Things I took away from this NBA Finals experience:
My boys had a great season. They got better. Two years ago it was first round defeat, last year was the conference finals, this year the NBA Finals. Jimmy Johnson used to say,”If you’re not getting better, you’ve gotten worst.”
Oklahoma City have the best fans in the NBA.Going to those games have been collectively my favorite live NBA experiences. I’m almost tempted to buy season tickets next year and take the train down for games.
Lebron is clearly the best. If you’re in a conversation with someone and they say otherwise walk away from them immediately, just talking with them will make you dumber.
KD is the best scorer in the NBA, but in order to become an all around superstar he will have to get better at rebounding and defense, cut down on the turnovers.
“FREE RUSSELL WESTBROOK!!!” The experiment is over. Move him over to the 2-guard where he can thrive and not have as much pressure to create scoring opportunities for his teammates. He is clearly a superstar and clearly we need him, but not as a point guard. He’s a scorer, he’s a lock down defender, he’s a great rebounder. But he is not a point guard. Get a real point guard who can pass and defend, they wouldn’t have to score, just create opportunities for the other players.
And while Sam Presti is at it, get a big who can come off the bench and score in the paint. If he can run well off the pick and roll, even better. One of those Ron Milsap, Karl Landry type guys would be nasty.One that thing they could have used this year was a guy they could dump it down to in the paint for an easy bucket or two. It would do wonders for the sqaud to be able to get some points inside without going to Isolation, and pick and roll plays.
Getting their ass kicked the way they did in the final game might be the best thing to happen to them. They were clearly talented than everyone else but were too inconsistent and frankly, there were really only a couple of games this post-season where they played a complete 48 minutes. But they kept winning and that reinforced bad habits and caused people to think they were better than they were.
The best thing that could have happened was them getting exposed against the Heat
(It’s like when a person becomes romantically involved with someone and they embark on an intense relationship. It s an opportunity to grow from the experience and see what flaws the individual needs to work on–seeing the good the bad and especially the ugly).
Lockout years are different than normal regular seasons so I knew that the Thunder’s best chance to make it with this particular set-up was this year (If you look up fluke in the dictionary you will find a picture of the 1999 Knicks team).If they want to win a championship some minor changes will have to be made, and I’m sure Sam Presti will make them. I don’t think they are satisfied with just making it to the Finals. I think this year was just a little taste of what’s to come.
I’m very proud of our boys and I can’t wait to see what moves are made in the off-season to bolster that lineup and see who’s gonna step up, and who’s gonna step out.If the Thunder can fix those small holes (and even if they don’t) they should be back in the Finals, in what will probably be a rematch against the Heat. Hopefully they will use the experience to better themselves.
Lastly, I wanna see them make a public service announcement video much like this one. “Stop Flopping!” Fo’real! This flopping has got to stop. Dwayne Wade, Lebron James. You guys are top 5 NBA players. Why do you need the refs to bail you out?If you guys are so good you wouldn’t have to whine to the officials. Fo’real. Play basketball. I’m just hoping the officiating isn’t as big of a story for next years playoffs.
There will need to be more team play next year for OKC to bring the title down to the Sooner state.
Aight. I’m out. Trying to peep these free agents SON!!!!
I debated whether or not it’d be a good idea to go down to OKC and scalp a ticket. I’d already dropped a fair amount on game 6 of the Spurs game. It wasn’t going to get any better than the feeling I had when I left Chesapeake Arena last Wednesday night.
On the other hand I also knew there was no guarantee that I’d ever get to watch my favorite team in the NBA Finals. In life and especially sports there are nor guarantees. I’ve seen teams get so close to the title and think that it’d just be a matter of time before they were back for another chance at it (Dan Marino, ’98 Jets, ’93 Suns).
You just never know how small that championship window is (just ask Blazers fans). So I used my free bus voucher and went down to the OKC. I had a lot of time to kill so I went down to this basketball court down in the park downtown and played some 21. Some guy from the local news came down and took some video of us and the pickup game at the other basket ( I hope they don’t run any of the footage of me airballing 15 foot jumpers my shot was OFFFFF!!!).
After getting some work done at the library I headed to the OKC Hooters to get my wing fix. Sure enough one of the best players to come out of the University of Miami was sitting down and cooling out with this cute Betty at the table next to me. I wasn’t trying to jock him like everybody else was–taking pictures and interrupting his conversation. But I did throw up a “U” with my hands and yell out “2001 Cane’s baby!” as I was leaving .He threw it back at me and laughed.
The stage was set for an exciting night. The media was in full effect for sure. I saw “Mr. Waxahachie” Desmond Mason in full regale and camera crews lined up all the streets. There were all kinds of banners and signs pointing the event that was the NBA Finals.
Yet still it didn’t hit me until I got into my seat (once again, there isn’t a bad seat in the house I sat in the last row in section 330 and I could still see EVERYTHING) and the introductions began. There was a video montage of past Finals champion and they showed a clip of Pat Riley (looking like Michael Douglas) in ’88 talking about the Lakers repeating. I was the only one who booed the screen.
Chills went through my body as the moment came upon me. The lights dimmed and the “Niggas in Paris” beat started. I was flooded with the memories of being 15 and watching the Bulls and Phoenix Suns player intros on television.
The crowd erupted as they introduced KD the same way the Bulls fans used to lose it when they introduced MJ (fitting in so many ways–especially since a couple analyst say that the ‘Peake is the loudest arena since old Chicago Stadium). When the PA guy said “at 6’9 from University of Texas”, I got REALLY hype and began jumping up and down–screaming like a wild man.
This was the beginning of dynasty and maybe just maybe KD’s era would be like Jordan’s was in Chicago. It got loud in that arena and it only got louder.
Bullet points from last night:
1. I truly hate the Heat franchise. They have now entered my short list of despicable sports entities. They came in wearing their all black uni’s like they owned the joint. Seemed fitting. We were the good guys and they were the villains. So it goes.
To me D-Wade is a punk ass flopper who goes down at the drop of the hat ( they were showing an all time greatest playoff layups on Sportscenter last week and one from Wade’s playoff run against the Pistons made it. He got an AND1 on it but there was no contact whatsoever. This is why people think the league is rigged. More on this later).
I don’t like Lebron. Battier though one of the smartest and fundamentally sound players in the NBA is dead to me. He came off as a real nuisance last night. Chalmers is my least favorite Jayhawk of all time (Quit crying and play basketball!!!).
I could see Mike Miller in a trailer park in Colorado somewhere making Meth with Chris “Birdman” Anderson. Chris Bosh is a buster too (Fuck Dallas Lincoln).
Haslem is an ugly motherfucker. That to me is reason enough not to like him.
I won’t even waste the space in this post to get into the other players. Fuck the Heat. I feel like you have to be a fundamental D-bag to sign with that franchise. I don’t like the ’06 Heat. I don’t like PJ Brown, Jeff Van Gundy dragging Heat teams.
I think Erik Spoelstra is a tool who spits out canned, corny ass responses. He reminds me of a newly appointed substitute teacher who has posters of Gandhi quotes in his office.
I don’t like the Heat fans (they annoy me more than Laker fans–my buddy Adrian a rare exception).
I’ll go as far as to say that I’ll never set foot inside the Miami city limits unless I were getting paid a substantial fee to do so. And fuck the state of Florida for giving us Jeb Bush, and ultimately George Bush.
2.This year’s playoff officiating was at an all time worst last night. It was a joke. It was a fucking travesty. I thought game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals was bad. I thought last night’s was equally as bad if not worse (if only because I’m a Thunder fan).
I didn’t pay 300 dollars to see the referees blow their whistles all night. The flow of the game kept getting interrupted because of the official’s interference. It’s the fucking Finals. Let the motherfuckers play!
And if you are going to call the shit, call it both ways. Had the script been flipped and that was Lebron getting hacked, they’d have for sure called it (big ups to KD for not making any excuses during the post game interview–he only would admit to missing the shot). this is what bothers me. Teams like the Lakers, the Heat (hell even Jordan’s Bull’s) don’t need the help. So either swallow the fucking whistle or call it both ways.
There were at least 5 or 6 shitty calls (or no-calls) that had the crowd incensed last night:
There was a bullshit charge call on Harden late in the game when he’d gotten mugged twice on the same possession (only seconds before the call ).
There was of course the no call during the critical Durant possession at the end.
There was the weak ass goal tending call early on in the game that gave the Heat 2 points.
Shane Battier somehow picked up a foul when he was nowhere near the play that should have been Chris Bosh’s 2nd foul early into the first quarter.
There was a dubious offensive foul on Perkins during the fourth quarter
and a couple of ticky tack foul calls against Durant that got him on the bench early into the game.
The night seemed dangerously close to the officiating in the ’06 Heat-Mavs series, as well as game 6 of Kings-Lakers.
Which makes me wonder if what Rasheed Wallace said about the “NBA being some WWE shit” isn’t true (only makes me love that guy even more–only Sapp’s Tagliabue is a slavemaster quote feel more spot on in my opinion)?
I’m not going to go as far to call David Stern a crook, but it does make you wonder though. I am a paying customer. I have spent hundreds of dollars(and countless hours) on the NBA product. As a consumer I believe I am entitled to receive proper compensation for the time and money spent following the sport.
So if I’m not getting “the bang for my buck” then it means there is an imbalance between what I’m paying and what I am receiving.
And if David Stern knows there is a severe problem with the quality of officiating (and has been for at least ten years) then Stern is ultimately responsible for the lack of quality product on the floor. By not fixing it, either he is apart of the problem (i.e. doing some Vince MacMahon shit) or doesn’t give a shit and only cares about the bottom line ( like Phil Knight of NIKE).
Of course whenever someone yells conspiracy, respected journalists like Colin Cowherd and Mike Greenberg always say, “Why would David Stern (or Bob Arum) cheat? What would they have to gain? That would be a crime, why would they risk everything they have to do such a thing? That would be criminal and they could go to jail for fixing the draft lottery (or Pacquiao fight)”
Which is a valid argument, until you ask the same questions of every crook who got rich in this country. Come the fuck on! They act like the Kennedy family, or Rockefeller family, or Bush family, or ANY mafia head never did dirt to get where they were (and continued to do so in order to maintain that stature). Our government commits severely criminal acts every day and these guys ask the “what could be gained” question.
To quote Ed Lover, “Get tha Fuck OUTTA HERE WIT DAT BULLSHIT SON!!!!”
Which brings me to my frustration with sports. Sports is supposed to be the last vestige of fairness we have in society. It is the one place where talent rules supreme over everything else. But politics and corruption (see NCAA, MLB, NFL, FIFA, NBA,Olympics)is everywhere in sports. Normally I can ignore that shit and just concentrate on the beauty that is occurring on the court, or field. But the politics is threatening to overtake the sport.
I should be talking about how I had the chance to see Dwayne Wade, Lebron, and KD put on this incredible show of speed, power and creativity in person instead of mulling over the rumor that Dwayne Wade is 21-3 in games that Danny Crawford officiates.
And that is what frustrates me. It wasn’t just Thunder fans and players who were robbed last night. NBA fans were robbed of what could have been a fantastic finish and NBA Finals Classic moment. How bad ass would it have been to see if Durant makes those free throws and see how the heat would respond? Perhaps it’d have been an overtime classic that would be a small footnote in what could be a finals match-up?
Now we’ll never know.
With all that being said, I still thought the Thunder would do it. I’d been to nothing but victories this year and seen this before. Early deficits turned into a classic comeback victory because of clutch defense and KD’s silky smooth offensive skills.
Even with how badly we’d been playing even with all the iffy officiating, I didn’t think we could be denied. Every bad call that went against us whipped the crowd into a bloodthirsty frenzy. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, leaving it all in the rafters. Giving the boys my all because win or lose I wanted to do my part as a fan.
And when we cut to 2 points and had the ball with less than 15 seconds left and Gary Glitter’s “Rock ‘n Roll 2” was blaring, I knew it was about to be over. The Thunder were going to win and everyone whipping their T-shirts around were about to erupt when our boy KD did his thang.
But it didn’t come. The shot was off and the Heat fit their final two free throws ( I was on the other side of the court and didn’t see the foul until I got to a TV later that night). The crowd booed lustily for Danny Crawford’s head. People emptied out onto the street gnashing their teeth in frustration.
In a less civilized league/society/city I could foresee a rain of objects being tossed onto the floor as players and media alike escaped the carnage for the safety under the tunnels. I wanted blood. And I’m sure I wasn’t alone.
With all the bitching about officiating it has to be said that the Thunder didn’t play well enough to win that game. Head coaching great Jimmy Johnson used to say that, you have to play well enough where a ref’s call won’t lose the game for you.
They spotted them a 16 point lead early in the first quarter. There were missed defensive assignments as Battier destroyed it with open 3’s. Too many free throws could’ve eaten into that deficit. The inability to get those 50-50 balls and defensive rebounds hurt the team’s chances as well. Lastly there were too many bad possessions.
I thought about the night in its entirety on the way home. I wasn’t sure if I had fun. The refs’ whistles were a constant disruption. I think also the stakes of the event led to some anxiety early into the game. Having the ‘win or die’ mind frame made it difficult to enjoy on one level. But I was able to adjust that mentality and just dig the fact that I was at Finals game, seeing my favorite team play.
What a great bookend for the season. I had the pleasure of seeing them opening night on Xmas with one of my best friends. I had been able to see them blow out the Chris Paul Clippers on a night that Obama was in town on business. I was luckily enough to have floor tickets and see Kevin Love put up a nasty line (he had 50 and 20) against the boys in triple overtime thriller (KD had put up 40 plus points himself).
I had the pleasure of seeing the legendary Spurs get closed out the week before. Now I was attending game 2 of the Finals. I was a lucky man. I didn’t have to go to Oakland to see a Warriors game anymore. The best fans in the NBA were in OKC. I could picture myself living in “the city” owning season tickets. What a treat that would be.
Who knows? I could just as easily see ticket prices going up (which would be justifiable if they could keep Harden and Ibaka after next year) and people getting priced out next season.
Regardless I had been a good fan and it left it all in the arena. My head was pounding and my throat felt raw, and my team had lost. But before the playoffs started I had told myself that no matter where the Thunder had placed, I was just going to enjoy the ride, and keep expectations to a minimum.
That being said, I still feel confident about the boy’s chances. They played arguably their worst game of the playoff’s, the Heat had gotten the majority of calls, KD never was able to get into a rhythm because of foul trouble, and yet still the Heat barely escaped with a four point win.
The Heat should be very afraid. They have a dog fight on their hands and it will only get harder when they come back to Oklahoma City. Whoever wins the title this year will have to earn that motherfucker. We are in for a classic one.
This is what should happen when you ask dumb questions during the media sessions. I can only imagine how much of a beating these things are for both the players and coaches.
Last Saturday, while my buddy slept on his couch, I silently watched in awe; a jaw dropping stretch of basketball that evoked the ghost of Michael Jordan.
When I bought tickets to game 6 I knew there was a chance that it may not happen. Game 3 was a guarantee but there weren’t nearly enough good seats to choose from. I had predicted the Spurs in 6 so I knew that if there was indeed a game 6 then that would probably be the night they’d clinch. I didn’t think it would be the Thunder who would do the clinching.
There were a couple expensive lessons that I learned from this round of hoops:
1) You never know. I felt so sure about both series that I bet on both the Eastern and Western Conference Finals. I thought a Heat vs. Spurs Finals was in the making with the Spurs dispatching Miami in six. ERRR WRONG!!!!
I didn’t foresee Scotty Brooks outcoaching Popovich during this series. Now I’m not saying He made better decisions than Popovich. Pops did the best he could with what he had. I just didn’t foresee Brooks putting together a game plan and the boys sticking to it.
Somehow I never saw the Sefolosha adjustment coming, and I definitely never saw it being a pivotal turning point in the series. I didn’t think old Russ would have more assists than Tony Parker either.
As for the Celts-Heat series. I just thought the C’s were too banged up to keep up with the Heat. I gotta give credit to Doc Rivers for his great job of coaching them this series.
I didn’t give Spoelstra enough credit for being the overwhelmed coach he is. I just thought the Heat would out muscle the Celtics. After watching how badly game 2 was called, I was sure the fix was in.
I thought it was a done deal before the series even started. I wasn’t even going to bother watching it except to see the greatness of Rajon rondo. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to bother previewing the series in a blog.
As of today the C’s are sitting pretty with a 3-2 series lead, and with game 6 being in the Garden tonight, It could be a wrap. Once again, never a sure thing. I ‘d say I wouldn’t bet on it but I already did.
Which brings me to lesson number 2) Don’t bet against teams you like. I bet with my head and not my heart, and normally this is a good thing. Betting against your favorite team is just not a good idea. All it did was mix me up inside. I wanted the Thunder to win but I also didn’t want to lose 50 bucks.
It created a struggle within me and finally I just made peace with the fact that neither outcome was going to completely feel good (as is much of life isn’t it?).
I’m not a Celtics fan but I do like a lot of their players. I’ve always dug Garnett’s passion for the game, Rondo is a sick motherfucker–probably the sickest they have right now.
Pierce and Ray Allen of course are two guys I have followed for years (even open debating why the Mavs took Dirk instead of Pierce but I guess it worked out for everyone involved).
So its hard not to root for them and root against Miami. My money and heart were in two different places and that is probably not a good thing.
Expensive lesson # 3 is that the scalping game has flipped since 1999. No one buys tickets at the games anymore. The best place to scalp and be scalped is the internet. The game has changed son!
My boy tried to tell me this but I didn’t listen. I could get anyone to pay me what I had bought for my extra ticket and ended up selling it at a loss of 80 bones.
Every venue and city has different laws governing the world of scalping and it pays to know what they are. It is important to know where the buyers are and where the sellers will be.
I got taken for sure but it was 7:30 and it was raining. I wasn’t going to be spend all night trying to get rid of the ticket. The best offer I got was 120 (I made sure to ask the guy who sat next to me how much he paid. He said 150.)
In some out of the way venues like the Cynthia Mitchell Pavillion in the Woodlands, Texas, it is quite possible to walk up and get a ticket for cheap because it is out of the way.
I’ve often heard of people showing up 5 minutes before the start of an event and see scalpers giving away tickets because they weren’t nearly as easy to sell as they thought (ME).
This made me realize that the venue in OKC is a seller’s market and that I could’ve walked up and gotten my ticket for way less than I paid on the internet.
I have the feeling that I can get Finals tickets for a fairly reasonable price if I’m patient. Unfortunately I won’t be able to see them clinch in person. all the home games fall on nights that I work except game 2. So if I go (which I probably will)
that will be the one I attend.
Quick notes from being in attendance for game 6:
Can’t tell you how excited I was to see my playoff t-shirt waiting for me in my seat. I put it on before I even sat down and joined the throng of hungry fans there to see the dogfight that was about to commence.
True I had bet against my boys, but in every way I was there to support OKC. Everyone there for the game seemed to have the same attitude. They were going to bring the series to a close, and the fans were not going to let the Thunder lose.
It’s pretty cool to be part of a fan base that can actually affect a game. I grew up watching those Arco arena games where the Kings would fucking light up the scoreboard.
Those fans were loud. It was awesome to see how into it they got. Sometimes the noise would reach 120 decibels.
I wish I could have watched the game on TV to see how loud it translated for television. It was bananas inside that arena. The first half was loud in waves.
I caught myself being captivated by the flow of the Spurs offense in the first half. There they were, Tim Duncan (who I’d watched play since he was a freshman at Wake Forest), Manu Gonobili ( My homey Lou’s favorite player) and Tony Parker. Their execution the first quarter was flawless.
I couldn’t help but stare in awe as Tony Parker carved the Thunder defense up for 21 first quarter points. It was unreal. It wasn’t like I was cheering for the Spurs, but I was digging the sometimes breathtaking plays they were making. Stephen jackson was drilling every open three available.
It was crazy. Yet despite how good the Spurs looked, there still was no doubt that the Thunder were going to come back. When Durant nailed the deep three on two defenders with .4 seconds left, it was clear that the Spurs were in trouble. During halftime out in the corridors every patron had the same look, like “WE GOT THIS!”
I sent that exact text to my boy in Portland who replied ” Naw man its going back to San Antonio. You can’t give up 63 first half points and expect to win.”
I wasn’t surprised with the reply. He hadn’t the fortune of seeing as many Thunder games as I had this season. He hadn’t seen what Durant had been doing all Post-season, turning it on in the last quarter to take it from cats. There was no doubt that they’d make a run. 18 first half points was a joke. A lead that early cannot be taken seriously.
Besides, old dude was Portland what did he know? His franchise were the ones who passed up on Durant to get Oden. They were like the cats on Star Search who chose some random ass dude over Dave Chappelle.
I went to concessions and grabbed a Coca-Cola and caffeinated myself. When the second half began I made sure that not only was I into it, but that everyone in my section was as well.
I hi-fived the little kids and old folks nearby. I yelled at the top of my lungs, jumped up and down. The crowd didn’t sit the whole second half (vaguely reminiscent of Warriors fans in Oracle) and things went from loud to obnoxiously loud once the boys had trimmed the first half 18 point deficit to 10.
When we cut it to five I knew it was all over. There was no way the Spurs were going to win.
The third quarter was the best spurt of basketball throughout the game. The thunder made a run, then the Spurs made one, then the Thunder countered. There were some brilliant plays, and some athletic ones and honestly everything kind of blurred together.
I couldn’t even tell you one particular moment from the quarter. But it was an awesome sight to see and clearly I was in the right place at the right time. It was loud and it was exciting and it was euphoric. I looked up at the scoreboard and realized that KD already had put up a quiet 29 points.
Unfortunately the fourth quarter didn’t flow as well. There were too many stops and starts between officials whistles and TV timeouts.
There was a lot of dancing in the aisles during the timeouts and everyone had fun, but the officials and their questionable calls marred what should have been an outstanding ending. It was a bit unsettling how one-sided the calls were going (When I saw Joey Crawford I knew the fix was in but not FOR the Thunder).
I almost felt sorry the Spurs. Then I remembered this and the resulting suspensions (bullshit interpretation of the ‘leaving the bench” rule) that cost the Suns a chance to truly compete for the NBA Finals. So then I was like fuck ’em.
They had benefited from some calls so no reason to feel bad that Durant was getting Superstar treatment now ( a guy in the stands joked that Durant always misses 1 of 2 free throws if he got to the line because of a bad call–almost as if he felt guilty about it).
The end of the game was pretty sweet–punctuated by a Perkins dunk that send the crowd into a frenzy kinda like this one. It was all but over.
The Thunder had vanquished the Spurs. And I couldn’t think of a more worthy opponent (after the game KD said that it was the toughest win he’d ever had as an NBA player).
Being in the arena for the trophy celebration was a bit unreal. Seeing everyone in the crow in synch, cheering as one, moving as one was a sight. KD couldn’t even talk because we were shouting MVP. He stopped and just took it all in.
I was taken back to the moment when I first saw him his freshman year at Texas, warming up for a pres-season game against some small college.
There was no way I could have imagined that we’d both be in Oklahoma City celebrating (albeit differently) the success of a pro basketball team.
I started thinking of other post championship celebrations. The ones like I’d seen on the Madden video games. The time I watched jealously as Houston celebrated the Clutch City Rockets (which Scott Brooks was a member of). It was an incredible thing to be apart of.
There is a festive atmosphere that rivals collegiate sports at a Thunder game from the outlandish outfits to the fevered pitch of the crowd (I guess this makes sense because up until recently they only had college teams to root for).
And though there are some high toned people who attend, it is nowhere as bad as attending a Mavs game. Everyone seems overdressed for those things.
In the form of celebs I saw no one but radio personality/former Cowpoke Doug Gottlieb and former MLB manager Tony LaRussa. People aren’t there for a fashion show.
They come to see hoops and even those who are there for the scene have no choice but to represent. It’s a great experience and if you ever get a chance to go to an OKC game in the future, I recommend you do so (though tickets are much harder to get than when they first got here).
Of course things didn’t go perfectly. I had lost 80 bucks on my extra ticket. Before warm ups some dude tried to pick a fight with one of the people sitting next to me (he was so drunk that he passed out in his seat before the start of the 2nd quarter).
The water fountains weren’t turned on upstairs so I was hella thirsty throughout the 4th quarter.
But it was worth every dollar spent and every inconvenience I endured to be there to celebrate the team’s success. The jubilant high I felt leaving the arena was unparalleled (And I have tried many a drug and gotten many a laid).
My favorite basketball team of all time was going to the NBA finals. Now it was only a question of who we were playing next and if I was going to attend any of the games(More than likely).
I didn’t know it could feel so good to be so wrong.
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 