasn’t their typical game: a bunch of one-on-one skirmishes, and let’s tally up all those individual efforts at the end of the game and see if our “team” scored more than yours. This was truly team basketball, Durant attacking the rim and kicking it out to Sefolosha for a 3-pointer … or Westbrook attacking the rim and kicking it out to Harden for a 3-pointer … or Harden returning the favor with an alley-oop to Westbrook. This was the kind of basketball the rest of the NBA should be terrified to see from the Thunder, because they’re too young, too energetic, too athletic for most teams to contend with when they play this way. The Spurs hadn’t lost in 49 days, but they lost this one by 20. That’s a statement, and it was written with a shared pencil.”
Darnell Mayberry: “Sticking with Perk proved to be a wise, wise decision. Perk’s defense = amazing. He shut down Tim Duncan, holding the future Hall of Famer to 11 points on 5-of-15 shooting. He defended the pick-and-roll much better, even verbally challenging Tony Parker when put on an island at the top of the key following one switch. And he did the same to Manu Ginobili on a later sequence.”
Berry Tramel: “If you’re going to get beat, get beat with your best. Thabo is the Thunder’s best defender, and all hands on deck are needed against this San Antonio offense. The Thunder did not get beat. Thabo played the game of his life, Parker fell gently back to Earth and the Thunder turned Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals into a Swiss Ease. The Thunder rolled the Spurs 102-82 Thursday night and now this is a series again. Fourteen seconds into the game, Thabo kicked the ball. He spent the next 3 1/2 quarters kicking San Antonio.”