Thursday Bolts – 1.10.13

Rob Mahoney of SI.com: “Yet the Thunder are slowly improving as a selective-switching outfit, largely because Serge Ibaka is staying grounded more consistently and Kendrick Perkins is better at handling guards on the perimeter than most anticipate. We saw OKC’s switching success in action in the first quarter of this game, in which Minnesota was held to just 29 percent shooting overall. The aforementioned concerns about the Wolves’ offensive initiation played a part, but by switching so often the Thunder also dictated the terms of the game and forced their opponent into matchups that were clearly uncomfortable. Switching so deliberately basically leaves the offense no choice but to try to exploit perceived advantages, and yet Minnesota had a hard time isolating particular opponents to attack and re-directing their offense mid-stream. This isn’t to say that a case study against the league’s 21st-ranked offense should be sufficient for broader use, but it’s worth noting that the Thunder are flexible enough to switch against particular opponents for controlled stretches without getting completely burned.”

Darnell Mayberry: “Perk did make Pek take like two tough shots at the start of the game. Not sure I’d say it was tone-setting type stuff. But whatever. Here’s what I hate about all the hate that’s been heaped onto Perkins. It makes it tough to adequately and accurately analyze his performance. Let’s call it the Russell Westbrook effect. The same thing happened with the Thunder’s point guard. People are bagging on Perk so much that anytime anybody looks at his play through a critical analyst scope it’ll now be deemed as piling on. At the same time, anytime anyone praises Perk it’ll be judged as much ado about nothing, or, I love this one, pushing the company message. That’s what it’s come to with saying anything, good or bad, about Kendrick Perkins this season. And I wish it was not that way.”

Are the Thunder “America’s team”?

ESPN Stats and Info: “Wednesday’s win over the Timberwolves was the 20th game this season in which Kevin Durant & Russell Westbrook each scored 20+ pts. The Thunder have won 3 straight such games and are 16-4 in those games this season overall.”

Clay Bennett quote from July 2, 2008:  “We will reserve the name Sonics and SuperSonics and the marks and the colors and will not use them. But we will return them if a team does indeed return to Seattle.”

Kelly Dwyer of Ball Don’t Lie: “Don’t dismiss Oklahoma City’s ever-improving defense, but the Minnesota Timberwolves look terrible offensively without Kevin Love or a fully healthy Ricky Rubio, despite the pleasant spacing that continues to hold place in Rick Adelman’s offense. With plenty of missed shots to get the Thunder going, OKC could pull away on broken plays and transition chances. Even when Russell Westbrook was getting caught in the air or the spacing wasn’t right, the Thunder still had enough to keep the Wolves at arm’s length all night. Pity, because given good health this pairing could have been something special, a nice halfway look against a great opponent at a Timberwolves team looking to make the postseason for the first time since Oliver Miller played in Minnesota.”

Hasheem Thabeet’s response to seeing the GIF of Perk snubbing him: “LMAO THIS IS TOO FUNNY …  HAHAHAA CLASSIC ME.” Classic you indeed.

Ballerball asks how it feels, Seattle.

The headline from Canis Hoopus: “Yeah…Well, You Still Live In Oklahoma.”

Also, Canis Hoopus’ recap: “That’s just about it. We could complain about the fact that Kevin Durant gets to shove Andrei Kirilenko into Russell Westbrook for a foul on AK or that Westbrook gets to put a forearm bar into Luke Ridnour’s chest for a foul on Luke but that misses the basic f’ing point: It’s pretty hard to beat awesome shooting opponents in the NBA.”