I want somewhere to rant, so I'll do it here because this place used to rip Scott Brooks. OKC won tonight and competed, but holy crap, that was reprehensible basketball there at the end. How can a team be this stupid? How can an organization fail so hard to find smart coaching for them? They stuck with Brooks for too long and then found Donovan, a rookie coach. There are still too many possessions that end with someone panicking and throwing the ball to Westbrook, who then launches three pointers he isn't even good at. They completely lost Danny Green twice in a row when they were up eight to allow wide open three pointers. Worst of all was this ending sequence:
-Up 4, Lamarcus gets the ball with Ibaka right on him. LMA has been on fire this series and has hit a couple of threes in it, but the fact remains that he was 0-16 during the regular season. You GLADLY let him take a contested three at that point of the game. Nope, Ibaka goes for a pump fake and fouls him, letting an 86% FT shooter shoot freebies. Yeah, that made sense.
-When LMA hits all three free throws, the Thunder could have looked to quickly inbound before the Spurs were ready in order to get the ball to Durant or Westbrook. With one TO left, they at least could have looked to see if they could catch the Spurs off guard (who looked ready to just wander back to their bench) before calling their timeout if they really needed it. Granted, that allows traps in the back court, but I think the benefits of getting the ball to your best players (and best FT shooters) mitigates that risk a bit. Instead, they quickly use their last timeout to advance the ball.
-Predictably, San Antonio hounds most of the options on the inbounds play, and OKC has no timeouts. Durant is briefly open but Waiters ignores him and then launches a horrific prayer to half court to Ibaka. The referees swallow their whistles (as common in such situations), and the Spurs come out of scrum with the ball. What follows is about 10 incredibly tense seconds of the Spurs looking to get a shot with OKC nursing a one point lead. Luckily, the Spurs don't end up with a great look because they have no TO's themselves, and the Thunder win.
That kind of stupidity from an NBA team floors me, and they were very close to having a similar meltdown like they did against Golden State in the regular season. The fact that I'm not that surprised that the Thunder would do such blockheaded things says a lot about their collective basketball IQ. I am not going for either team; I have great respect for the Spurs, love to see LMA playing well, and am obviously a big Durant fan, but that kind of idiotic basketball aggravates me to no end. That's how a team that has two of the top 7 players in the league didn't win 60 games.
Seriously, go to Golden State, Durant. Ugh.
