Looks like they won’t have to worry about protecting a lead this game.
Edit: Does the NBA have a mercy rule?
GS Games are banned from my TV until late May/Early June
Anyway, we can all agree it’s a good thing the Portland coach took those two time outs or else things might have gotten out of hand.
Man, that first quarter was painful to watch. Interesting that Portland stayed even with them for the following three quarters, although perhaps GS just went into maintenance mode to avoid injury and exhaustion.
This team needs to make some decisions over the summer. They’re stuck with Evan Turner, who is having trouble with his shot and routinely clangs threes off the front of the rim, and Meyers Leonard who can’t hit his own ass with both hands (when he can work up the courage to actually take a shot). Aminu continues to be ferocious on D and awful on O. I don’t know the answer, but someone needs to take charge.
I don’t feel bad for Portland at all. They’re trying to play basketball the same way that Golden State is, just with inferior players. I’m happy they’re gone; I just wish that both teams could have somehow eliminated each other.
Houston advances with a 4-1 series win over OKC, despite a monster effort from Russell Westbrook. I never really liked Westbrook, but have to give him credit for getting the team that far single-handedly. The team around him is just terrible.
Yeah, they would have remained a top contender had they held on to at least one of the star players they’ve had walk away over the years in Harden, Durant, Ibaka, or even Reggie Jackson, and Victor Oladipo and Steve Adams just can’t make up that difference.
So they’re a one-and-done, and they’re picking in the low 20s in the draft. Welcome to the NBA’s cycle of mediocrity, OKC.
To be fair to OKC’s other players, it’s very hard to develop and improve when you have no offensive system, and one player monopolizes the offense to a historic degree.
They’d have been much better off working on developing their young guys, and installing a modern offense, than chasing the 6 seed. They had no chance to actually go anywhere in the playoffs. I’m stunned they won a game, frankly.
I mean, look at the Spurs. Is their talent actually much better than OKC’s? Gasol, Parker and Manu are washed, Aldridge is an average power forward at this point, and the rest are replacement-level. Both OKC and San Antonio feature a transcendent superstar and a bunch of mehs, but the Spurs get far more out their guys, because Pop knows what he’s doing and Donovan & Russ don’t.
Can OKC players not develop offensively because they have no offensive system, or do they have no system because their players can’t score?
Tonight’s games are actually pretty interesting. We’re all anxious to see how Chicago/Boston finishes out. And nobody was really giving Atlanta much of a chance against Washington.
Bulls playing pretty well tonight in Boston after looking like they would not win another game in this series.
I love how Westbrook gets lumped in with Donovan in that last sentence. Everything is Westbrook’s fault, even crappy coaching!
The comparison to the Spurs is a bad one. First of all, the Spurs personnel is objectively better than the Thunder straight down the line. Average or no, Aldridge is still a better player than Steven Adams. Gasol is better in every respect than Enes Kanter.
But even that doesn’t tell the real story, because even if you accept that the overall talent level is roughly equal, the Spurs have more useful players for the modern game than the Thunder. You want to argue that, in a vacuum, Victor Oladipo is as good or better a player than Patty Mills? OK. I don’t know if I agree, but I’ll go along with you. But Patty Mills shot .413 from three-point range, and Oladipo shot .361. The best 3-point shooter on the Thunder, Alex Abrines, would have been tied for sixth among Spurs shooters with at least 100 attempts. The Spurs had eight regulars with defensive ratings under 105; the Thunder had one, and it was Westbrook. The Spurs have a team, assembled carefully around Leonard and full of shooters who can hit three pointers and guys who can defend. The Thunder have a grab bag of players who mostly shouldn’t play together, and mostly can’t shoot. Surround Westbrook with Mills and Aldridge and Danny Green, and I guarantee he and the team would be better off.
ALSO: Gregg Popovich is the best NBA coach of my lifetime. Billy Donovan converts oxygen to carbon dioxide like a champ. Obviously the Spurs will do more with less, even if they didn’t have more suitable personnel. But they do.
But I know, I know. That’s Westbrook’s fault, too. He takes too many shots, and therefore Victor Oladipo can’t get better (he had the best season of his life in 2016-2017). It’s Westbrook’s fault that Enes Kanter is such a bad defensive player that he can’t get on the floor (even though he’s always been that). Westbrook makes Andre Roberson garbage from long range (he’s always been garbage from long range). The theory that Russell Westbrook is the reason that the Thunder supporting cast blows is completely unsupported; the much simpler explanation is that they blow because they’ve always blown.
I am not, I should say, a fan of the Oklahoma City Thunder. But the blowback Russell Westbrook is getting lately is silly. I remember them saying the same shit about MJ when I was a kid - he doesn’t get it, he’s a ball hog, he can’t make his teammates better - and then lo and behold Scottie Pippen turned into a Hall of Famer and suddenly no one was writing those stories any more.
I don’t watch the Bulls much, but what the hell happened to Michael Carter-Williams? He was a pretty good player in Philadelphia. Won Rookie of the Year a few years ago. Even in Milwaukee he wasn’t a bad player. Serviceable for sure. And now, with Rondo out, he can’t get on the floor in front of Isaiah Canaan?
To be fair, there wasn’t much competition for ROY that season. It was a terrible, terrible draft class, possibly the worst ever. It did have Giannis Antetokounmpo, Rudy Gobert, and Otto Porter, but it’s taken all of them until this season to really break out.
He’s been traded twice already, and not for a great return (Tony Snell?! And in the first trade he was basically just a throw-in). He’s a terrible shooter, and while a decent passer, his Assist Ratio ranks 55th out of 73 qualified players this season, and his career PER is under 10.
He may have been the best player on that 76ers team, but remember that 76ers team was specifically built to lose (and they were quite effective, in that respect).
:rolleyes: Boy, I really took some shots at Russ, huh? I said he monopolized the offense to a historic degree, which is an objective fact, and that he and Donovan compare unfavorably to Kawhi and Popovich in terms of building around a superstar with role players. That sure is some irrational, unfair criticism. I am shamed.
See, the way it works is, one person says something, then the other person responds, and so on. Sorry I… responded? I guess? I didn’t know you were just here to hear yourself talk.
You responded to words I didn’t write. I didn’t say Donovan’s coaching was Westbrook’s fault (let alone “everything”) I didn’t say the OKC roster being mediocre was Westbrook’s fault. In fact, I complained about OKC’s coaching and high-level decision making. Westbrook isn’t the one in charge of installing an offensive system, now is he?
If you want to complain about an irrational backlash to Westbrook, go nuts. Just don’t strawman my posts to do it.
He should monopolize the offense, he is an offensive god surrounded by mediocre players. And you can’t compare a team that’s spent several years building around a player to one who just got unbuilt this year. OKC has not been built around Westbrook, they’ve just scrambled to fill the massive hole KD left.
That’s why I said OKC’s goal as a franchise should have been putting themselves in the best position for the future, as opposed to getting the 6 seed and bounced in round 1. Their model should be the Spurs, a fellow small-market team that struggles to attract marquee free agents and has 1 franchise player, but is among the league’s elite by virtue of a great offensive system and smart teambuilding. I mean, what exactly is OKC’s plan here? If they want to develop the guys they have, they should actually let them play basketball. If they want a great system that maximizes their talent, they should fire Donovan. If they want to sign free agents, they shouldn’t have a guy with a 42% usage rate; who would want to play alongside that?
What you said was:
“Pop knows what he’s doing and Donovan & Russ don’t.”
And what was said to you:
“I love how Westbrook gets lumped in with Donovan in that last sentence. Everything is Westbrook’s fault, even crappy coaching!”
You did exactly what this says; you lumped Westbrook in with the crappy coaching. And frankly, that’s silly. Westbrook is doing what he’s told to do to the best of his ability; he absolutely DOES know what he’s doing. Roster composition is not his job. If that doesn’t work well enough to win a playoff series, that’s not his fault, it’s the fault of OKC’s coach and general management staff.
I don’t love that this is basically a Thunder thread now, but I’m going to add to it anyway!
Roster composition is not Westbrook’s job, but recruiting is. DWade recruited LeBron to Miami. LeBron recruited Love to Cleveland.* Paul Pierce recruited DeAndre Jordan (back) to the LAC. All of the GSW recruited Durant to GS. Westbrook may not have pushed Durant out the door, but he didn’t break his neck recruiting him to stay, either.
The way NBA free agency works now is if you want a good player, you need someone on your team to become best buddies with that guy to lure him over. It’s not like MLB where one team offers more money. Everyone has the same amount of money.
So if Westbrook wants a shot at Paul George, he can’t just sit on his hands.
*I know Love was traded to Cleveland, but LeBron made him feel good about it.