Thunder - Warriors Game 7: What A Wonderful War

After War, Hugs

It's over, folks, and I miss it already.

Here's the thing about pro hoop: the best team almost always wins in a 7 game series. There are upsets, sure, because sometimes circumstances change from injury or developing talent, but there are too many shots taken, too many plays made, for statistical quirkery to rule the day. Single games, sure. That's why the NCAA tournament is fun.

The Warriors were down 3-1 in this series for absolute cause. They were hammered on the boards. They didn't have runs unless they were making 3-pointers over 7-footers with absurd wingspans and quicks. Their bench, which routinely turns good teams into hamburger, was hit or miss for most of the series. Their vaunted Death Lineup from going small was getting crushed, and there was no obvious coaching move to make to change the way things were going.

They won anyway.

I'm still trying to figure out how.

Part of it was that the Thunder, as good as they are, are just flawed. Hero Ball rules the day, and as good as Russell Westbrook is, his gifts are spent collecting 2s in an era where 3s rule the day. He was also 28 for 76 in the last 3 games, which is, um, not good on all kinds of levels.

In tonight's game, the Thunder guards couldn't get it done, but still kept shooting. Kevin Durant might have spent his last game in the laundry as a decoy, and while some of that has to be the work of Andre Iguodala, the man just didn't get enough shots. HC Billy Donovan got away from C Stephen Adams after Curry made a couple of ridiculously hard makes from the arc on switches, as if anyone else (Dion Waiters?) was doing any better on him from out there.

One play in particular, from this game, summed up the series to me. OKC was up in the second quarter. Thompson missed his first six shots. The Dub offense was as bad as it has looked all year. And then Westbrook missed a 3, an absurd try airball. OKC lost a little drive on defense on the next possession, allowing Thompson to get open for his first 3-point make. And instead of pushing the lead out to realms that would have made for real doubt and discomfort, or for Donovan to think about swapping in benchies to keep his horses fresh for the finish, they had to keep pushing on the gas pedal to try to keep the lead.

In the second half, the Thunder started to see the second chance points go away, mostly because they stopped giving Adams minutes. Curry and Thompson made insane looks from the arc. When Shaun Livingston got to the rim on a transition dunk, with the Thunder not getting back and then taking a weak effort foul at the rim, it looked over. The Warriors started getting contributions from deep benchies like Anderson Vareajo. And short of a late flurry by Durant, aided and abetted by a defensive effort that showed how they can force turnovers almost at will, it was.

If OKC and GSW swapped coaches, I think OKC wins this series. If OKC makes a number of looks at the rim that were well within their wheelhouse, it's close enough to make the Dub turnover issues give us a game that might have been decided in the final minute; we didn't really get one of those, despite the series being so good otherwise.

But at the end of it all, the Dubs are the better team... because, as simple as it seems, Curry and Thompson just made so many 3s (30 in the last 2 games), that they had to be.

I only hope that the Finals are half as good as this series.

See you Thursday.

Warriors - Thunder Game Six: Five Points About Excellence

OKC After Klay Thompson

I'm on vacation and was lucky just to see this game, let alone write about it. So it's the next morning and I'm not going to say anything you probably haven't already thought or considered, but here goes anyway.

> Klay Thompson won this game. Sure, Stephen Curry's late work was essential, Andre Iguodala was the biggest reason why the Thunder's offense became a train wreck late, Steve Kerr did good work in getting around pitfalls, and the entire team pretty much played their "A" game in winning what is, at the moment, a season-saving Game Six on the road. But none of that matters without Thompson, because they aren't even in the frame without their shooting guard.

In the third quarter, when the Thunder kept either scoring with Russell Westbrook's drives or putbacks off the misses, Thompson ate into their lead with 3s instead of 2s. You could see it eat into the Thunder's confidence, with Kevin Durant trying too much, the crowd getting spooked, and the Warriors slowly turning around, player by player. Thompson did all of that. He's the Warrior player who has adapted the most to the Thunder athleticism and length, the one who has tried the most on Westbrook because Curry just isn't up to it right now, the one who kept Game 4 from being a blowout as well.

> Kevin Durant cost his team the game. From questionable shots with a lot of volume to turnovers in transition chances that he normally buries, Durant just wanted this too much, and didn't involve his teammates. It almost didn't matter, because his teammates are playing that well, and Durant brought his full power to defense, so much so that he was still a guy that OKC has to have on the floor. But if bench players play better at home, stars might play worse. I don't think Durant played like this out of bad intention, but wow, what a time to revert to the form that kept your team in the mid '50s on wins, with a lot of fourth quarter fails.

> Golden State is getting smarter. Kerr knows he's got to mix, match and pray with his bigs, rather than just going small and avoiding the problem. Curry is going for contact on his drives to get OKC's bigs into foul trouble, and staying back for rebounds that are all kinds of necessary. Iguodala's locked in on defense, after struggling earlier in the series. It's been an amazing series for growth and transformation, and for GSW's ability to overcome limitations.

> OKC can win Game 7. Sure, they've had their hearts ripped out in this game, but they are still healthy, still have the best overall team, still have the bigs that have made their offense easier when they move, and still have two guys -- Westbrook and Durant -- who can score in any situation, and make the game so much easier for their teammates. They only lost tonight because Thompson was historically great.

But, well, the home team wins 85% of Game Sevens. The Warriors have won two straight elimination games, and will have the Association's most front-running crowd behind them. And the Thunder aren't at their best when dealing with adversity, because Durant and Westbrook are good enough to take over games, and undisciplined enough to fail to realize that teams beat teams, not stars.

> This was one of the five best games I've ever seen. From the jump, it was intense. OKC's runs never looked definitive, and GSW almost never had them, because OKC kept scoring with putbacks. All of the coaching decisions mattered. The game analysts -- Marv Albert and Chris Webber -- were outstanding. I don't remember a single officiating moment that made me wince. Incredible plays had me running around an empty hotel room like a dog who is scared of vacuum cleaners in a vacuum cleaner factory. I kept TNT on all night, and kept waking up to the game replay.

It was just that good.

It was just that much fun to watch.

And Game Seven might even be better.

FTT Off-Topic: The Super And Always Close Presidential Race

Chad Me

Not sports, but also not long, so read or don't. 

Back when the American Presidency was misleading the public into broad support of a war of choice, there were two groups with a vested interest in making Al Qaida look as powerful, popular and terrifying as possible. The first was the American Government, and the second was Al Qaida. No one was ever going to call those guys a minor threat or something we could handle with the current resources, because that would mean no more money, or extraordinary measures, and their eventual deaths and defeat would be, well, meaningless. Which leads to a more than exceptional amount of suspicion over how potent those guys ever were, and if they got their big terror project done without help. (Note: I am not looking to discuss the merits of any conspiracy theory here; just the conditions by which such theories flourish.)

Now, let's pivot to the presidential aspirations and chances of either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, depending on which you find more terrifying. (We're going to ignore Bernie Sanders here, because when the guy who is on the wrong end of the 13 million to 10 million aggregate vote wants to talk about how the system is rigged and he should win anyway, we are into the realm of Losing Arguments, and need to move on.)

I am certain that, no matter what polling might say, or what either candidate says, we are going into a 5+ month "news" story of how this is too close to call, tightening in these key battleground states, and so on, and so on. 

Because there is absolutely no media entity that profits from a blowout race. There's also no candidate that would ever admit to being on either side of the blowout, because it would lead to less donations, and more casual voters not showing up on Election Day and hurting their down-market allied races. There's no one in this whole compromised process that gets paid for telling you that it's a blowout.

Imagine, if you will, if the same rules applied for sports. Every game would go down to the last minute, every referee decision would be seen through the filter of fix, and you'd never bet on it again. Or financial news, where the Dow goes up every day, except for that one day a month where it corrects back to reality and destroys people's lives. And so on.

So enjoy the upcoming race, folks. It's going to be a close one. And will never be anything but close ever again...

Warriors - Thunder Game Four: This Series Is Over

Turning away from the game highlights...

So OKC won by 20 again tonight, the first time all season that the Warriors have lost back to back games, but honestly... anyone that's seen these past two games has seen enough. Golden State is done. Over. Finished. Dead team walking, with their only good minutes coming when the Thunder are disinterested, or Klay Thompson, the only Warrior with a pulse tonight, is playing out of his mind.

And normally, this really wouldn't depress me all that much. I appreciate the Warriors from an aesthetic point, and have been rooting for them as my second laundry for years now, but I don't live and die with them. I also love seeing Kevin Durant return to his rightful place as one of the very best players in the game, appreciate the unabashed fire and athleticism that Russell Westbrook brings to the court, get sneaky fun out of Stephen Adams' pantomime villain work, and so on, and so on. Dion Waiters has done full career recovery in the last month, and Dion went to my school. Watching Durant and Westbrook move the ball and benefit from actually competent coaching warms the heart; it shows that a 55-win team with self-inflicted wounds can just catch fire, get healthy, and play killing hoop. They worked the Spurs, they are working the Dubs, and if form holds, they'll have their chance with the Cavs soon enough; no one would be able to say they haven't earned the kudos. You have to think this run is going to get Durant to stay in OKC in the off-season, and that's also awesome, if only because it will keep him away from all of the usual NBA suspect towns. (Though some part of me wouldn't mind seeing him in the lEast, just so LeBron James has to try a little more often.)

Rather, it's this... I wait all year for playoff hoop, and it's freaking blowouts, where one of the two teams seems to save up all of their injuries and ineffectiveness for the worst week of the year?

I want to celebrate OKC here, but I can't help but feel that they are getting the Warriors' "D" game, too. Stephen Curry hasn't been playing at his usual speed with the dribble, can't hit for a decent rate from the floor, and is even missing free throws. He looks several steps slow, as if the knee is back to breaking, or the ankles are off, or, well, something. He's been exposed on defense even worse than offense, and if he was just another guy, you'd wonder why the Warriors were starting him over Shaun Livingston. (Who isn't doing much on offense either, but at least has size enough to defend.)

Curry's not even the worst Dub right now. Draymond Green's plus/minus in the past two games is unspeakable, and it's also been earned; bad turnovers, easy misses at the rim, bad misses from three, not getting it done on defense, and on, and on. The brief Warrior runs tonight came when he was off the floor, and with Curry off his game, they desperately need him to make passes, not turnovers.

Can this series become a series? Normally I'd say yes; this is a 73-win team that just needs to win 3 games in a row, two of them on their home court. But from watching the games up to now, where the Thunder won without playing well in Game One, lost Game Two when they didn't care much, and blew the Warriors out whenever they cared to in Games 3 and 4... well, no.

Maybe they spit the bit in Game Five, with a heaping helping of Ref Help to get a slightly longer series... but right now, the Thunder might have the four best players on the floor, and every time the Warriors go with their supposedly optimal small ball lineup, it's a thrashing. Short of a Curry return to form and miracle carry for three games, this is over... and with no more than a few minutes where both teams actually were playing well.

So congrats to the Thunder, with one caveat... if you turn into your regular seasons selves in the Finals, and make yet another playoff series unwatchable, and make me pine for the Pistons-Spurs finals?

Well, if that happens, then I *do* hope Durant leaves.

Because, dammit, I only get so many playoff games a year.

And y'all have been turning them into Drama Free Downers...

Cavs-Raptors Game Four: Coaches Matter

Open Mouth, Insert Hook

Up until tonight's game, the 12th that the Cavs have played in the 2016 NBA playoffs, I wasn't sure they had actually faced a good team. Toronto had gotten here through a home crowd, through two middling and injured opponents, with barely more than a .500 record. PG Kyle Lowry, a down-ballot MVP pick for his best in conference work during the regular season, was playing terrible basketball after injury, with a visible crisis of confidence. C Jonas Valanciunas, necessary or so it seemed for his ability to provide interior scoring to balance the 3-ball attack, hasn't played in weeks due to injury. And with the Cavs hitting a historic number of threes, and indulging in ball movement that has been among the best of any James Gang team, the Cavs went 10-0 to start the playoffs and looked to be on cruise control for the Finals.

Even after Game 3, where the Raptors strung together a win thanks to a historic effort from going to be rich and disappoint some team terribly C Bismack Biyombo, it seemed like the only difference that was going to make would be to make the Cavs clinch at home in Game 5. Surely Game 4 would see the Cavs set the world to rights; it is, after all, what James has done his whole career.

And then the Raps went up big in the first half, with Lowry playing out of his mind, pushing the lead to 19 by intermission.

Which didn't hold, of course. PG Kyrie Irving heated up in the third. The threes started falling. The lead went away, bit by bit. In the fourth, Cleveland hit every shot they took for the first eight (!) minutes. Toronto kept pace, but we've all seen this movie before. James would close. It's what he does.

But, and here's the thing... James never came off the floor in the second half. Rookie HC Tyronn Lue never gave him a break, even in the quarter wrap-around that maximizes bench time, even with Irving getting to Full Flame On, and not really needing much help for much of the second half. James wound up logging 46 minutes, and eventually, the Cavs wilted with him, with JR Smith taking and missing the have to have shots late. Lowry never wilted, DeMar DeRozan was about as efficient as a mid-range guy could be, and Biyombo collected another 14 boards and 3 blocks. Tie series.

Can the Raps keep the magic moving in Game 5? Really unlikely, as they haven't exactly overwhelmed with their bench either, and getting 67 points from 43 shots from the starting guards isn't likely to continue. There's a reason why everyone thought his series was going to be a Cleveland sweep, and even if the Toronto crowd is James' Kryptonite, the Cavs only have to hold serve at home to make the Finals.

But what this game showed, and the fact that there's even a chance still to keep the Cavs out of the Finals, is how not having a real coach is doing James no favors in his attempt to end the half century of Cleveland Sadness. This Cavs team is too deep -- hell, they got good minutes out of Richard Jefferson tonight, and Timofey Mozgov is a DNP-CD these days, after starting in the Finals last year -- to make James go monster minutes to get a road win. Lue's got a winning hand here, but he's playing it very, very badly.

Which doesn't exactly speak well to Cleveland's chances. Either in the next 2-3 games, or the 4 to 7 to follow.