• Kevin Durant’s rip move: heady play, necessary evil, or blight upon the league?
• Michael changes one of his answers from last week’s Thunder Lightning Round
• Dissension about what the Thunder need to do in the remaining eight games before the playoffs

Dear Diary –

What a crazy dream last night! I just had to write it down before I forgot it. There I was having a normal, quiet evening home doing some laundry and working on my collection of homemade Thunder bobble heads. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with parts from an old walkman, some old GI Joes, and a little creativity. The Thunder probably don’t appreciate how much time every personnel move they make costs me. But hey, it’s a business, and if it means spending a few extra nights repainting jerseys, tensioning springs, and performing head transplants, then I do it to make the team better.

Anyway, I was just putting the finishing touches on Ron Adams’ glasses when I realized that the game was about to start. So I got my trusty foam finger, hastily brewed hot chamomile chai tea, and plopped down in my favorite bean bag chair to watch the Nuggets take on the Thunder in OKC for the last time this season.

Well I guess that chai must have calmed me down a little too much because I think I fell asleep somewhere in the third quarter. I began to have the strangest dream. I was in the Ford Center on January 2nd , the first time the Nuggets came to OKC, and my brain was reliving the entire game play by play. I said to my brain, “Stop it! You already know how this is going to turn out! Why can’t you ever dream about normal things like screwing in light bulbs or crossword puzzles?” But my brain just kept on dreaming, like the knob on my mental TV was broken or something.

So there was the game coming down to the wire. KD made a great shot to give the Thunder a lead late in the 4th! I whooped and hollered my raucous applause, jumping and gyrating wildly. Then an unbelievable heart-breaking shot from Carmello Anthony to give the Nuggets the lead brought all that crushing down to earth. I railed at the sky. I cursed the fates. I swore I would never eat another Caramello! (I considered swearing off nuggets in general but felt this would be too sweeping.) I seriously don’t know why my brain got so into this dream since it already knew the ending. I guess it’s like watching ESPN classic or “The Never Ending Story” again (btw – that movie totally ends. Big disappointment.)

For all I knew, I could have been reliving the first game but for one small difference: In this dream, Anthony’s shot wasn’t the last one, we had one more. So my hopes revived, and I thought maybe this dream didn’t have to be just like the memory. The crowd and I rose as one. The ball moved swiftly from player to player. Suddenly, Durant was streaking off a screen. The ball is in his hands, he’s gliding gracefully away from the basket as he releases a high, arcing rainbow of a 3-point shot. The shot that will win the game. The shot that will swish through the net and send us out on the streets celebrating an amazing Thunder victory! And as the ball reached the basket… I woke up.

It was already morning. I guess I had been right there in my beanbag all night, foam finger and everything. I’m pretty sure that was the first time I’ve slept with it on. So I got up and made a bowl of honey buzzers (yum!) and started to write in you, my Dear Diary. Ha! I just realized that I still haven’t taken off my foam finger! Let me tell you it does not do any favors for your penmanship. It sort of feels like an extension of my body. But seeing it again reminds me that I should get online and see how the Thunder game finished last night…