3/29 | PG: Oklahoma City Thunder (114) at Orlando Magic (106)

[Dadouv47]

I really hope we can get a shot at Utah in the playoffs. Not that I think they are an easy opponent, but I think that's a 50/50 series that we could come out with a win in.

Rockets after adding Lou Williams will be tough imo.

Have to agree. Still think we have a shot to beat the rockets ( mostly because of experience and depending less on our bench comes playoff time) but it's going to be VERY difficult. On top of adding Lou Williams, Nene looks like 10 years younger and is playing so well against our bigs.
Problem is : clippers schedule is way easier than ours

[RunOKC]

I really hope we can get a shot at Utah in the playoffs. Not that I think they are an easy opponent, but I think that's a 50/50 series that we could come out with a win in.

Rockets after adding Lou Williams will be tough imo.

Have to agree. Still think we have a shot to beat the rockets ( mostly because of experience and depending less on our bench comes playoff time) but it's going to be VERY difficult. On top of adding Lou Williams, Nene looks like 10 years younger and is playing so well against our bigs.
Problem is : clippers schedule is way easier than ours

Our schedule is full of 50/50 games and winnable ones too. It's doable to move up to 5 imo.

SAS - winnable at home (might want to root for GSW to win tonight - hard i know - so San Antonio rests starters as they wont have a shot at 1st anymore pretty much)
CHA - Need to/should win
MIL - Need to/should win
@MEM - They are struggling, very winnable. Probably 50/50 with how we are on the road combined with their struggles. I think Gasol is out?
@PHX - No reason to lose this at all with all their players they are sitting
@DEN - They are fighting for the playoffs, will be tough but 50/50 imo.
@MIN - Who knows. lost last time. Not sure if they're doing a blatant tank or not.
DEN - Tough since they're scrapping for 8th, but this should be a win at home depending on whats on the line

We can go anywhere from 3-5 to 7-1. Probably ends up being 5-3 though, which might not be enough.

Clips have a similar schedule, although a little easier.

WAS - They are up double digits
@PHX - Probably a win for them
LAL - Probably a win for them
@DAL - Tough game, just lost to Dallas on the road
@SAS - Who knows who's playing in this one with Pop, but Spurs usually play well at home regardless
HOU - Houston probably has a decent shot to win. 50/50 at best
SAC - Lost last time at home to them, but they should win

Just need to tie them record wise, as long as we have the tie breaker of record vs West opponents. Currently have a 1.5 game lead in that section on them (26-10 vs 25-11 for them). I think thats the tie breaker at least.

Go Thunder!

[Viper1500]

I was at the game, the MVP chants gave me chills. It took over the entire arena. What a game!

[Dadouv47]

I was at the game, the MVP chants gave me chills. It took over the entire arena. What a game!

MVP chants coming from magic fans as well?

Lucky you to watch one of the best games of GOATbrook carreer in person

[RunOKC]

I was at the game, the MVP chants gave me chills. It took over the entire arena. What a game!

MVP chants coming from magic fans as well?

Lucky you to watch one of the best games of GOATbrook carreer in person

While watching the replay of Westbrook's 3 over and over you can see at least half the lower bowl going crazy when he hits it

[Pillendreher]

Let's all take a moment to appreciate the complete no-show by both Russ' teammates and his coach for two straight games against terrible competition.

Russ doesn't deserve this ****.

[Bergmaniac]

When Westbrook passes to a guy that gets fouled and go to the freethrow line. Is that a hockey assist or does it have special name?

It's counted as a free throw assist, Westbrook leads the league in this category, not surprisingly - http://stats.nba.com/players/passing/#!?sort=FT_AST&dir=1

That idiot Donovan almost ruined our tank and gifted us a win which would have screwed us long term, thankfully Russ was in GOAT mode again and had other ideas.

I watched the Thunder feed of the game and the commentators said two of the dumbest things I've heard all season. First Cage said that he is starting to like Semaj as a player because "he doesn't take many shots" and is feisty or whatever. At the end Davis said that Donovan is a serious contender for coach of the year. Maybe the Thunder management instructed them to do so or maybe they are just that clueless, LOL.

[sleestak33]

It shouldn't have taken a historic performance by this year's MVP to win this game. Donovan is still tinkering with the lineups and it's completely destroying any cohesion the team develops over the period of a few games because guys don't really know when they're playing or if they'll play at all. At one point in this game he had Roberson, Adams, Sabonis and Christon out there at the same time and then another he had Cole and Christon simultaneously...how in the heck are they supposed to score points like that? Once again the pathetic Roberson plays 35 minutes and has only 6 pts. (he's missed his last nine 3 pointers) and got lit up by Fournier for 24 pts. and Kanter gets only 20 minutes and had 17/10. If you simply reverse the minutes of these two players OKC wins this game going away. Fantastic game by Russ...horrible coaching from Donovan. and it's just way too late in the season to still be messing with rotations.

[ThunderBolt]

Some respect for Adams please. He's trash last months but he's still a top 10 center in the league.

With teams playing small ball and having power forwards play the 5, he's not a top ten big man. Even if he was,that doesn't mean much other than he's barely in the top 1/3 of starters in the league.

We have a problem with PF position, but that's not Adams's fault. I was saying top 10 but he's more close to top 5 : Cousinsms , Gasol, Gobert, Drummond are clearly better than him. The rest? Not so sure. Anyway he's closer of being top 5 than top 10.

Of course he has been playing REALLY bad but the only good thing we still have left from previous trades / picks is Adams by far.

Taj has been fine. In fact as soon as Taj plays well, Donovan benches him. In no way is Adams close to top 5. In addition to those guys, he's not playing better than Whiteside, Jokic, Howard, Towns, Tristan Thompson, Embiid and Nurkic. He made Biyambo look like an allstar in the first half last night. Vucevich puts up better numbers consistently. Monday night we saw that Noel is significantly more athletic than him. Maybe we need a small ball center like Jokic, Myles Turner or Capela. Adams does do some things that don't show up in the box score but he does very little that does show up there. On a roster that has Andre Roberson and Oladipo ( who shows up about 60% of the time) we can't afford to pay $25 million to another mediocre player who can't score. He's been bad since the asg, and he was only average beforehand.

[Kizz Fastfists]

Maybe the Thunder management instructed them to do so or maybe they are just that clueless, LOL.

They are that clueless. Watch them a few more times and they'll make sure you know it.

[Viper1500]

I was at the game, the MVP chants gave me chills. It took over the entire arena. What a game!

MVP chants coming from magic fans as well?

Lucky you to watch one of the best games of GOATbrook carreer in person

While watching the replay of Westbrook's 3 over and over you can see at least half the lower bowl going crazy when he hits it

Yeah but majority were okc fans.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Dadouv47]

With teams playing small ball and having power forwards play the 5, he's not a top ten big man. Even if he was,that doesn't mean much other than he's barely in the top 1/3 of starters in the league.

We have a problem with PF position, but that's not Adams's fault. I was saying top 10 but he's more close to top 5 : Cousinsms , Gasol, Gobert, Drummond are clearly better than him. The rest? Not so sure. Anyway he's closer of being top 5 than top 10.

Of course he has been playing REALLY bad but the only good thing we still have left from previous trades / picks is Adams by far.

Taj has been fine. In fact as soon as Taj plays well, Donovan benches him. In no way is Adams close to top 5. In addition to those guys, he's not playing better than Whiteside, Jokic, Howard, Towns, Tristan Thompson, Embiid and Nurkic. He made Biyambo look like an allstar in the first half last night. Vucevich puts up better numbers consistently. Monday night we saw that Noel is significantly more athletic than him. Maybe we need a small ball center like Jokic, Myles Turner or Capela. Adams does do some things that don't show up in the box score but he does very little that does show up there. On a roster that has Andre Roberson and Oladipo ( who shows up about 60% of the time) we can't afford to pay $25 million to another mediocre player who can't score. He's been bad since the asg, and he was only average beforehand.

Forgot about Towns. Jokic and Nurkic are better talents for sure, but they are not there yet. I know a lot of cavs fans who say Adams > Thompson. Adams is better than actual Howard as well. I also think between choosing Adams or Whiteside, most will choose Adams.

Recent months give you reason but Adams ( when he plays good ) is way better than you seem to think.

http://www.nba.com/article/2016/10/21/fran-blinebury-ranks-top-centers-2016-17-nba-season
http://uproxx.com/dimemag/best-centers-in-the-nba-right-now/

Those rankings are relative and don't show all truth but you can't find a ranking where Adams is not in top 10. I don't like the order of most of those rankings ( Gobert is clearly better than Adams for example), but objectively, you can say : ok we have a good center that deserves his salary. The same does not apply to a lot of our guys ( Oladipo winning 22 millions, Kanter overpaid even if I love the guy, his mindset etc...). So yeah if we were going to rebuild, I don't see the point of getting rid of Adams ( but a lot of teams will trade for him that's for sure so if we want to get rid of him, that's not a problem).

You can't say Adams is ''barely'' top 10 and claim that's not a big deal to be top 10 in the league in your position. Even a top 20 on his position gets 20 millions / year with the crazy way salaries are going ( look at oladipo and so many others). If we can add another top 10 in his position ( wing for example), we would be on another level.
And yeah u are right about Gibson playing very well and being benched so fast.
Our main problem is that all team is slow, and we have no 3 point shooter on our starting line up.

[FloridaHoosier]

I was at the game, the MVP chants gave me chills. It took over the entire arena. What a game!

MVP chants coming from magic fans as well?

Lucky you to watch one of the best games of GOATbrook carreer in person

I was there too sitting behind the OKC bench. Tons of people wearing OKC shirts! It was pretty amazing what Russell did!