They’ve lost Scola, Hibbert, and West this offseason, but they’ve added Rodney Stuckey and Monta Ellis.
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“No normal defender does that-not while trailing a ball-handler, not against a 6’10” opponent and certainly not against an MVP and scoring champ as unstoppable as Durant.
“The youth is extremely evident with this team and the growth and progress of their play is going to be key to their success this year”.
But on this night? During 2014-15, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook combined to only play in 94 total games. Donovan has already won over the locker room and his stars (Durant and Westbrook), both of which are usually a precursor to winning. Consider his insane haul of 11 triple-doubles last season-and these weren’t triple-doubles of the 10-10-10 variety.
Is it Tim Duncan or Tony Parker?
Leonard forced Durant to think about every dribble, pursued him around screens and coaxed more than a few awkward, uncomfortable shot attempts. For context, Dirk Nowitzki attempted 1,062 shots in 77 games last season; he made 46 percent of them.
“I was really struggling”, he admitted. While he won’t be absorbing the entirety of the offense as he did during last year’s Finals-where it seemed as though for much of the game he was playing one-on-team-injuries to Iman Shumpert and Kyrie Irving will force LeBron to be more offensively decisive than he hoped to be during the regular season.
Kawhi Leonard scored a career-high 32 points and grabbed eight rebounds for the Spurs.
Aldridge, making his debut with the Spurs, shot 4/12 from the field and collected only five rebounds. “He’s worked on that a lot”. But, given the well-established pedigree of Celtics head coach Brad Stevens as one of the best in the league, I give Boston the edge.
Considering how skilled of a scorer Aldridge is, the Thunder did a tremendous job against him in 1 on 1 situations today.
The San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder will tip off their seasons in a matchup of two of the top contenders in the Western Conference on Wednesday night. I don’t think the bottom half of the playoff teams will be as good as past years, and I’m putting my money on 47 Suns wins and probably the eighth seed with that.
The mood has brightened considerably because of the arrival of Billy Donovan, and a deeper roster put together by GM Sam Presti, and of course the return to health by Durant. But if there was a contest going on for the best celebrity Halloween costume, it’s clear that Kevin Durant would be climbing the ranks. Jordan Hill was a good acquisition, but rookie Myles Turner will need a few time to adjust in order to be truly effective. And so do the Spurs. He finished with 11 points in 31 minutes and was shut down by Serge Ibaka. “LaMarcus wants to get comfortable in the system, which he will be”.
Forget the nerves and poor shooting-Donovan should have applauded Durant for not curling into the fetal position and giving in against Leonard’s relentless hounding.
That wasn’t even a loss as much as it was Gregg Popovich making a ritual sacrifice to the basketball gods.
“He was great, aggressive all night”, said Durant.
Westbrook took a whopping 22 shots per game last season, by far the most in the league. “I’m able to curate a lot of attention”.
Myles: I would literally rather see any other team slotted here than Atlanta.
With so much money expected on the market next year, many basketball observers will be watching for players who might be trying to pad stats, boost personal resumes and perhaps play for next year’s contract rather than this year’s team. Is this the year?
And so, Oklahoma City can bemoan its recent and unusual rash of injuries and how they conspired to ruin big plans – and do so with plenty of justification – and the rest of the league merely shrugs. And the “little thing” is quite obvious.
By my count, only two teams that made the playoffs in the West last year have gotten worse (Portland and Dallas); the other playoff teams from last year have undergone slight to drastic improvements.
What’s bad: It’s hard to see how all these parts are going to fit together into a functional whole.
-Thunder plays the Magic in Orlando on Friday at 6 p.m.
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“I was very pleased that our guys just kept their composure”, Donovan said, reports ESPN. Everyone knows what he’s capable of doing, and what the Thunder are capable of doing, when everything is right, which it hasn’t been since 2012.
