2025 WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #6 Minnesota Timberwolves (OKC leads 2-1)

[WestbrookGOATed]

Why tf are randle and Reid on the court?

Because they know this will probably be their only win of the series.

[Muskies97]

this guy is moving like LeBron on some of these drives. defenders just bounce off of him

[djsunyc]

Hollywood age casting has always been absurd but casting 60 yr old Brad Pitt as a F1 driver is absurd even by their low standards. The average age of a driver is under 30. It would be like casting Tom Cruise as an NBA center.

I thought the general premise of the movie was that he is old af for a driver and is trying to hold on while some young driver is coming up in the sport.

idk..

The main issue is we don't have any new movie stars. They had a report about he highest paid actors and like 75% were over 40 and of the biggest names the youngest was the Rock and he is 53.

Glen Powell is trying. Between Twisters, Top Gun and The Running Man the dude is in a bunch of reboots but it is his path to being an A-lister. Even then the guy is 36. Tom Cruise was 24 when he was in Top Gun and that was like his 3rd HUGE movie. It is kinda crazy how we don't have any marketable movie stars anymore.

they trying to make chalamet one. maybe michael b. jordan?

[Chuck Everett]

Shannon deserves to be a rotation player in this league.

Once he starts getting consistent minutes, he's going to be one of the best transition scorers in the league.

[Rubio9Guy]

Why tf are randle and Reid on the court?

Because they know this will probably be their only win of the series.

[HotRocks34]

Minny got some swag back.

We'll see if it lasts next game.

[Patches Perry]

Gg wolves. Going to drunk. Night yall

[Dan33185]

Why tf are randle and Reid on the court?

Because they know this will probably be their only win of the series.

[Asian Celtic]

I'm supposed to enjoy this but the blowout messed it up, but yeah at least we got a series. Better than the last 2 games.

[statsman]

Interesting timing for OKC to have by far their worst loss of the year. Only one game comes even close, and that was a 27 pt loss to the Lakers in April when the game had very little meaning for the Thunder.

[sp6r=underrated]

This series hasn’t been good. Blowout after blowout after blowout

I'm old but I'm not oldhead who rags on the current NBA. I like the modern NBA. But one downside of modern basketball is you get way more blowouts. I made a post on this earlier in the year.

Spoiler:

I was fooling around on stathead and found this interesting.

I picked 1996 as the starting season since the NBA had 29 teams at that point. The end point was this season. This is RS only. I did not pro-rate for lockout/covid seasons. Nor is this pace adjusted

The first table shows by season
1. Number of games decided by less than 5.
2. Number of games decided by more than 20.
3. Number of games decided by more than 30.
4. Number of games decided by more than 40.



There is a modest decrease in the number of close games.

96-98 (removed lockout) avg number of < 5 points: 329.66
00-09: 346.1
10-11/13-19 (removed lockout): 333.75
22-25 (removed COVID):311

There is an explosion of blowouts which is visually apparent on the chart.

Accordingly the ratio of close games to 20 point games is in decline. It has gone from 2 to 1 ratio for most of the time period to 1.2 to 1.



And the ratio of close games to mega blowout (> 30) is in severe decline. There are still way more close games. But now it is 4 to 1 when it used to be at least 8 to 1.



I'm not sure what the NBA should do about this but it is something to monitor.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

Just for the irony, I want OKC to lose by 52.

[levon]

Still no Luka Garza up 40 is crazy. He'd be the best center on the Lakers

[funkatron101]

Lol, you really see the talent difference between starters and bench here. Lol

[Chuck Everett]

Still no Luka Garza up 40 is crazy. He'd be the best center on the Lakers

You'd hate him after 3 games because he offers no rim protection/resistance. He's a talented offensive player but no one's running offense through him.

[Asian Celtic]

Still no Luka Garza up 40 is crazy. He'd be the best center on the Lakers

They're not playing him until it's a do or die game. Need to keep the secret weapon a secret.

[jkvonny]

Luka Garza sighting!
Minn job is done for the night lol

[Mr Puddles]

Good timeout by Minnesota. Opportunity to talk things over.

[sp6r=underrated]

Hollywood age casting has always been absurd but casting 60 yr old Brad Pitt as a F1 driver is absurd even by their low standards. The average age of a driver is under 30. It would be like casting Tom Cruise as an NBA center.

I thought the general premise of the movie was that he is old af for a driver and is trying to hold on while some young driver is coming up in the sport.

idk..

The main issue is we don't have any new movie stars. They had a report about he highest paid actors and like 75% were over 40 and of the biggest names the youngest was the Rock and he is 53.

Glen Powell is trying. Between Twisters, Top Gun and The Running Man the dude is in a bunch of reboots but it is his path to being an A-lister. Even then the guy is 36. Tom Cruise was 24 when he was in Top Gun and that was like his 3rd HUGE movie. It is kinda crazy how we don't have any marketable movie stars anymore.

It should be a comedy if a 60 year old is trying to be a race car driver. But I agree with everything you said. The issue is new stars aren't being created. A lot of it is due to superhero movies. The people who star in superhero movies are like the dudes who play Dracula. It isn't going to lead to mega moviestardom.

Does anyone care about the Marvel actors as movie stars?

[TimberKat]

Luka just check in, now it's officially over.