Heat - Thunder Game One Top 40 Takeaways

40) LeBron James missed his first two shots against Kevin Durant's defense, as the world wondered if Scott Brooks was really nuts enough to keep him matched there

39) Shane Battier's three-point shot showed no signs of rust

38) Several times a game, Kendrick Perkins feels like he's got to show the world some kind of offensive game that he really does not have

37) Durant was the only Thunder player with a make in the first 5.5 minutes, which isn't exactly a recipe for success

36) Wade told the Lemur about accepting a secondary role, which was much more important than the actual game going on, and more than a little prophetic

35) Erik Spoelstra pulled Battier despite hitting his first three shots from the arc, because rotations are more important than results

34) The OKC management likes to play songs during offensive possessions, because they just don't find the game of basketball entertaining enough as is

33) Durant's block and three-point play with 2:30 left in the first was all kinds of unholy

32) Miami made 5 of their first 5 from the arc, which is why they led by 11, and why the lead would not last

31) Chris Bosh was called for stealing the tip, which is the first time that play has been called in this century

30) James Harden's make at the first quarter buzzer shows he doesn't need balance to rain down jumpers

29) Dwyane Wade hasn't adjusted to the fact that falling down doesn't mean a trip to the line any more, now that he's Secondary

28) OKC tried Harden on James, which, um, isn't going to work at all

27) The game pace was surprisingly slow in the first half

26) Derek Fisher took a d-board and went coast to coast, because his off-speed speed threw the Heat

25) Once Miami stopped hitting the fools' gold long jumpers, this game changed a lot

24) James in transition really might be the best ever in the Association

23) Russell Westbrook looks like he might achieve killing telekinesis when he doesn't get calls

22) In the first 21 minutes, half of the Heat's points were scored by Battier and Mario Chalmers, which, um, makes no sense

21) As the game heated up and both teams made big shots, ESPN felt it more important to show Scott Brooks' ancient mother; later on, we got to hear about Jeff Van Gundy's dead pussy

20) You really wouldn't know that Miami has a good defense, the way the Heat began to move the ball for dunks

19) Westbrook's technical was fairly Rondoish in its insanity, and probably Miami's best hope to try to exploit in the future

18) Given what he's shown in these playoffs, you can give Wade the Rondo Dare You To Shoot Jumpers zone at this point

17) James with the and-one dunk with 2:35 left in the third was kind of terrifying, but notable in that he was the only guy on his team making plays

16) Despite the Heat shooting lights out from three and getting a lot of OKC turnovers, OKC was right there after three quarters

15) The Westbrook penetration and-one with 16 seconds left in the third was downright artistic

14) Miami's end of quarter shot, a buzzer heave by Bosh, was another one of those "Do They Actually Have A Coach?" moments

13) Durant's talent for scoring garbage points in transition is a hidden part of his genius

12) Having Fisher and Nick Collison provide quality plays just means the Thunder have something for the middle-aged, too

11) Fisher gets away with more contact than any non-star in NBA history

10) Durant took Wade's best paint on wall defense and ate it alive, because he's taller, longer, younger and better

9) Miami's only real hope in this series is to penetrate so often as to make their stars' frequent inability to make jump shots irrelevant, and to get their spot-up or nothing guys to contribute something

8) James is going to get grief for his fourth quarter, because it's impossible to think that a fresh Sefalosha could be that effective

7) Nick Collison's big game hid the fact that Serge Ibaka was pretty invisible tonight

6) You really can't be down to the Thunder late, because they just shoot FTs so well

5) How Wade isn't getting buried for his poor F%, I'll never know

4) You can tell, really, just how much Westbrook is loving this matchup after the last two series of ducking the Laker and Spur bigs

3) OKC won by 11 after being down 7 at the half, which is to say, after Battier and Chalmers stopped carrying the Heat

2) If I were Spoelstra, I'd start Bosh, use Cole to harass Westbrook full court for shock trooper minutes, send Joel Anthony out there for thuggery (especially if Udonis Haslem does nothing again), put James on Durant on defense and play him 48 minutes, and make sure my resume is polished

1) Before we call this series over after an 11-point win at home for a team that did not play that well, remember that the Heat have been declared dead and buried many times in this playoff