Wednesday Bolts – 5.4.11
Bill Simmons wrote about the playoffs yesterday and had this to say about Serge Ibaka: “For Serge Ibaka, the 24th pick of the 2008 draft who’s suddenly lurking as … A. The third-best player on a potential title team. B. The answer to the trivia question, “Just out of curiosity, what would it be like if Bill Russell fathered a kid in the Congo who didn’t play basketball until he was 16, then came over to the States at age 19 and learned basketball and the English language on the fly, and also, we gave him a 15-footer?” C. The league’s single most frightening/intimidating/menacing athlete if the crowd is charged up and you need someone to cover two-thirds of a basketball court in three seconds and block someone’s layup from 10 feet behind him.”
Zach Lowe of SI on Russell Westbrook’s turnovers: “The Grizzlies know Westbrook is going to get into the middle of the paint against Mike Conley, and they are OK with that. They appear to have even planned for that. Over and over, you see Westbrook drive into the paint, only to have at least one help defender (and more often two) meet him somewhere between the foul line and the dotted line at the bottom of the semicircle. The goal is clearly to have Westbrook pick up his dribble there and force him into a split-second decision — preferably one he has to make while he’s in the air. That slice of space is far enough from the rim that any shot is going to be a difficult floater instead of a layup; if he gets much deeper than that, the Grizzlies understand they are in trouble.”
Also, Simmons talked about Westbrook in part two of his column.
Kelly Dwyer of BDL on Westbrook and Derrick Rose: “You can see it in Westbrook’s eyes. Each time down court, he seems bound and determined to either fire up a shot, no matter what the defense does, or find a teammate with a pass. His mind is made up as he gets the ball in the backcourt, and the various permutations that present themselves as a result of shifting amongst the defense or his teammates hardly matter. It’s like me, a terrible video game player, attempting to play “Madden” for the first time in a decade. No matter what, I’ve already called the play in the huddle, I’m not looking anywhere else and I’m going to pass to that tight end. Doesn’t matter who else is open. Doesn’t matter how well he’s covered.”
Marc Spears of Yahoo! Sports: “After watching the Memphis Grizzlies batter his Oklahoma City Thunder in the opener of the teams’ second-round series, Kendrick Perkins knew something needed to change. So he encouraged Kevin Durant to gather the team together … and watch the game again. Durant took Perkins’ suggestion and arranged for a players-only dinner at his house on Monday night. The team dined on a Thanksgiving-worthy spread prepared by Durant’s personal chef and watched every minute of OKC’s disheartening loss to the Grizzlies. The players stopped the video at times to discuss specific breakdowns. By the end of the evening, they were in agreement on what needed to be done to improve.”
Ben Golliver of CBSSports.com with a fancy chart showing the Thunder did the second best job this season on Zach Randolph.
Berry Tramel: “The fouls kept mounting. Nine against the Thunder in the first quarter alone. Two more in the first three minutes of the second quarter. Didn’t set well with the Big Blue crowd. But somewhere behind that scowl, Kendrick Perkins was smiling. “Be the instigator, not the retaliator,” Perk said. “You always gotta be the instigator.” In a 111-102 victory over Memphis on Tuesday night, the Thunder went from passive to aggressive, from the bullied to the bullies, from the brink of elimination to a brand new series.”
Chris Mannix of SI: “The depth in Oklahoma City is good. Check that, it’s really good. Many of the Thunder’s subs could be starters somewhere else, foundation players rebuilding teams drool over. Take Maynor. Big college star, first-round pick; he has NBA starter splashed all over him. He’s a 6-foot-3, 175-pound pass-first playmaker with a sweet shot. Oklahoma City poached him from cost-cutting Utah in 20t09 and plugged him in behind Westbrook, a 35-minute-plus per-game player who doesn’t like to come out.”
Darnell Mayberry: “The Thunder’s defense just looked better tonight. I paid close attention to the pick-and-roll defense on Mike Conley and Marc Gasol. That ate the Thunder up in Game 1. Tonight, Russell Westbrook and Kendrick Perkins did a much better job of applying pressure at the point of the ball. But the weak side defenders also stepped up by rotating with more effort and cutting off shots at the rim. Ibaka was huge in that aspect. His shot-blocking and mere threat to block shots denied or altered several Memphis possessions out of the pick and roll.”
John Hollinger of ESPN.com: “Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that the Thunder need to win one in Memphis, too. The series moves there on Saturday and it will be a very different FedEx Forum than the Thunder (or anyone, for that matter) are used to seeing — a rowdy, packed house with blue Growl Towels waving, similar to their own raucous home court at the Ford Center. While that will be a tougher environment for the Thunder, the math remains the same. Plainly, they can outshoot the Grizzlies. It’s only when they’re outscrapped, as they were in Game 1, that they’re vulnerable.”
The player’s union is unhappy with the owners’ latest CBA proposal.
From Elias: “James Harden came off the bench to score 21 points while Eric Maynor scored 15 as a sub in Oklahoma City’s win over Memphis in Game 2. It was the first time in exactly 14 years that two players came off the bench to score at least 15 points in a playoff game for this franchise. David Wingate (19) and Sam Perkins (15) did it for the Sonics against the Suns in Game 5 in 1997.”
3 Shades of Blue: “Wakeup call for the Griz? No, I’d say not-they’ve known that their opponents command respect-but “off night” is just a phrase that comes to mind, and it was “off” because of some great adjusted D by the Thunder and some fatigue on the part of our Griz.”