Nocioni ( B ) -- solid start and kept Durant under control in the early going, and fought his way to a couple of hoops on the other end. I don't think he was credited with any rebs or assists, in the first half, but was in on a lot of scrapping plays and was forcing Durant out on the floor to shoot jumpers, and low percentage jumpers at that. Began the 3rd by poking the ball away from Durant again, but he couldn't contain him for long, and in the final 17 minutes of the game Durant exploded for 25 points, including a three to bring the Thunder within 1, and almost another to tie it at the buzzer. Noc did come up with a big 4pt play of his own in the 4th to break a tied game, and helped on the defensive glass, but obviously things were pretty one sided late and Noc wasn't much of a factor in there down the stretch. Was going to stick with a "+" here for both solid numbers himself (16pts 5rebs on 6-12 shooting) as well as the tough early defense, but in the end just could not justify it in the face of the late Durant fireworks (not all of which were against Noc though).
Thompson ( B+ ) -- Jason continues to be a confusing guy to grade, as rarely has a guy put up such big numbers while looking so bad. 21-14 are great numbers for a big...but the slop just drips sometimes with him. I had few notes on him in the first half, other than that he picked up his first foul on a dead ball off a FT, and that he got victimized once by Green's outside game as he was late coming out to challenge a three. But mostly he just did his work in there and quietly worked his way up to solid numbers by the half. Started off the third making a nice play hustling back to poke a ball away from behind on a Thunder break, but then started a long and very frustrating string of blown layups, fumbled catches, and bad footwork resulting in missed chippee after missed chippee. Missed a pair of follows off a good Hawes feed, missing no fewer than four tips in a row to begin the third, before finally stepping into the corner and splashing in a jumper courtesy of Reke. Continued to show no touch whatsoever, but got to the foul line, picking up 4 FTs in the late third on questionable foul calls out on the perimeter, and on the night shot a very steady 9-10 from the stripe. Picked up a a 24 second violation at the 6:00 mark of the 4th where he just should have shot the ball but got totally lost, and late in the game made a series of turnovers and near turnovers on attempted entry passes from the elbow to Hawes and Evans, throwing them out of reach, or more problematically to the guys in the other uniforms. Got into foul trouble late, but played most of the game before it was any factor. Came up with a big block in the final minutes, but also threw another bad pass up top with inside of a minute to go -- went over Casspi's head for a Thunder breakaway to slice the lead back to 4. Normally so much fugliness would result in a fugly grade, but the tough thing about Jason is that he may have no touch, he may play too fast, he may look clueless at times, but he's like an overeager puppy dog and as soon as he makes a mistake he'll go into hyperdrive (or given the fact that he's always hyper, maybe hyper-hyperdrive) trying to make up for it. So yeah, he blows layup after layup, but he'll thrash around in there trying to get it back..so he can blow another layup. And yeah, he'll make bad turnovers...but he's the first one hustling back to cut off the opposition. And so yeah, there was all kinds of mess here, but in the end, mess or no, he hustled and banged and ran around like a chicken with his head cut off to the tune of 21pts and 14rebs, leading a charge on the glass on a night when we pummeled our opponent's there, and so messy or not, it was a pretty good bigman performance.
Hawes ( B- ) -- well, started this one off in a way guaranteed to pee off a significant chunk of the fanbase -- and yes, if you watched this game you know exactly what I am talikng about. Came out and chucked up a three, then another three, got a fastbreak hoop, and then chucked up yet another three. Flutter indeed. Would have been bad enough if he was making them, but no, we had Brian Cook on our team on a bad night and he bricked all three of them. If the game had been stopped at that point I would not have given him an F, I would have given him an S, for "Screw You Weenieboy." Maybe the scariest part was that at least one of them looked like it may have been designed, with Reke knowing exactly where he was going to be standing and kicking it to him. And yet as you may have noted at the beginning of this grade he earned neither an F nor an S for the game. He settled in, got off the 3pt line, at least by a foot or two, and began to play basketball. Had a ncie open court block on Krstic from behind -- one of 4 blocks he came up with on the night. He was decent on the glass, battling fellow non-board masher Krstic to an 8 to 8 draw, and hisoffense was mostly kept simple. Rather than chuck threes, he up faked and drove. He got several hoops courtesy of Reke and maybe Thompson on cuts to the basket. What he did not do, not even once that I can think of, was go at anybody in the post. All those post moves = going to waste. That's us not using him. That's also him being Flutter and running away to the 3pt line. Made a nice pass from the 3pt line to a flying Omri for a layiup in the early 4th (don't ask what he was doing back out there). And had one more long bricked jumper that I thogut was a 4th three, but the box says must have been a two, that was maybe ok as it was up against the shotclock. This three point nonsense si just that -- he's 0-8 now this season -- and a center who chucks up more 3ptrs than he shoots FTs is pretty pathetic. But once he got the worst of it out of his system, he settled in for a decent game with a few scattered highlights, if not much impact. Decent support player on the night, but if he's not going to work Nenad Krstic inside, which NBA center was he planning on lighting up in there?
Udrih ( B- ) -- Beno remains a bit of a mystery man for this team -- what is keying his revival? What makes him tick? And a fairly mysterious performance here isn't going to clarify things much. Started off this game absolutely on fire, confidence just flowing out of him, clearly runnign the point and jsut racing down court to kick a little OKC *** -- think the Thunder were so focused on Evans they forgot about Beno and Beno responded by driving the ball down their thorat and dominating early play with both the shot and the pass. Think he had 6 of our first 8 points, and he had the asssist on the other basket. But like many things Beno, just as mysteriously faded back into the woodwork. The Thunder called a timeout, during which they probably said "guard Beno" and that was just about that for the half. did have one more nifty assist, but otherwise next to no numbers. We also got a new piece to the Reke Havoc appropriate backcourt mate puzzle -- while Beno was on his early PG high, Reke was invisible. Pretty much did nothing at all and was just watching the show. And then Beno passed the baton and Reke started doing his Reke thing as a PG, and for the most part Beno was just watching the show. So having a pure PG next to Reke may not be the way to go. And actually Beno may not have been that excited about it either -- in the third quarter seemed to be talking to Tyreke alot in while not being involved himself. On a number of occassionas looked liek he wanted the ball, but Tyreke ignored him and ran a play himself. And when Beno did get the ball back, for the most part during the long stretches Reke had ot miss because of foul trouble, Beno was often forcing. At the end of third he did kick the ball to Casspi for an open three, but then when the Thunder turned it over to unexpectedly give us one last chance, Beno came back and threw a bad pass on the break out ahead of Donte, who wasn't lookign for it, and somewhat troublingly did his riase his arms + blame the ohter guy thing,. Dared to stick his nose in there on the offensive glass in the early 4th and got punished for it by Green -- looked like an elbow and then a follow to the face. Airballed an open three look at the 3:00 mark. Made a bad decision with less than 20 seconds to go, rather than running clock, feeding it ahead to Casspi who got fouled...except Casspi has not shown he can a FT yet, and missed both. Gotta know those things as a PG. Kept this at a B- because of the matchup wiht Westbrook -- and that was the matchup tonight -- the Thunder put big defensive specialist Thabo Sefalosha on Reke, and had Westbrook guard Beno (who is a PG afterall), and we followed suit on the other end of the court, probably to try to keep Reke out of foul toruble (did not work). Well, on the ngiht Westbrook was no factor at all (9pts 6ast 5rebs on 3-13FG), and while you would have to be nuttier than a Slovenian fruitcake to attribute all of that to Beno, fact is he pretty much outplayed him head to head.
Thompson ( B+ ) -- Jason continues to be a confusing guy to grade, as rarely has a guy put up such big numbers while looking so bad. 21-14 are great numbers for a big...but the slop just drips sometimes with him. I had few notes on him in the first half, other than that he picked up his first foul on a dead ball off a FT, and that he got victimized once by Green's outside game as he was late coming out to challenge a three. But mostly he just did his work in there and quietly worked his way up to solid numbers by the half. Started off the third making a nice play hustling back to poke a ball away from behind on a Thunder break, but then started a long and very frustrating string of blown layups, fumbled catches, and bad footwork resulting in missed chippee after missed chippee. Missed a pair of follows off a good Hawes feed, missing no fewer than four tips in a row to begin the third, before finally stepping into the corner and splashing in a jumper courtesy of Reke. Continued to show no touch whatsoever, but got to the foul line, picking up 4 FTs in the late third on questionable foul calls out on the perimeter, and on the night shot a very steady 9-10 from the stripe. Picked up a a 24 second violation at the 6:00 mark of the 4th where he just should have shot the ball but got totally lost, and late in the game made a series of turnovers and near turnovers on attempted entry passes from the elbow to Hawes and Evans, throwing them out of reach, or more problematically to the guys in the other uniforms. Got into foul trouble late, but played most of the game before it was any factor. Came up with a big block in the final minutes, but also threw another bad pass up top with inside of a minute to go -- went over Casspi's head for a Thunder breakaway to slice the lead back to 4. Normally so much fugliness would result in a fugly grade, but the tough thing about Jason is that he may have no touch, he may play too fast, he may look clueless at times, but he's like an overeager puppy dog and as soon as he makes a mistake he'll go into hyperdrive (or given the fact that he's always hyper, maybe hyper-hyperdrive) trying to make up for it. So yeah, he blows layup after layup, but he'll thrash around in there trying to get it back..so he can blow another layup. And yeah, he'll make bad turnovers...but he's the first one hustling back to cut off the opposition. And so yeah, there was all kinds of mess here, but in the end, mess or no, he hustled and banged and ran around like a chicken with his head cut off to the tune of 21pts and 14rebs, leading a charge on the glass on a night when we pummeled our opponent's there, and so messy or not, it was a pretty good bigman performance.
Hawes ( B- ) -- well, started this one off in a way guaranteed to pee off a significant chunk of the fanbase -- and yes, if you watched this game you know exactly what I am talikng about. Came out and chucked up a three, then another three, got a fastbreak hoop, and then chucked up yet another three. Flutter indeed. Would have been bad enough if he was making them, but no, we had Brian Cook on our team on a bad night and he bricked all three of them. If the game had been stopped at that point I would not have given him an F, I would have given him an S, for "Screw You Weenieboy." Maybe the scariest part was that at least one of them looked like it may have been designed, with Reke knowing exactly where he was going to be standing and kicking it to him. And yet as you may have noted at the beginning of this grade he earned neither an F nor an S for the game. He settled in, got off the 3pt line, at least by a foot or two, and began to play basketball. Had a ncie open court block on Krstic from behind -- one of 4 blocks he came up with on the night. He was decent on the glass, battling fellow non-board masher Krstic to an 8 to 8 draw, and hisoffense was mostly kept simple. Rather than chuck threes, he up faked and drove. He got several hoops courtesy of Reke and maybe Thompson on cuts to the basket. What he did not do, not even once that I can think of, was go at anybody in the post. All those post moves = going to waste. That's us not using him. That's also him being Flutter and running away to the 3pt line. Made a nice pass from the 3pt line to a flying Omri for a layiup in the early 4th (don't ask what he was doing back out there). And had one more long bricked jumper that I thogut was a 4th three, but the box says must have been a two, that was maybe ok as it was up against the shotclock. This three point nonsense si just that -- he's 0-8 now this season -- and a center who chucks up more 3ptrs than he shoots FTs is pretty pathetic. But once he got the worst of it out of his system, he settled in for a decent game with a few scattered highlights, if not much impact. Decent support player on the night, but if he's not going to work Nenad Krstic inside, which NBA center was he planning on lighting up in there?
Udrih ( B- ) -- Beno remains a bit of a mystery man for this team -- what is keying his revival? What makes him tick? And a fairly mysterious performance here isn't going to clarify things much. Started off this game absolutely on fire, confidence just flowing out of him, clearly runnign the point and jsut racing down court to kick a little OKC *** -- think the Thunder were so focused on Evans they forgot about Beno and Beno responded by driving the ball down their thorat and dominating early play with both the shot and the pass. Think he had 6 of our first 8 points, and he had the asssist on the other basket. But like many things Beno, just as mysteriously faded back into the woodwork. The Thunder called a timeout, during which they probably said "guard Beno" and that was just about that for the half. did have one more nifty assist, but otherwise next to no numbers. We also got a new piece to the Reke Havoc appropriate backcourt mate puzzle -- while Beno was on his early PG high, Reke was invisible. Pretty much did nothing at all and was just watching the show. And then Beno passed the baton and Reke started doing his Reke thing as a PG, and for the most part Beno was just watching the show. So having a pure PG next to Reke may not be the way to go. And actually Beno may not have been that excited about it either -- in the third quarter seemed to be talking to Tyreke alot in while not being involved himself. On a number of occassionas looked liek he wanted the ball, but Tyreke ignored him and ran a play himself. And when Beno did get the ball back, for the most part during the long stretches Reke had ot miss because of foul trouble, Beno was often forcing. At the end of third he did kick the ball to Casspi for an open three, but then when the Thunder turned it over to unexpectedly give us one last chance, Beno came back and threw a bad pass on the break out ahead of Donte, who wasn't lookign for it, and somewhat troublingly did his riase his arms + blame the ohter guy thing,. Dared to stick his nose in there on the offensive glass in the early 4th and got punished for it by Green -- looked like an elbow and then a follow to the face. Airballed an open three look at the 3:00 mark. Made a bad decision with less than 20 seconds to go, rather than running clock, feeding it ahead to Casspi who got fouled...except Casspi has not shown he can a FT yet, and missed both. Gotta know those things as a PG. Kept this at a B- because of the matchup wiht Westbrook -- and that was the matchup tonight -- the Thunder put big defensive specialist Thabo Sefalosha on Reke, and had Westbrook guard Beno (who is a PG afterall), and we followed suit on the other end of the court, probably to try to keep Reke out of foul toruble (did not work). Well, on the ngiht Westbrook was no factor at all (9pts 6ast 5rebs on 3-13FG), and while you would have to be nuttier than a Slovenian fruitcake to attribute all of that to Beno, fact is he pretty much outplayed him head to head.
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). And truth be told I have a sneaking suspicion that as things go along we're going to find out that's true, that this is his B game, or even B- game. But the last King to be able to put up 20-8-8 and get B- type grades was a near HOFer with a big smile and a supermodel for a girlfriend, and Reke isn't quite there yet. Yet. Was turned into a spectator in the early going by the Beno express and took his first break with almost no numbers of any kind. But upon returning and being given the greenlight with the ball it was a whole different story -- a recurring pattern actually. Wonder if he is a guy who just feels his way into games and then cranks it up after getting comfortable? Of course being guarded by Kevin Ollie for a brief stint helped -- immediately established good post position and went at him, but blew the layup -- would be a gamelong pattern as the finishing problems reemerged for the evening. Then just killed Ollie off the dribble and chased him from the game. Grabbed a defensive board and made the running fullcourt pass to Greene for the big dunk and it was that same tantalizing package of do everything skills on display out there. But this time out it was always mixed with a bit of slop, and the game felt more like the game of a talented rooke than the polished gem he threw at Deron. Turned it over to close the first when he thought it was a foul up top and hit the ground. Hit a nifty jumper against the clock, but Harden drew an offensive foul on him a few plays later when he got out of control on the speed break. Came back to just knife through the defense again for the layup and force a Thunder timeout. One good play, one force for much of the night. Got a breather then came back in for a third stint in the second quarter and immediately racked up three assists to Noc, Jason, and Spencer and looked as sharp in the PG skills areas as he has all season. Pulled the Kobe at the end of the second quarter, waving Hawes out of his way in the post so he could iso and blow by Sefalosha (after struggling a bit against Sefalosha's size in the early going -- another clue to the appropriate Reke backcourt partner -- somebody fullsized as an OG so the opponent can't just hide their PG on our "OG" like they did tonight. Ideally you want the opposing PG to have to guard Reke so he can pummel them. Tonight they hid Westbrook on Beno.) Got a little one on one selfish in the early third, missed some layups, and forced some things right into the teeth of the defense. Along the way Sefalaosha was the first guy thus far this season who looked like he could harass him, and came up with 3 steals and 4 blocks (which might be career highs -- Thabo is a defensive specialist, but he's never been a dominant defender and this might have been his career defensive game). When Reke returned for the 4th both Thompson and Donte were unable to convert on his passes, and then critically he picked up a quick 5th foul forcing us to rely on Beno down the stretch. Tried too hard to work the post in the final minutes of the 4th -- kept resulting in forced shots. But he was hustling on the glass and defensively -- especially loves to hit the defensive glass along the baseline and then race up fullcourt with the ball -- and all the offensive pressure was resulting in numerous trips to the line. Hit two clutch FTs with 3.5 seconds to go after Durant had hit a three to make the margin one, and while he still lacks the expereince and is forcing things, you can see already he has the potential to be one of those guys with absolutely no fear at the end of games.
