Wednesday Bolts – 11.4.09
Happy birthday to my little brother. He turns 18 today. Go buy a pack of cigs today little bro. I won’t tell mom.
And also, yesterday was my wonderful father-in-law’s birthday. Thank you for being born so that you could create the person that is now my beautiful wife.
Kevin Durant didn’t take the loss so well: “Played tough…I missed key shots… I apologize to my teammates, back to work tomorrow..thanks for the love and hateful comments.”
Ball Don’t Lie, Behind the Box Score: OKC’s star was Thabo Sefolosha. Kevin Durant may have dropped 28, but he needed 24 shots to get there and turned the ball over seven times, to say nothing of some iffy shots down the stretch. Thabo harassed Kobe Bryant into a slightly-less-than-awesome game, which is accomplishment enough. Kobe’s been jawing with Thabo for years, and usually he lets these sorts of things get to him. Actually, tonight he let Thabo get to him. But he didn’t let his anger completely take over, as it has in the past, which led to losses. Not even after Kobe was jobbed on a couple of calls.”
FanHouse: “It was the premiere matchup of the evening, Kobe Bryant versus Kevin Durant. It took an extra five minutes to decide the contest, but in the end it was Kobe and the Lakers coming out on top by a three-point margin. Bryant dropped 31 points on 9-of-22 shooting, while Durant scored 28 points on 10-of-24 shooting, missing all eight of his three-point attempts.”
Trey Kerby on the game: “ABOUT THE LAKERS / THUNDER GAME By far the best game of the season to come down to a Thabo Sefolosha airball followed by Lamar Odom airballing a freethrow. Hands down the best game to end like that … CHILL OUT Etan Thomas, with your overemphasizing rebounds. Ersan Ilyasova, with your Zach Randolphing three-pointers to end games. The Oklahoma City Thunder, with your several airballs in crunch time. The Milwaukee Bucks, with your terrible plays to end halves. Juwan Howard.”
HP: “The Thunder lost to the Lakers, as of course they had to. There is an order to this universe, and a team without an offensive set cannot beat the best team in the league. but Etan Thomas and Jeff Green made them earn every single inch of it. Thomas has been revitalized with the youngsters. He’s setting good screens, running the screen and roll, cleaning up misses, and very loudly protecting the paint, his lair, his cubs. Green in the span of four minutes in the fourth hit a pull-up jumper post-pump fake, jumped so high I really thought he cleared the rim to intercept a lob, and absolutely annhilated Ron a block that was called foul. There’s a fascinating mentor relationship forming between the two,and seeing both men working is something of a lost art right now. Green is turning into something special and Thomas is simply NOT the guy you want to run into in a dark and stormy back to back. There are a lot of reasons the Thunder lost. These two are not a pair of them.”
Some folks are clearly worried and upset with Kevin Durant’s two airballs to finish the game last night and reader Andrew wanted to point this out. Granted, Kobe was a rookie and KD is a third-year, but the point remains:
Some guy wrote something about the Thunder again in the Daily Dime.
One Laker fan wasn’t excited about Thabo’s “defense”: “Kobe Bryant, who had the flu while playing in this game, had to have been fouled by Thaba Sefolosha at least 50 times all night long, but Thabo ended up with just three fouls while Kobe had five (two of which came while he was trying to get away from Sefolosha, who was holding him on both occasions).”
Writing about Jeff Green, the invisible man: “If I gave you the following stat line, who would you guess it belongs to? 19.7ppg, 7.7rpg, 1.3spg, and 1.0 bpg. Need a hint? He’s a power forward, he plays in the West, and he’s getting better. Any guesses? David West? No. LaMarcus Aldridge (close…but no), Paul Millsap…sorry. What if I told you that he played with a superstar and that he wasn’t even the second most recognizable player on the team? Give up? Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce to you….Mr. Jeff Green. That’s right Jeff Green. Are you laughing yet? Go ahead…get it out now. Because by the time this article is over, you won’t be laughing anymore.”
