Game 1 Recap: Milwaukee 98, Oklahoma City 87

David Stern: Cutest Commissioner in All of Sports.

NBA.com Boxscore

I got to the game early today. And, me being the media magnet that I am, got onto KFOR again!



Big ups to Marika Lorraine for recognizing me and interviewing me. It starts at about 4:27, and I'm shown twice. Nothing AMAZING, but still pretty awesome nonetheless. I was also interviewed by NBATV. Hopefully I'll be able to show that one too, but its a bit less substantial.

There were a slew of pre-game activities. For main attractions they had a band that did mostly 80s cover songs, a BMX show, and some country-western band which sounded horrible. On the side booths, they had bungie basketball (as Lance West shows in the video above), freethrow shooting, mini basketball hoops, and food. They had the flags of the NBA teams up, and while it looked exciting, it was pretty boring waiting around for the most part.

I finally got in to find out that Bonigi Brothers got taken over by Pizza Hut! They used to serve big slices of pizza (1/6th of a huge one) for $4, but now Pizza hut has tiny Personal Pans for $6. Ultra-Lame. I had some burgers from the Route 66 Grill, but, needless to say, I won't be eating in the arena very often anymore. At least Ben still has the world-famous Slap Shots.

Anyway, I ventured to my seat to see a pre-game performance by none other than....the C&C Music Factory. That's right, the band that made "Everybody Dance Now". And, lo and behold, that's what they played! For 10 straight minutes. I'm not kidding, a 10 minute rendition of "Everybody Dance Now". Well, it was fun!

Then, David Stern and Mick Cornett gave some words. The big moment there had to be when David Stern said, "Oklahoma City, welcome to the National Basketball Association".

Boy, did that ring true tonight. The team looked horrible out of the gate. It was tied twice at 2 and 4, but, before I knew it, the Arena was virtually silent. I looked up, and the scoreboard said 20 to 8. Welcome to the NBA!

The team kind of hovered around 10-15 behind before they fell behind by a full 20 before the 4th quarter began. They tried to give Milwaukee a run for their money, beating the deficit down to 9, but a well-placed timeout and bad substitutions by P.J. Carlesimo put the Thunder away for good.

The +/- ratios in this game tell the story. The starters for the Thunder are all in the negatives, while the bench are all in the positives. Needless to say, every single starter played horribly tonight. I saw a lot of misplaced shots, a lot of misplaced drives, and a lot of times where the extra pass could have made all the difference.

The key to revitalizing the starting lineup here might be benching Earl Watson. While he and Westbrook had the same amount of assists, Westbrooks driving actually helps the Thunder. Watson will sit at the top of the key, hardly creating any ball movement. Westbrook will drive the ball down to the post, and create opportunities for guys like Chris Wilcox, Desmond Mason, and Joe Smith. His method isn't perfect, but every indication I'm getting now is full steam ahead for Westbrook.

I wouldn't blame Johan Petro's performance tonight on himself. He needs someone to distribute to him, as he's completely inept at creating for himself. His defense was a bit off, but Watson certainly didn't help him.


Kevin Durant and Jeff Green were a large part of the problem tonight. As far as I'm concerned, I'd bench those guys from what I saw of them tonight. For the amount of opportunities they got, their production was amazingly weak. If you look at shot percentage, they weren't much better than Johan Petro (they went 5-14 and 2-7, and Petro went 1-5). These guys have got to learn to either make their shots or pass it....which brings me to my next suggestion.

Pass to the open man! There were so, so many times when guys would just go for the horrible shot rather than pass to the guy who had a wide, wide open midrange shot. Granted, these don't walways go in, but they go in a lot more than circus layups do.

Birdcalling.

Lastly, a suggestion to our coach. When a lineup is working, don't mess with it! There was about 5-6 minutes left in the game, we just made a huge run to get within 9, and he makes 2-3 different substitutions! Just because Durant and Green are your franchise players doesn't mean that you have to put them in when their backups are doing perfectly fine!

Without further ado, tonights....

Thunder Wonder
Weezy, 15 points, 6-9 Shooting, 7 Rebounds, 1 Assist

Simply awesome. No big streaks, but he produced all game. Not an all-star performance, but definately a refreshing diamond in the rough tonight.

Thunder Blunder
Johan Petro, 2 Points, 1-5 Shooting, 3 Rebounds, 1 Steal, 1 Block

Really not his fault, but Johan Petro might as well have been a waste of space out there on the floor tonight. Didn't really hurt the team, but didn't help a whole lot either.

Thunder Down Under
Joe Smith, 8 Points, 3-4 Shooting, 5 Rebounds, 2 Steals, 1 Block

He was shaky at first, but he did a wonderful job pulling out key plays down the stretch. He was an instrumental part of the run in the 4th quarter, he served as an endless array of pick n' rolls, and he played excellent defense.

Thunder Plunderer
Charlie Villanueva, 20 Points, 12 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 1 Steal, 2 Blocks

The Bucks were almost as inefficent as the Thunder tonight, and Charlie V was no exception, but he did do the best out of his team. His rebounding really helped them out of a lot of jams tonight. I almost gave this to Bogut, but he really did fizzle out after the first.

Lowballing: The Hornets banner thanking them for their support from 2005-2007 is offically gone. That's just sad and lame. It should remain in memory.

Kelvin Sampson's name was misspelled in the program as Kelvin Sampsn. IT was the only grammatical error I noticed. Tsk tsk.

Highballing: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute has to have the coolest name in the NBA.

Next Game: Saturday at the Houston Rockets.

Breaking News: Bart Conner was there.

Pre-Season Game 5 Recap: Clippers 90, Oklahoma City 88

Dr. Strangesmell or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Stench
Yahoo! Boxscore
The Thunderworld Recap

Tonight was a night of bad jerseys, bad play, and badass dancing.

When I went to the Ford Center around 5:45, there were more people there than expected. That was good, but what was not good was the fact that there was absolutely nothing to do. It was completely and totally boring. They had the typical food from the World-Famous Slap Shots, and they had the typical lottery stuff, but aside from that everything seemed kind of lame and last minute. There were no activities or anything. There were no signs in the stadium, very little overall theme, and the floor simply read "Ford Center". Still, it's the Pre-Season, so I expect them to have everything in order in time for the Season Opener.

Almost every activity that they had was a copy of what happened when the Hornets were here. T-Shirt throwing, kids slam dunk contest, free throw contest, running around the bat and trying to make a layup, seat upgrades, and the dance cam all made returns. You name it, and it'll probably be copied by the Thunder. Speaking of the dance cam, if you saw a particularly sexy guy in a blue shirt and blue headband doing the "Apache" dance and getting more than 30 seconds of full-fledged camera time, you guessed it, it was me. (Yes, I looked like a total dork.) Oh, and every single time they asked, "Whose ball is it?", I would automatically say, "Hornets ball!!!!". I guess I'm a creature of habit.

One last side note....2 of the worst NBA uniforms were out there tonight. The Clippers uniforms have always totally sucked. The red, white, and blue looks really cheesy and bland. Honestly, I'd rather them just rock the light blue Buffalo Braves uniforms all year. As for the Thunder uniforms, we've already been over that.

Anyway, on to the game itself. The crowd seemed pretty apathetic towards the pre-game lineups, and the first quarter. The first was full of high energy low post manuvers by both teams. Then, in the second quarter, the Clippers bought in all of their subs minus Ricky Davis, and it was a sludgefest through the third quarter. The Thunder had their starters out, but they played like total crap. It wasn't a defensively-minded game, like you would see in a Spurs matchup. Rather, it was just total crappiness and sloppiness on both ends.

Well, every time except this time....

Most of the time, the Thunder would have to rely on Durant or Westbrook pretending that there was a brick wall in front of them and getting "fouled" while having no intention of hitting the shot. I mean, is that even satisfying? Other players I've seen, like Baron Davis and Chris Paul, do it a lot, but they at least make it fun because they actually try. Westbrook, Durant, and more famously Dwayne Wade hardly even try to shoot, and just act like they got an electric shock. I know it's kind of a soapbox here, but it makes the game boring and makes them look horrible on the stat sheet (Durant went 6-18, Westbrook went 3-11). Comeon guys, at least try.

Well, eventually after a total sludgefest, about 1/8th the arena filed out at the end of the 3rd, with half of the remaining people seriously considering putting on their coat. Than, suddenly, the energy increased and the game got intense. Durant was hitting his shots, and everybody else on the floor was contributing well. On the other side of the coin, Mike Taylor played absolutely insane. Who is Mike Taylor? I don't know, but he was incredibly intense. He had a clutch 3 and he got a key steal for a dunk within the last 2 minutes.

Is it the shoes?

Anyway, long story short, we were pretty close going into the final two minutes. Then, Johan Petro got two freethrows and missed them both. On top of that, Mike Wilks got a steal for a dunk. All said and done, we ended up down by 3 with about 13 seconds to go. Durant had a "shades of Atlanta" 3 point shot, but it rimmed out and Houston got the rebound. Ricky Davis sank 2 freethrows, and Russell Westbrook sank an irrelevant 3 at the buzzer. The whole arena was kind of bummed, but they clapped for the team anyway, and it gave me hope that we can cope with losing for a couple of seasons.

Now, for tonights....

Thunder Wonder and Blunder: Johan Petro
12 Points, 6-9 Shooting, 14 Rebounds, 3 Blocks, 1 Turnover, 1 Steal

Johan Petro had a super game tonight. I mean, nobody could have predicted this at all. He got some good momentum early with an extreme dunk, and just kept producing all game. Hell, he even hit a 12 footer! I mean, he didn't out step his place, and did what he needed to to help the team. Probably a career Pre-Season game. So then, why is he also the Blunder? Well, he missed a couple of clutch freethrows down the stretch, and that was really the turning point that put us back behind the Clippers.

Thunder Down Under (Honourable Mention): Nick Collison
10 Points, 4-8 Shooting, 8 Rebounds, 1 Steal, 1 Block, 2 Fouls
Not particularly impressive on its own, but considering that he only played 15 minutes, he was extremely productive. Everybody elses play seems far too sloppy to include. 13 team assists?! I mean, comeon!

Thunder Plunderer: Al Thornton
23 Points, 8-13 Shooting, 6 Rebounds, 5 Turnovers, 1 Steal

His turnovers were a bit high, but Al was an absolute scoring beast tonight. He hit a whole lost of midrange jumpers and simply couldn't be stopped, even during the extremely lame-duck quarters.

Thunder Plunderer Down Under: Mike Taylor
14 Points, 5-9 Shooting, 2 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Turnovers, 3 Steals

I don't normally do this, but I gotta give props to this guy. His stats are only good at first glance, but he played with extreme intensity on the defensive end. He very nearly forced a whole lot of turnovers, and the ones that he did force were crucial. He forced the Thunder to be constantly on their toes bringing the ball up, and he even hit a clutch 3 late in the game along with a crucial jam in the final minute. Somebody give this guy a roster spot!

That's it for tonight....stay tuned for the last two Thunder Pre-Season games, Thursday Oct. 24th at the Phoenix Suns, and Friday Oct. 25th at the Los Angeles Lakers!

Bonus!
Fashion Notes:

P.J. made an excellent choice of tie tonight.

Along with that, Mike Dunleavy Sr. is the last guy on the planet besides Mike Morgan to have a fake handkerchief in the right pocket of his suit simply for style. Rock on, man.

Getting to Know You....P.J. Carlesimo

I'm going to start a new feature here on Blue Blitz. Since most people in Oklahoma City are new to the NBA, the faces in the organization probably mean nothing to you. So, its only fair that we all get acquainted, right?

First, our coach: P.J. Carlesimo

P.J. Demonstrating the "Shout and Point while trying not to look wierd" technique.

P.J. demonstrating just how cool he is.

Anyone who has heard the name P.J. Carlesimo before he became the coach of the SuperSonics last year, probably knew about the time he was choked by Latrell Sprewell. In fact, that's probably the only thing they knew about him.

But, lets start at the beginning....

Unlike most major coaches, he never played basketball at a professional level. Rather, he has coached his entire post-college life. At least no one can debunk his experience. Carlesimo started his coaching career at Fordham University. After that, he skipped between several minor colleges in New England until 1982.

P.J. in his less salt-n-peppery days.

In 1982, he became the coach of Seton Hall. This is far before my time, but basically he picked up a no-nothing program and brought it all the way to a National Championship loss in 1989. He also assistant coached the Pre-Dream Team in 1990 (under Coach K) and the Dream Team in 1992.

Afterwards, he made the jump to the pros. This is where things finally get interesting. He was hired by the Portland Trail Blazers in 1994.

The Trail Blazers were a coming off of some glory years under Rick Adelman. In 1990 and 1992 they reached the NBA Finals under the play of Clyde "The Glide" Drexler. One couldn't blame the for these losses, as the first loss was to the "Bad Boy" Detroit Pistons and the second loss was to Michael Jordans Bulls. Inbetween (1991), the Pistons posted a 63-17 record, but lost to Magic Johnson's Lakers in the West Finals. The great teams had to beat somebody, you know. Yet, somehow the team fell into mediocrity. In 1993 and 1994, they couldn't advance past the first round, though one could hardly blame them with Barkleys Suns, Olajuwons Rockets, the Sonic Boom (Kemp, Payton) Supersonics, Malone and Stocktons Jazz and David Robinsons Spurs standing in their way. So, Paul Allen (the owner) and Co. decided to lay the blame on Adelman and fire him.

P.J. with the Blazers.

They hired P.J. Carlesimo. Carlesimo, basically, still had the core of the 1992 Finals roster to work with. By now, all of the players were getting old, and management didn't make any moves (besides moving Kevin Duckworth) until after Carlesimos tenure. So, he just rode out the mediocre roster for two years, and left in 1996 before Portland became a mish-mashed mess.

Then in 1997, he joined an even worse mess in the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors, at this time (and still are) owned by a penny-pinching, hands off owner who cares about nothing but making a profit, Chris Cohan. His incompetance, basically, was the main reason the Warriors missed the playoffs for 13 years.

On top of that, they were lead by what Warriors fans like to call "the Worst GM in sports", Garry St. Jean. Garrys basic strategy for building a basketball team was combining young prospects with seasoned veterans, so that they could learn from each other. Sounds good, right? Not when executed so horribly. Firstly, his drafting abilities were as good as John Blakes coaching abilities. He drafted Todd Fuller over Kobe Bryant, Peja Stojakovic, Steve Nash, and Jermaine O'Neal. He traded Vince Carter for Antawn Jamison. Often, he ould trade for players in the very end of their careers, like John Starks and Mookie Blaylock who would serve to hurt the team more than help them.

P.J. drafting the greatest player of all time, Adonal Foyle.

In 1997, the team was dismal, basically serving as a pit stop for older NBA Stars and younger NBA prospects before both varieties moved on to greener pastures. For example, the pre-season starting lineup on NBA Live 98 (Carlesimos first year) read as so (for everyones information, this was the team that got me interested in basketball as a kid):
C- Erick Dampier - Hadn't developed yet
PF- Joe Smith - Just as he came into his own, he was traded
SF- Donyell Marshall- Ditto to the above
SG- Latrell Sprewell- In his prime, but had a temper
PG- Mark Price- Used to be on some great Cavalier teams, but his career was just about over.

Needless to say, his work was cut out for Blogger: Blue Blitz: News and Editorials on the Oklahoma City Thunder - Create Posthim. He had a disgruntled star and a bunch of guys who were not above role player status. The record of this team was dismal, and one day, Latrell had had it.

The legend goes like so. Practice is going as normal, and the team is doing drills. Latrell had just made a soft pass.

When yelling the infamous line, P.J. was no doubt using this powerful "double handed shouting" technique.

PJ: Put a little mustard on that pass!

Latrell: I'm telling you, coach, I'm not in the mood for this right now. Don't come towrds me!

*PJ approaches him*

Sprewell then threatened to kill him and dragged him to the ground by his throat, choking him for 10-15 seconds before his teammates pulled Sprewell off his coach.

15-20 minutes later, Latrell came back to practice and attacked PJ before leaving again. During this attack, he threatened to kill him.

P.J. post-confrontation. Ouch, don't mess with Spree.

Sprewell was suspended for an entire season, and Carlesimo was never looked at in the same light again. Most Warriors fans think of this as the dark days of the franchise. Indeed, when Matt Steinmetz (Warriors sideline reporter) was asked what his worst moment covering the Warriors was, he responded with the incident.

When asked about it later in a 60 minutes interview, Sprewell said, "I wasn't choking P.J. that hard, I mean, he could breathe.

With his star gone, the situation only got worse for Carlesimo. The team finished 19-63, and Carlesimo became notorious for giving heave minutes "worthless" big men, such as Erick Dampier, Adonal Foyle, Chris Mills, and Jason Caffey.

The next season there was a glimmer of hope for Carlesimo. He had just gotten a nice rookie star in Antawn Jamison. The NBA had just witnessed a player lockout and the retirement of Michael Jordan. Many of the teams were bad. So, he managed to pull off a 21-29 record with a lineup of Bimbo Coles, John Starks, Chris Mills, Jason Caffey, and Erick Dampier. The shortened season benefited the team, as younger team generally tend to fizzle out late in the season.

The shadow forever haunts him....

Sadly for Carlesimo, this highered expectations for next season. His team quickly fell to 6-21 and he was just as quickly ousted from his job. With a bad reputation following him and 2 relatively bad coaching stints, nobody in the NBA wanted to hire him.

After his stint in Oakland, P.J. went on to persue other career options. Like Gardening!

And house....making.

So, starting in 2002, he spent 5 years as assistant coach of the San Antonio Spurs under Gregg Popovich. Here, he let things cool down and got to play all of the big men that he wanted to.

Eventually, the SuperSonics hired him in 2007, and you should know the rest of the story. They traded Ray Allen and most of their previously built team so that they could build around Durant, and they finished 20-62.

And now, you know the story of Coach P.J. Carlesimo. Next up: Sam Presti.

Okay, one last picture.

Head2Head!

An Encounter with P.J. Carlesimo, BBJ, and more

As you all know, Zorgon was on the field reporting for us at Leadership Square. As you also know, he attended the press conference wearing an old Seattle Supersonics jersey. After the epic and now infamous unveiling of the logo, Zorgon bumped into the Thunder's head coach, P.J. Carlesimo...

Here is how it went down (paraphraded, again):
P.J.: (Pat on back) We need to get you a number 35 jersey
Zorgon: (not knowing who it was) Oh, yeah.
P.J.: (Walking away)
Zorgon: (now realizing who it was) Oh, hey, I loved you when you coached for the Warriors!
P.J.: Thanks.

Also, Zorgon had the priviledge of speaking briefly with Channel 4's Bob Barry Jr...
BBJ: I'm lovin the jersey, I'm tellin' you.
Zorgon: Yeah, thanks.

Zorgon was also interviewd briefly by the Oklahoman, "a guy with a moustache" according for Zorgon, so be on the look-out for that.

Apparently a lot of people are walking around with OKC logo shirts now, kind of like those "Oklahoma City" shirts people were wearing per-logo, or so I hear.

Durant a Sure Bet for London 2012?

The United State's highly publicized "Redeem Team" recently was able to live up to their hype and grab a much anticipated gold, defeating Spain 118-107. It was the first time Team USA had been challenged in a game as late as the fourth quarter, however, stars Dwyane Wade and Kobe Bryant were able to produce clutch plays to cement the team's goal. The point of this post though is not to report on how the Redeem Team fulfilled their own prophecy or how a certain other blogger could have been wrong about some of his predictions, but actually it concerns recent comments about OKC star Kevin Durant's chances at the 2012 Olympic Team.

In today's Sunday Oklahoman, P.J. Carlesimo who was also the coach for the Team USA Select Team, said that he didn't "think that there was any question" about Durant's chances at making the next Olympic team. Also, according to the article, it says that Durant only didn't make the cut for this Olympic team because of his age and lack of experience. Apparently, all the Team USA coaches were very impressed by Durants game.

It's probably for the better that Durant wasn't on this year's Olympic squad. He fills the scorer niche, and on this most recent version of the U.S. Dream Team, that niche was not just full but overflowing. Not to say that that won't be the case for the upcoming team or the next 20 versions of Team USA, but a Kevin Durant 4 years from now could potentially be just as valued as any of the members of the 4-headed monster of Bryant-James-Wade-Anthony were this year.

As for the 2012 games themselves, basketball looks like it will be very interesting. Some teams, like Argentina, look as if they won't be as good as they were the past decade. However, with China's game developing and the fact that the U.K. seemingly has gotten commitments from natives Ben Gordon and Luol Deng for their national team, we could have new powers in the works...