Latest / Kenny For Real / The OKC Thunder Dominate In Game 7
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The OKC Thunder just dominated a Game seven and they
- 0:03Speaker 1: are on their way to the conference finals. Will they
- 0:06Speaker 1: be ready for the moment? Was the main question? Will
- 0:08Speaker 1: they be ready for the moment? We talked about Nakole
- 0:11Speaker 1: Yoakins going into his seventh Game seven. They just put
- 0:13Speaker 1: away a team last series, the Clippers see that is
- 0:16Speaker 1: will coaching, will orchestrated team dominated them in the game seven.
- 0:19Speaker 2: Jamal Murray in his sixth Game seven.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Will the OKC Thunder be ready or will that youth
- 0:24Speaker 1: play a part one of the youngest teams of basketball,
- 0:27Speaker 1: the youngest team left in the playoffs.
- 0:29Speaker 2: Will they be ready? The answer is yes hoo.
- 0:32Speaker 1: The answer was yes, And I don't wanna act like
- 0:35Speaker 1: things are all said have done. They got a very
- 0:36Speaker 1: well rested and a very good Minnesota Tembulls teams just
- 0:39Speaker 1: waiting until game number one. But this game feels like
- 0:43Speaker 1: a very important moment in this OKAC Thunder's core, and
- 0:46Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about that a little bit later. Earlier
- 0:48Speaker 1: in this game, it did not look like okay See
- 0:50Speaker 1: was ready for the moment. They were passing up really
- 0:53Speaker 1: really good looks for way worse looks, and the Denver
- 0:55Speaker 1: Nuggets came out very calm, very collected, and they looked
- 0:59Speaker 1: like they were gonna win up by double digits very
- 1:01Speaker 1: early on in this game, like oh, here we go.
- 1:03Speaker 1: The diver Nuggets always find a way to win. And
- 1:05Speaker 1: then something happen. And I don't want to attribute this
- 1:07Speaker 1: entire win or this higher loss on this one moment.
- 1:11Speaker 1: But to start the second quarter, Adamman decided to run
- 1:16Speaker 1: a lineup that had no Jamal Murray in no La Kolokics,
- 1:20Speaker 1: and that lineup played a total of maybe a minute
- 1:22Speaker 1: in thirty seconds. But in that a minute in thirty seconds,
- 1:25Speaker 1: we saw the Thunder, who had closed out the first
- 1:28Speaker 1: quarter on like a four to oh or six to
- 1:29Speaker 1: oh run, turn that run into like a fourteen oh run,
- 1:32Speaker 1: and just like that, not only was this a closed game,
- 1:35Speaker 1: the okay see Thunder had the lead. And this was
- 1:38Speaker 1: something I mentioned before the playoffs even started. We're talking
- 1:41Speaker 1: about a month before, before Mike Malone was even fired,
- 1:45Speaker 1: that they were still running lineups and let me see
- 1:47Speaker 1: if I could find the tweet. They were still running
- 1:50Speaker 1: lineups without Jamal and without nikoliokicch this is a team
- 1:54Speaker 1: that does not have a ton of depth actually for
- 1:57Speaker 1: how good they've been. And again, they just took a
- 1:59Speaker 1: sixty eight win team, one of the best NATE rated teams,
- 2:01Speaker 1: one of the best offensive teams of all time regular
- 2:03Speaker 1: season wise, to a game seven. But with all of
- 2:05Speaker 1: that considered, they still don't have the adequate depth to
- 2:08Speaker 1: be able to hold their own if a if Nikola
- 2:11Speaker 1: Joki is not a court but definitely if Nikoli ookis
- 2:13Speaker 1: and Jamal Murray off the court.
- 2:15Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:15Speaker 1: I tweeted this Mark second twenty twenty five a reminder
- 2:19Speaker 1: that the Nuggets have a negative twenty three net rating
- 2:22Speaker 1: in lineups without Jamal Murray or Yokic. I don't know
- 2:24Speaker 1: why Malone puts these type of lineups out there. That
- 2:27Speaker 1: minus twenty three that was two months ago at this point,
- 2:30Speaker 1: that minus two three is now a minus thirty four
- 2:32Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, And I don't know how in
- 2:35Speaker 1: a game seven you run that lineup and we're talking
- 2:37Speaker 1: about a minute and a half stretch. Just a minute
- 2:38Speaker 1: and a half really changed the dynamicative seam on this
- 2:41Speaker 1: game because the crowd really got into it during his
- 2:44Speaker 1: run and they never really looked back. I thought Adaman
- 2:47Speaker 1: for what it was worth him having with three regular
- 2:49Speaker 1: season games under his belt. To come in and be
- 2:51Speaker 1: able to take this dominant OKC thunder team to seven
- 2:55Speaker 1: is amazing and he deserves to get like another contract
- 2:58Speaker 1: or be the not just an interim head coach, to
- 3:00Speaker 1: get a real contract, because I thought he was pretty
- 3:01Speaker 1: damn phenomenal, but.
- 3:02Speaker 2: That one stretch mattered a lot.
- 3:05Speaker 1: They also were going into this were one of their
- 3:08Speaker 1: most impactful players, mister nugget himself, Aaron Gordon was playing
- 3:12Speaker 1: basketball with one leg or basically he was going through
- 3:15Speaker 1: the injuries, and they said that he would need a month,
- 3:18Speaker 1: he would need a month to recover. And I'm thinking
- 3:20Speaker 1: about it, like, Okay, even if Jamal, even if Aeron
- 3:22Speaker 1: Gordon is not the best version himself, they still have
- 3:24Speaker 1: the best player in the world and they could still
- 3:25Speaker 1: win this game. And I'm thinking about, even if they
- 3:27Speaker 1: did win this game, what does that mean for the
- 3:28Speaker 1: next series? Were don't have to really worry about that,
- 3:30Speaker 1: but it is very trash from the Nuggets perspective that
- 3:35Speaker 1: Aeric Gordon is on one leg again, just on one leg,
- 3:38Speaker 1: and somehow he is still the third best player on the.
- 3:40Speaker 2: Court for them.
- 3:41Speaker 1: That don't even make no sense and Christian Brown saw
- 3:44Speaker 1: off this game so very well that I'm like, Okay,
- 3:46Speaker 1: this is gonna be the Christian Brown game. In the
- 3:48Speaker 1: game seven, he gonna light it up. He ended up
- 3:49Speaker 1: with nineteen. Nikoliokis ended up with twenty nine and seven.
- 3:53Speaker 1: The defense was just smothering him. There's no way Nikola
- 3:56Speaker 1: Jokish in the game with just nine shot attempts and
- 3:58Speaker 1: he ended up with twenty one free throw so those
- 4:00Speaker 1: kind of you know, I'm not twenty one, I'm sorry,
- 4:02Speaker 1: eleven free throw So that's kind of offset his overall
- 4:05Speaker 1: field gold attempts because realistically he maybe took I don't know,
- 4:09Speaker 1: fourteen field golds and then he got fouled to those
- 4:12Speaker 1: don't count.
- 4:12Speaker 2: But like Jamal Murray gave us a stinker.
- 4:15Speaker 1: Michael Porter junior man, this was rough, you know, other
- 4:19Speaker 1: than them having what game number one where he was
- 4:21Speaker 1: pretty damn good or was that last series? I'm starting
- 4:23Speaker 1: to mix things up that shoulder injury. They mentioned that
- 4:26Speaker 1: if it wasn't for it being in the playoffs, he
- 4:28Speaker 1: would be signed by for a few weeks himself. So
- 4:29Speaker 1: it's like again a war of attrition. Two of our
- 4:32Speaker 1: starters are dealing with ailing injuries, and I'm so surprised
- 4:35Speaker 1: that Aaron Gordon even gave it a chance. And he
- 4:37Speaker 1: wasn't awful today, but obviously he wasn't the guy that
- 4:39Speaker 1: they normally would would have in a situation like this. Also,
- 4:43Speaker 1: doing this stretch, when we were talking about when the
- 4:47Speaker 1: Nugget or the Nuggets went without Gilkic and Jamal Murray,
- 4:51Speaker 1: they put in Game six savior Julian Strather, and it
- 4:56Speaker 1: just looked really bad. It was a line up with Strather,
- 5:00Speaker 1: Brody and Peyton Watson, and I just don't know how
- 5:03Speaker 1: you play that lineup in a game seven. Now it
- 5:07Speaker 1: goes very so much deeper than that one stint. But
- 5:10Speaker 1: that is the one thing that I'll remember the most
- 5:11Speaker 1: from the Denver Nugget side of things of today. But
- 5:13Speaker 1: let's switch it over to the OKC Thunder because this
- 5:15Speaker 1: is a huge win for this Corps. Game six, actually
- 5:18Speaker 1: not just Game six, this entire series. Outside of that
- 5:21Speaker 1: one game where JDub had thirty He had shot the
- 5:23Speaker 1: ball so poorly, he was like thirty three percent from
- 5:25Speaker 1: the field, twenty four percent from three.
- 5:27Speaker 2: You know, the defense was always good.
- 5:29Speaker 1: Some of the playmaking the game number six was pretty
- 5:31Speaker 1: pretty damn dope, but they just needed him to step up,
- 5:34Speaker 1: and I thought that today he put together.
- 5:36Speaker 2: An amazing game.
- 5:38Speaker 1: It don't matter what happened in those four other games
- 5:41Speaker 1: or five of the games where he was he was
- 5:42Speaker 1: trash in this series because in this game seven, back
- 5:46Speaker 1: against the wall, against the wall. Sure, we'll say back
- 5:48Speaker 1: against the wall, he came through. But the weird real
- 5:52Speaker 1: MVP it is and not actual MVP. SHA's probably the MVP.
- 5:55Speaker 1: I don't know how to hell. We're in the conference finals,
- 5:57Speaker 1: but we don't know who the actual VP is. Regardless,
- 6:00Speaker 1: the real MVP of tonight Alex Carusso, Boy oh boy,
- 6:05Speaker 1: his final stat line, don't tell this is one of
- 6:08Speaker 1: the most impactful twenty six minutes I've ever seen. And
- 6:13Speaker 1: I watched Alex Carusso for two and a half years,
- 6:15Speaker 1: three years here in Chicago. Twenty six minutes, eleven points,
- 6:21Speaker 1: three assists, three steals. I swear to God, thought that
- 6:23Speaker 1: don't even come close to tell you the impact of
- 6:25Speaker 1: this man ahead on today's game. And you know, you
- 6:28Speaker 1: go back and look at the trade video, I'm like, okay, see, fans,
- 6:31Speaker 1: you're going to love Alex Carusso because after watching him
- 6:34Speaker 1: for years. There was legit game stretches where when he
- 6:38Speaker 1: played and with the Bulls, he looked like the only
- 6:41Speaker 1: player that cared, and you can tell that his mindset
- 6:45Speaker 1: was I'm gonna fly around, I'm not gonna be afraid,
- 6:47Speaker 1: and I am going to impact this game one way
- 6:49Speaker 1: or another. I think their first three point that they
- 6:52Speaker 1: made in this game was alicx Carusso hitting the three
- 6:55Speaker 1: point shot and that got things rolling a little bit
- 6:56Speaker 1: on their side of the ball. I want to clump
- 6:59Speaker 1: him and Hayson Wallace together because Cason Wallace got thirty
- 7:02Speaker 1: percent of the field, but again that don't tell the
- 7:04Speaker 1: story of what Cason Wallace provided. And for Cason Wallace
- 7:07Speaker 1: to be twenty two years old and to be this
- 7:09Speaker 1: damn impactful this early, it's just amazing that he is
- 7:13Speaker 1: a part of this court.
- 7:14Speaker 2: Man.
- 7:14Speaker 1: I can't I can't express it enough. He caught the
- 7:16Speaker 1: body on the kol Yokis. You'll see that forever. But
- 7:18Speaker 1: they are flying around and I made the tweet practice
- 7:23Speaker 1: your entry past his kids because the Denver Nuggets ended
- 7:27Speaker 1: up this game with twenty two turnovers and I cannot
- 7:29Speaker 1: wait until the footage is out there on NBA dot
- 7:31Speaker 1: com whare I can watch every single one of these
- 7:33Speaker 1: turnovers again, but so many of them are them just
- 7:36Speaker 1: trying to pass the ball to Nikola Jokic and them
- 7:39Speaker 1: not being able to do that, not having enough zip
- 7:43Speaker 1: lofting it up. And I thought that RJ and Doors
- 7:47Speaker 1: parked in an amazing job breaking down one plan specific
- 7:49Speaker 1: specifically where Jamal Murray is sitting in like the coffin
- 7:53Speaker 1: corner close to the half court line, two guys guarding him,
- 7:57Speaker 1: and they mentioned it like, there's only one guy he
- 8:00Speaker 1: can pass the ball to right now. His only outlet
- 8:03Speaker 1: from this situation is Nikola Jokic. And guess what, I
- 8:06Speaker 1: don't remember if if it was Caruso or it was Casing.
- 8:09Speaker 1: They just come in and rip the ball through and
- 8:11Speaker 1: take it for a fast break layup, slash dunk.
- 8:14Speaker 2: That happened time and time again.
- 8:16Speaker 1: And some of the Jokics turnovers were just him also
- 8:18Speaker 1: being pretty damn lazy with the ball. And it got
- 8:21Speaker 1: to the point where they were up like twenty or
- 8:22Speaker 1: down by like twenty seven or so, Jokics turned the
- 8:25Speaker 1: ball over and like.
- 8:26Speaker 2: One of them plays that was like a bang bang.
- 8:28Speaker 1: It could have been a foul or could have not
- 8:29Speaker 1: been a foul, and the Koliokis didn't even try to
- 8:32Speaker 1: talk to the referees, like he had accepted the fate,
- 8:34Speaker 1: that this is the way this team is gonna the
- 8:35Speaker 1: fan and we don't really have an answer for this
- 8:38Speaker 1: is another one in the performances that you say, Hey man,
- 8:41Speaker 1: the OKC Thunder in this regular season, relative to their competition,
- 8:45Speaker 1: was the best defensive team in the.
- 8:47Speaker 2: History of this sport.
- 8:48Speaker 1: You saw that today completely flying around, flying around, and
- 8:53Speaker 1: I thought that at one point they had almost sold
- 8:56Speaker 1: some of this game because for Aaron Gordon to be
- 8:58Speaker 1: out there again with one leg and them not put
- 9:01Speaker 1: him in every single action, and I was like, I
- 9:02Speaker 1: don't know what the hell is going on. Eventually they
- 9:03Speaker 1: start to pick it up and start to make him
- 9:05Speaker 1: work a little bit more.
- 9:06Speaker 2: But they got it done.
- 9:09Speaker 1: And now you think about it, like I saw a
- 9:12Speaker 1: lot of clips of people talking about like, okay, okay,
- 9:14Speaker 1: see might lose this game seven, and then what does
- 9:17Speaker 1: that mean for this core? Right when you think about
- 9:20Speaker 1: them having I don't know, seventeen first round picks and
- 9:23Speaker 1: them having all of these young guys between dub between chet,
- 9:26Speaker 1: between wigs, between case and between hell uj Man Zang,
- 9:30Speaker 1: between Isaiah Joe, I could keep going aj Mitchell like
- 9:34Speaker 1: like Dylan Jones. If they lose this game seven, do
- 9:39Speaker 1: they try to ramp up that timeline? And now you
- 9:42Speaker 1: ain't got to think about it. I mean, maybe you
- 9:43Speaker 1: think about it again in the conference finals of Minnesota
- 9:45Speaker 1: ends up winning, but you don't think about that anymore
- 9:47Speaker 1: because this was the most amount of adversity this team
- 9:50Speaker 1: has ever faced with this core. Last year, we question
- 9:52Speaker 1: will dub be ready, will they add some three point shooting?
- 9:55Speaker 1: Will they be able to rebound with the best of them?
- 9:56Speaker 1: Can they guard on the Kola Yokas? In the series
- 10:00Speaker 1: so far, they've answered those questions. Now again dub has
- 10:02Speaker 1: another series where they're gonna need him to be a
- 10:05Speaker 1: great number two again. But a lot of those conversations
- 10:08Speaker 1: die down as we get ready for this conference finals,
- 10:11Speaker 1: and I wonder if they win eight more games in
- 10:14Speaker 1: this postseason when we look back on this throughout this
- 10:19Speaker 1: OKC run like if they keep this core together for
- 10:21Speaker 1: the next ten years or not have them how long?
- 10:23Speaker 1: If we think about this game as like this is
- 10:25Speaker 1: where they figured it out, This is who they found out,
- 10:27Speaker 1: exactly who they were because this team was so good
- 10:30Speaker 1: in the regular season sixty eight win team. They didn't
- 10:32Speaker 1: play a ton of clutch performances, they didn't play a
- 10:35Speaker 1: lot of high leverage games, they didn't play a lot
- 10:37Speaker 1: like through a lot of adversity. They just dominated so
- 10:40Speaker 1: much that they didn't have to do anything but have
- 10:42Speaker 1: really cool postgame interviews, you know what I'm saying.
- 10:46Speaker 2: So they went.
- 10:46Speaker 1: Into a game six and loss, and they came out
- 10:50Speaker 1: to Game seven against a team with championship DNA granted
- 10:53Speaker 1: a beat up ass team in the championship DNA, and
- 10:55Speaker 1: spank that ass.
- 10:57Speaker 2: What did they learn? Maybe a lot?
- 10:59Speaker 1: Maybe as we think too much about this type of stuff,
- 11:02Speaker 1: But that's what I was doing watching this game. When
- 11:04Speaker 1: I'm watching Dub legitimately have an amazing, amazing performance. You
- 11:08Speaker 1: know how easy it is to get into your own
- 11:10Speaker 1: head after shooting thirty three percent from the field through
- 11:13Speaker 1: six games, twenty four percent from the three, and he said, nah,
- 11:17Speaker 1: I don't really care about that. I can do this,
- 11:20Speaker 1: and he did, and they are now eight games away,
- 11:24Speaker 1: eight wins away from a championship. Minnesota is a really
- 11:26Speaker 1: fucking good team, though, and they're gonna be rested and
- 11:30Speaker 1: I can't wait to dive into their games. I might
- 11:33Speaker 1: do that tonight because the game just ended at five o'clock.
- 11:36Speaker 1: What am I supposed to do for the rest of
- 11:37Speaker 1: the night. Yeah, man, this is an amazing, amazing series.
- 11:43Speaker 1: I think it's gonna go down as one of my
- 11:46Speaker 1: top five to ten series I've ever watched in my life.
- 11:51Speaker 1: It's gonna go down there because we got buzzer beater ducks,
- 11:55Speaker 1: we got takeovers from the best player in the world.
- 11:58Speaker 1: We got all time performances from role players like a
- 12:01Speaker 1: Julian Strather game. So yeah, this series was the best
- 12:06Speaker 1: series of the playoffs so far. Hopefully the conference finals
- 12:09Speaker 1: gives us some rough for our money and everything. But
- 12:12Speaker 1: the OKC thunder headed to the conference finals, and that
- 12:15Speaker 1: shouldn't be a surprise because they won sixty eight games
- 12:17Speaker 1: and they were that good. But a lot of people
- 12:20Speaker 1: still question this team. I had a conversation I think
- 12:24Speaker 1: I mentioned this on Small Ball a few months ago.
- 12:25Speaker 1: I had a conversation with an NBA player not to
- 12:27Speaker 1: be named, but he was seeing them like, we respect OKAC,
- 12:32Speaker 1: but nobody in the league looks at them as a
- 12:34Speaker 1: team that almost won seventy. Nobody's like, ooh, let's avoid
- 12:37Speaker 1: the OKAC thunder because we believe we can beat them.
- 12:39Speaker 2: And that's coming from an NBA player.
- 12:42Speaker 1: I told him, I think he might be a little crazy,
- 12:44Speaker 1: but he also is an NBA player and he needs
- 12:46Speaker 1: a type.
- 12:46Speaker 2: Of confidence.
- 12:50Speaker 1: Because Okay, she's that good and if they especially, they're
- 12:53Speaker 1: that good, if they especially if J Dubb.
- 12:55Speaker 2: Is playing like this, because the defense is gonna travel.
- 12:58Speaker 2: It always has.
- 12:59Speaker 1: Like, of course, no team was going to hold a
- 13:00Speaker 1: team to under one hundred every single game, but that
- 13:02Speaker 1: team is that nice defensively, and if they can hit
- 13:04Speaker 1: some jump shots or J. Dove could do this thing,
- 13:08Speaker 1: or they have some random role player elect electricity like
- 13:10Speaker 1: Caruso or Keeso Wallace, I just.
- 13:13Speaker 2: Think this is like the best team.
- 13:16Speaker 1: I even mentioned Shae having thirty five in a game seven.
- 13:20Speaker 2: I think that's good.
- 13:21Speaker 1: Like that might be like the sixth thing you want
- 13:23Speaker 1: to say about this series or this game specifically.
- 13:25Speaker 2: He was phenomenal tonight.
- 13:26Speaker 1: But I swear like you think about dub, you think
- 13:28Speaker 1: about Caruso, you think about Wallace, you think about the
- 13:31Speaker 1: bad coaching decision for that one stretch, He's like, oh yeah,
- 13:33Speaker 1: Shane did have.
- 13:34Speaker 2: Thirty five, didn't he?
- 13:35Speaker 1: Yeah, he did have thirty five on sixty two percent
- 13:38Speaker 1: shooting seventy eight or seventy six percent true shooting. Amazing game.
- 13:44Speaker 1: Zero turnovers. Wow, Okay, that's a lot. I can't wait
- 13:48Speaker 1: to get into watching this footage. It seems like they
- 13:51Speaker 1: had an overtime game. This was right before All Star break,
- 13:56Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. I like half remember watching this
- 13:58Speaker 1: when I was in San Francisco waiting for they all
- 14:00Speaker 1: start weekend to start, and this is like no.
- 14:03Speaker 2: Root to go bear.
- 14:04Speaker 1: So I try to do the same thing. I know
- 14:06Speaker 1: I'm rambling right now, but who cares. I try to
- 14:08Speaker 1: do the same thing with the Knicks versus Pacer series,
- 14:11Speaker 1: And I'm looking at these games like, well, Siaka didn't
- 14:15Speaker 1: play this game, OG didn't play this game.
- 14:18Speaker 2: How much can I really?
- 14:19Speaker 1: I guess I could watch schematically what they're gonna do,
- 14:21Speaker 1: but so many teams have opted to just do different
- 14:24Speaker 1: things in the postseason versus the regular season.
- 14:26Speaker 2: Maybe I shouldn't watch any film at all. I don't know.
- 14:29Speaker 1: Shout out to the thunder Man Game seven and I
- 14:32Speaker 1: truly do want to say this was an amazing amazing
- 14:35Speaker 1: run from the Dinner Nuggets.
- 14:36Speaker 2: All things to said.
- 14:37Speaker 1: To fire your coaches a couple of games left, fire
- 14:39Speaker 1: your general manager. You know your star point guard is
- 14:43Speaker 1: dealing with some type of sickness, mister nugget is dealing
- 14:46Speaker 1: with one leg being gone. And then your star shooter
- 14:49Speaker 1: if you want to call them, that has like a
- 14:52Speaker 1: football pad on the shoulder. And you still took the
- 14:54Speaker 1: best team in the league to seven. Like there's some
- 14:56Speaker 1: silver linings. It's hard to play silverl linings when you
- 14:59Speaker 1: have won a championship before. But I respect this series
- 15:01Speaker 1: a lot from the Denver Nuggets perspective.