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HIGHLIGHTS

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OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER at DENVER NUGGETS
Location: Pepsi Center • Denver, CO
9:30PM CST |
Thunder: 4-6 | # in West
| 20.1 PPG, 9.3 RPG, 10.9 APG
ROSTER:

Nuggets: 6-5 | # in West
| 17.9 PPG,11.6 RPG, 4.5 APG
ROSTER:

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SUMMARY
Thunder Last 3

Thunder Upcoming 3

INJURY REPORT

PLAYER OF THE GAME

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| NBA.com | | Thunder.com | | ESPN.com/NBA

Felton's gonna eat some Nuggets tonight.

Redemption time.

I expect another poor performance. If they get it together I expect it to be at home.

Bleh.

Pillendreher wrote:

Read on Twitter

Felton's gonna eat some Nuggets tonight.

I’m sorry, but what the hell does that even mean? Play angry? How about play smart, play hard, play solid defense, execute on the offensive end, pass the ball, set screens, rebound, hit your goddamn free throws? Playing angry is not a plan, its what players say when they don’t know what else to do.

They don't know what else to do. They aren't going to get together and make an offense. They aren't going to control substitution patterns. They aren't going to make sure there is always a big who can rebound on the court. They are at the mercy of an incompetent coach so all they can do is get angry.

We will win tonight (even if 2-3 more loses could be good to get rid of Donovan)

Kizz Fastfists wrote:They don't know what else to do. They aren't going to get together and make an offense. They aren't going to control substitution patterns. They aren't going to make sure there is always a big who can rebound on the court. They are at the mercy of an incompetent coach so all they can do is get angry.

Fair enough, but the popular refrain has always been praise the players after a win and blame the coach after a loss. There needs to be a middle ground here. As questionable as some of the substitutions have been and as laughable as the offensive “system” is, the players have to give a better effort for the full 48. Some of the play has been poor, inconsistent, unfocused and plain lazy. But my earlier point is this; playing angry or with attitude may give you a little edge temporarily, but it isn’t sustainable and it isn’t a strategy.

Atomic Punk wrote:But my earlier point is this; playing angry or with attitude may give you a little edge temporarily, but it isn’t sustainable and it isn’t a strategy.

Who is responsible for strategy? The players or the coach? I read the quote as Felton basically saying they have no plan so the are just going to go out and play hard and try to intimidate the other team. I am definitely not going to say the players are perfect, but it looks like they are just being told to go out there and win. That works in college when you have a nice talent gap from superior recruiting, but not in the NBA.

Dadouv47 wrote:We will win tonight (even if 2-3 more loses could be good to get rid of Donovan)

I think it would take a lot more then that to get rid of Donovan. I think them missing the playoffs would only have a chance at getting him fired after the season.

Kizz Fastfists wrote:

Atomic Punk wrote:But my earlier point is this; playing angry or with attitude may give you a little edge temporarily, but it isn’t sustainable and it isn’t a strategy.

Who is responsible for strategy? The players or the coach? I read the quote as Felton basically saying they have no plan so the are just going to go out and play hard and try to intimidate the other team. I am definitely not going to say the players are perfect, but it looks like they are just being told to go out there and win. That works in college when you have a nice talent gap from superior recruiting, but not in the NBA.

So this team went out and accumulated a roster full of dumbasses that’s don’t understand how to play fundamental basketball? The only thing they can do is just play hard and try to intimidate? I get the play hard part, but for crying out loud some of the stuff Melo and Russ are doing makes me cringe. PG too. Players are not stupid, they know perfectly well what is working and what isn’t. This is just as much on the players as it is the coach. There is too much hero ball going on with these guys, they don’t need a coach to tell them to move the ball around and work for the best shot, or box out, or try and keep their man in front of them, this is basic stuff. Slick made an interesting observation, he called Melo a force multiplier for all of Russ’ bad habits, i think that is very astute. Russ needs to stop deferring and start leading and the rest of the guys need to own what they are doing or not doing to contribute to all of this. It’s more than a coaching problem right now.

Kizz Fastfists wrote:

Dadouv47 wrote:We will win tonight (even if 2-3 more loses could be good to get rid of Donovan)

I think it would take a lot more then that to get rid of Donovan. I think them missing the playoffs would only have a chance at getting him fired after the season.

I read today that Donovan has a huge so don’t called don’t expect anything to happen.

Atomic Punk wrote:

Kizz Fastfists wrote:

Atomic Punk wrote:But my earlier point is this; playing angry or with attitude may give you a little edge temporarily, but it isn’t sustainable and it isn’t a strategy.

Who is responsible for strategy? The players or the coach? I read the quote as Felton basically saying they have no plan so the are just going to go out and play hard and try to intimidate the other team. I am definitely not going to say the players are perfect, but it looks like they are just being told to go out there and win. That works in college when you have a nice talent gap from superior recruiting, but not in the NBA.

So this team went out and accumulated a roster full of dumbasses that’s don’t understand how to play fundamental basketball? The only thing they can do is just play hard and try to intimidate? I get the play hard part, but for crying out loud some of the stuff Melo and Russ are doing makes me cringe. PG too. Players are not stupid, they know perfectly well what is working and what isn’t. This is just as much on the players as it is the coach. There is too much hero ball going on with these guys, they don’t need a coach to tell them to move the ball around and work for the best shot, or box out, or try and keep their man in front of them, this is basic stuff. Slick made an interesting observation, he called Melo a force multiplier for all of Russ’ bad habits, i think that is very astute. Russ needs to stop deferring and start leading and the rest of the guys need to own what they are doing or not doing to contribute to all of this. It’s more than a coaching problem right now.

If the players aren’t stupid and don’t need a coach then why are they choosing to play so poorly? Either they’re stupidly playing a losing brand of basketball or their coach isn’t doing his job. It can’t be both.

Knrstz wrote:

Atomic Punk wrote:

Kizz Fastfists wrote:
Who is responsible for strategy? The players or the coach? I read the quote as Felton basically saying they have no plan so the are just going to go out and play hard and try to intimidate the other team. I am definitely not going to say the players are perfect, but it looks like they are just being told to go out there and win. That works in college when you have a nice talent gap from superior recruiting, but not in the NBA.

So this team went out and accumulated a roster full of dumbasses that’s don’t understand how to play fundamental basketball? The only thing they can do is just play hard and try to intimidate? I get the play hard part, but for crying out loud some of the stuff Melo and Russ are doing makes me cringe. PG too. Players are not stupid, they know perfectly well what is working and what isn’t. This is just as much on the players as it is the coach. There is too much hero ball going on with these guys, they don’t need a coach to tell them to move the ball around and work for the best shot, or box out, or try and keep their man in front of them, this is basic stuff. Slick made an interesting observation, he called Melo a force multiplier for all of Russ’ bad habits, i think that is very astute. Russ needs to stop deferring and start leading and the rest of the guys need to own what they are doing or not doing to contribute to all of this. It’s more than a coaching problem right now.

If the players aren’t stupid and don’t need a coach then why are they choosing to play so poorly? Either they’re stupidly playing a losing brand of basketball or their coach isn’t doing his job. It can’t be both.

Actually, it can be both, I already said that.

I think we're overanalyzing a bit.

bondom34 wrote:I think we're overanalyzing a bit.

Overanalyzing? On this site?

What do you want Felton to say? ''Yeah our starting line up is really bad right now. Russ and PG13 needs to play better''. ''Donovan is making so bad offensive schemes, this has to change ''. Don't know what they say in the locker room but his interview was pretty standard IMO. Maybe if he was in a thunder player for 10 years he could say something stronger to the media, but he's new here. So far Felton is doing great. It's clearly not his role to do such things.

Dadouv47 wrote:What do you want Felton to say? ''Yeah our starting line up is really bad right now. Russ and PG13 needs to play better''. ''Donovan is making so bad offensive schemes, this has to change not''. Don't know what they say in the locker room but his interview was pretty standard IMO. Maybe if he was like a thunder player for 10 years he could say something stronger to the media, but he's new here. So far Felton is doing great in a Thunder uniform. It's not his role to do such things.

We're gonna go out there and be really really polite. Act really calm, play nice and slow. It's gonna be like slow 70s music. We might not be playing well, but...