Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat

Could we actually be tanking? Typically, with 1 or 2 exceptions every year all the tanking talk around the league is just softbrained hogwash. Its like black helicopters sent by the U.N. on behest of the Illuminati. You don't understand something, so you buy into the first stupid story that passes on by. But I don't know, our player usage of late here has been decidedly odd. Smart's usage is always odd, but its gotten even worse of late. Nothign he does makes one lick of sense. There is not another coach in the entire NBA who would be subbing guys like this, making these lineup decisions.
Its probably just because our coach is better than all those other guys.
Tonight we ignored our most efficient player for 2/3 of the game, benched and completely DNPed the most logical matchup for Durant, randomly subbed Cousins out in the final 5 minutes just long enough to wrap up the loss, and it even caught little IT, the mighty "Hustlin' Husky" (who btw got compared to Steve Nash and John Stockton tonight, and who also, wait for it, leads all rookies in assists since March 16th! March 16th!? Sigh.), when he found himself abruptly benched for nearly the entire 4th quarter and didn't get i until less than a minute was left. I do wonder how many more wins we might have if we had a real experienced winning coach (not an old washed up retread). 'Course that's only important if we are actually trying to win...
BTW, we played hard. Any specualtions about anything do not involve the players. We did not quit this time. Never really threatened after half, but hung aorund and fought for things.
Boxscore
Outlaw ( F ) -- drew the Durant duty to start after Smart clearly came home and caught Donte hiding under the bed again (what a horndog). Outlaw was backed right down by Durant to start, which is kind of embarrassing given Durant's stringbeanness. Responded with a series of bricks and airballs in a worthless offensive performance. He actually made a few defensive plays, but let me copy paste from a post I made a few posts down to explain this grade:
Travis Outlaw:
27min 1pt (0-6FG 1-2FT) 4reb 0ast
Kevin Durant:
38min 29pts (9-15FG 9-10FT) 14reb 7ast
Thompson ( B ) -- strong on the d-boards to start, and was being found repeatedly by Rekw for easy shots. But he also quickly got into foul toruble, picking up his 2nd with a fingertip foul on Durant that Durant barely survived. Came into the game in the second and just attacked offensively, and looked good doing so. The Thunder were loading up on Cousins, and did not consider Jason any kind of threat -- of course when they changed their mind about that, Jason's percentages plummetted. Got a couple of blocks against Ibaka which would be a great way to thumb his nose at our personal torturer if Ibaka has not blocked another EIGHT against us. EIGHT. That means in three games he has blocked TWENTY FIVE shtos against us. And I am dead serios when I saw that could very well be an All Time NBA record for a three game stretch against one opponent. That's over 8 a game. Most on peeps other than Jason though, and not a factor in his grade.
Cousins ( C- ) -- entered this game wqith an all too obvious edge to him after what happenrd last time. I say all too obvious, because again the Thunder were waiting for him in there. Was going up for a big early dunk...and this time got stripped by Durant not Ibaka. Several bad pass turnovers. Went up and thought he would get some revenge on Ibaka with a big swat, but it was goaltending. Forcing and playing too fast and dumb early and it was hurting us. Just chucking up garbage in there, and shot something like 3-14 in the first half. Nor was he rebounding as he got caught in one of those emotional loops, where he was deteremined to score, got frutstrated, which made it less likely he was going to score, which frustrated him further...and along the way he was forgetting everything else. Lack fo focus might have explianed him missing his FTs as well. Really should have been pulled ot cool off I think, probably about the time when he got another frustration foul. More in control to start the second half, and started to have better results because of it. Unfortunately did start to get wild again as he thrid wore on qnd things got heated, but a little time over on the bench calmed him again. Brought him back relatively early in the 4th, and nice power move to start. Mysteriuosly pulled for a chunk of the final minues resulting in us getting killed on the boards. Much more in control second half than first half, but the first half was a mess and if he's going to be our main guy going forward he just has to be steadier than that.
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