Thursday Bolts – 2015 Edition
Darnell Mayberry: “Kevin Durant walked into Wednesday’s game with two concerns. His conditioning and how much soreness he’d feel in his right ankle. Neither looked like much of an issue. Durant was sensational in his return from a six-game absence caused by a sprained ankle, and the Thunder rode him to a 137-134 overtime win over Phoenix inside Chesapeake Energy Arena.”
Bright Side of the Sun: “Shortly following the skirmish with Len, Westbrook hit a layup and was fouled on the play, at which point he seemed to bark a few words at the Suns’ bench. The refs noticed, and he was hit with a second technical and sent to the showers. With as high-scoring as the first half was (both teams over 60 points) and without Westbrook, the Suns surely should have capitalized. Unfortunately, the chippy first half led to a closely officiated 3rd quarter that killed the tempo that the Suns had thrived on. While the high scoring continued, the pace slowed to a crawl.”
Matt Moore of CBSSports.com: “Westbrook could also wind up in trouble for not leaving the court in an orderly fashion, as the rulebook stipulates. Apparently, there’s some sort of rule that the Thunder don’t get to have Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant on a court together for more than a half this season.”
Andrew Gilman of Fox Sports Southwest: “Westbrook has played MVP-like basketball for most of this season, but his decision making has been undesirable at best, losing his way against Portland and then against Dallas on Sunday. Against the Suns Wednesday, Westbrook, who already picked up a previous technical foul for tussling with Alex Len, couldn’t mind his manners and was tossed out after getting another technical foul for barking at the Phoenix bench. That meant the second half and the game would ultimately be on Durant.”
KD is the closing answer to solve OKC’s issues. (Duh.)
Marc Stein with a great column on the Cavs: “And that was always the worry here. Executives from rival teams have raved unreservedly about the 55-year-old Boston-area native’s X-and-O acumen, but the fact remains that he showed up in Cleveland as a virtual unknown to every player of consequence on that roster. Doesn’t matter, as one veteran GM told me in May, that Blatt just took a Maccabi Tel Aviv squad that “was outmanned at every position except coach” to a Euroleague championship that ranks as the second most prestigious club trophy in the sport behind the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The question with Blatt from the start was: Would NBA vets who don’t care one whit about his international accomplishments buy into the new program? Answer: Based on the available evidence, LeBron has not.”