If you were Royce Young, let's say you get up in the morning and after you eat breakfast, and say your prayers to the Voodoo shrine to Russ Westbrook that is the only thing in your empty apartment aside from a recliner and a mattress on the floor, and you want to get a head start on your lead story for two weeks from now Do you title it Storm on the Horizon, Thunder May Need to Retool after 3rd Consecutive Early Playoff Exit or: Thunder Storm! Thunder Find Their Shot, In 2nd Round for the first time since 2016
PG is having a career year this year. they lost last year because he didnt give russ enough help. there is no doubt they are better this year. the west is better overall than it was last year. grant and ferguson are better players as well. matchups matter. i dont know why you guys keep saying it doesn't matter who we play, especially considering OKC. CLEARLY they can matchup with us, and can crush us on the glass. everyone keeps saying how the thunder cant shoot and dont realize they had a stretch over about a 2.5 month period where top 3 in outside shooting. they made 16 threes last night. they are obviously getting their confidence back after going through a slump. if you add in the fact they get to play as underdogs, with all the pressure on the rockets/james harden, this is definitely the team we DO NOT WANT. im nervous that portland might throw the game tonight. i dont think they want OKC either since they swept them in the regular season, and with nurkic out, they will have a difficult time keeping adams off the glass. you might say its not good to willingly go into the warriors bracket, but what good is not being in their bracket if you can't even get out of the first round ?
There is no doubt that they are worse this year by the metric that matters, which is why they won fewer games. According to other metrics, they're almost the exact same. 110-107 offense/defense rating both last year and this year - which gets you an expected record of...yep, 49 wins. Hell they managed to finish with a worse record than last year despite having "better players" and without Carmelo sucking up thousands of minutes. How anybody can look at this and say "oh they're better!" means that you watched precisely one Thunder game after the all star break. Guess which one.
agreed on all points. Not only do they matchup well, they might even injure one of our guys in this series even if we do win. We don't want them at all. having only one defensive stopper in tucker is a glaring weakness against this team. Daniel house was getting abused all day and was covered well, missing step backs, i'm not a big fan of him taking those yet. If Westbrook is hitting those pull up 3s on us, they can beat us. Nobody realliy wants to play them in the first round.
you are an idiot and a casual fan. are the rockets a much worse team than last year because we are losing 12 games fewer ? NO as i stated, the conference top to bottom is overall BETTER than last year. also, I watch pretty much all of the thunder games. they ARE a better team than last year. dennis schoeder's skillset is something they needed more than melo's, their bench is better, their young players improved, and PG is having a career year. If he didnt hurt his shoulder after the all-star break they would probably still be fighting for a top 3 spot. Ive been saying for months we should avoid a matchup with the thunder. you don't know what you're talking about so kindly screw off.
I don't see that happening. It's not like Utah would be a much easier matchup for the Blazers. And if Portland gets out of the first round, who do you think they'd rather face? Golden State? Or Denver, San Antonio, or the Clippers? The Blazers may lose tonight, but it won't be intentional.
well they are 2-2 against utah..... would you rather have damn against ricky rubio, or russell westbrook ? he has a hard time containing westbrook because of his size and strength, and they have no one to guard PG. they probably wont tank it but they do have the option. i hope minnesota pulls off a miracle against the nuggets.
Yes? Good lord, what idiot thinks a 65 win team is not substantially better than a 53 win team? And I'm not even talking about the advanced metrics here. There is no evidence of this. It's a pretty simple argument - if "Thunder are better" - then how come they not only have the same record, and are pretty much the exact same on offense and defense, but they have the same splits against the East and the West? if your theory were true presumably we'd see the "better" west teams like the Thunder at least clowning the weaker East teams. But, that's not what we see instead their splits are basically identical to last year. Same Home record, same road record. Same conference records. Same everything, save maybe this year's Thunder have been markedly worse after the all-star break. I apologize though for you for feeling you had to watch all 82 Thunder games though to prove this nonexistent point. That seems like a fate no one should have to suffer ^Says the guy who is arguing that a team with a worse record than last year and that is fighting for a back half playoff spot...again... is substantially "better" - ok bruh.
I'm sensing a pattern here with @icewill36 From last year: Do you live your entire life in fear of the OKC Thunder?
No. But if there is an easier path to the finals why not take it ? Why not let GS get pushed to 7 vs OKC before we play them ?
well i disagree. we are not 12 games worse than last year. i think our depth is actually better than last year, and EGO is has been better since becoming a starter. if you guys think we are so much worse, why is it you think we have a chance against golden state ? if you truly believe we are 12 games worse then they should sweep us with no issue. we are not an elite team and should be fortunate to even make it out of the first round.
Why not let them do it? Sure if they can do it, why not let them - but why would anybody believe that a mid-pack team that has won 3 playoff games combined in the last 2 seasons could somehow beat a dynastic team 3 times in two weeks. Last year's beast mode Rockets barely did it, with homecourt advantage. How do they compare to this year's Thunder?
Looks like Royce chose the former. He chose...wisely. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...tions-get-interesting-westbrook-pg-ousted-okc
