• 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

Also in this episode, we wonder if fast-paced basketball is becoming the Thunder’s style?

Plus, your OKC ThunderCast hosts reveal inside information about the naming rights of the OKC Arena (the facility formerly known as the Ford Center).

Finally, we try to answer the question everyone seems to be asking after consecutive losses to the Jazz and Clippers — what’s wrong with the Thunder?

They also discuss likes and annoyances from new presentations at the Ford Oklahoma City Arena.

And Blayne asks, does the red river rivalry extend all the way to the Texas Rangers?

As the regular season wound down, I was watching the Western conference playoff standings closely hoping the Thunder would draw the Suns or Mavericks in the first round. I just felt that we matched up better against them, and that our style would give them the most problems. And that’s true; we do match up better. Especially based on what we saw from the Spurs-Mavs series, I think we could have advanced as the 7th seed. But as the 6 games with the Lakers unfolded, I realized that I was wrong to lament our draw of the 8th seed. Because it wasn’t bad luck; it may turn out to be the best thing that could have happened to the Thunder in their first taste of the postseason.

Why you ask? Please allow me to illustrate with an example. When I was but a lad, I passed many an hour playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 with 3, yes THREE, friends all at one time! When I played the game alone, I took the normal approach. I started on Easy difficulty, finished the game, then played on Medium, and so on. Eventually I reached the Hard difficulty level, but by that time I’d already seen every level at least twice, and the game wasn’t as fun when I couldn’t just take out a room full of baddies with nothing but a handgun and the ability to run laterally. By contrast, a friend of mine got the game and just started playing on Hard without hesitation. Sure, it was tedious and difficult, and sometimes not even fun. After all, dying 20 times on the first level isn’t my idea of a good time. But in multiplayer, who do you think dominated the game? It was always my friend who only knew two outcomes to any conflict: to make rapid, accurate shots or die.

I’m sure you believe, as I do, that our Thunder team is only going to get better. In fact, Let’s suppose they will improve year-over-year for the next 3 to 5 years. Then that means that this team was actually the weakest it’s going to be over the next 4 years. Secondly, remember that our expectations for this team soared from 30 to 40 to 50 wins in a matter of a few weeks. Unless you actually came into this season expecting the Thunder to win the championship, then you should consider everything that happens in the playoffs to be serendipitous surprise.

With that in mind, I contend that rather than regretting our match up with the Lakers, the worst thing that could have happened is if we had missed our chance to play them at our weakest. Having advantageous match ups is great because you can play directly to your strengths and expect victory. However, that doesn’t challenge you to find the limits of your capability. I don’t think any other team would have pushed us so hard. I believe the absolute worst outcome of the playoffs would have been losing to Dallas in the first round, say because Nowitski happened to outgun Durant 4 times out of 7 in spite of sloppy defense by the Mavericks. We might have left that experience saying, “Boy, we just need to keep doing what we’re doing, just doing it better.” But we would have remained completely in the dark about where our weaknesses are at this critical time in our development.

Simply put, we want to be the best. That means we have to beat the best. And, I say, if you’re gonna lose, lose to the best. Let’s take a look at just a few of the extremely valuable lessons we got to learn this year as a result of this matchup. First the good stuff.

First of all, we found out that we can win in the playoffs. As Cubs fans, Michael and I have endured watching them lose 8 consecutive playoff games dating back to 2003, and we can tell you, it’s excruciating. What a relief to have a home town team not burdened with psychological baggage, but full of unlimited potential. This team is anything but cursed, in fact, we’re blessed. As we stated on this show in Episode 31, we can beat anyone, but we confirmed that we can beat anybody even when it counts. People didn’t give us a chance, but they were wrong. We had a chance, and a very good one, to the surprise of everyone but us.

We also learned a lot about our incredible fan base. The loudest in the NBA, and wildest and craziest in the country. The national TV announcers could not say enough about the atmosphere in the Ford Center, the city, and really the entire state. Also, I just want to award an honorary Thunder Clap to all of you fans at game 6, who stood and cheered both teams after the game. At a moment when, I admit, I would have felt like sending a jumbo pretzel flying at Pau Gasol, you sent exactly the right message: that we appreciate them not just for their amazing talents, but we admire their character, and the professional work ethic they bring every day to their passion, which also happens to be their career. I hope every player who saw that got that message loud and clear, and I hope some may have a better understanding of what a privilege it is to be part of the Oklahoma City Thunder organization.

But those lessons learned were hardly the most valuable. The old saying goes, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”, but if there is a basketball corollary, it would be “Know your strengths well, but your weaknesses even better.”

We all know that KD is the real deal, and has all the tools to be a hall of fame player. He’s so good, in fact, it’s hard to see what he does wrong sometimes. But nasty defense from Kobe and Artest showed us that he still has room to improve when creating off of the dribble and hitting shots close to the basket when drawing contact. We also learned that he had become too reliant on foul shooting to be productive; against a capable defender who wasn’t often forced to foul him, he struggled. But he was so successful with catch-and-shoot moves and drawing fouls that he rarely actually had to drive to the bucket and finish. He’s going to have no problem learning to do this more. In fact, when he does, he’s going to be downright scary.

We learned that Green is a clutch but streaky scorer, which cuts both ways as a strength and weakness. He knows how to hit big shots, and how to step up when the team is really struggling. He scored 6 straight points in Game 3 when we needed him. But other times he tends to sit back. He either needs to step up to be involved all the time or we need to find a legitimate third scoring option if we will overcome a team like the Lakers.

We confirmed that we are not as strong under the basket as the Lakers. Saying this, I have to give tremendous kudos to Krstic, Collison, and Ibaka, who were given an arduous task and performed it very well. And I’m not down on these guys at all. In fact, I’m glad to have all of them. But none of them, at this point, represent an offensive low post presence. Just loads of hustle and scrappy play which seems to energize the whole team. They all need to keep working on that area.

To go with our weaknesses inside, we also need to improve from the outside. In this series, we shot under 30% in 3 of the 6 games We need our starters and bench players to have at least 5 quality 3 point shooters on the team if it will ever be a legitimate path to victory for our team like it was for the Lakers who hit 12 in game 6.

We learned that Westbrook is already mature enough to excel in the playoffs, and he’s putting things together into an amazing whole. But he needs to find ways to get every guy on the floor involved and not just KD. We have to run better offensive plays, and play less of a two man game when we need a basket. Also, his late game management needs work. This is one of those talents that doesn’t come instinctually to many, so he should really lean on coach Brooks and Mo Cheeks to help him achieve his full potential as a point guard.

Also, though he did an excellent job, coach and the players need to figure out their strategy for using time outs appropriately based on the complete game situation.

Finally, the team showed youth and inexperience, but not because they played poorly. At times in the series that played very well. I say they showed youth because they played so very differently at home and on the road. They never seemed to get their own rhythm and swagger without the energy of a crowd to reflect and relax them.

So all in all, sure, we could have played some other team in the first round and maybe even beat them. It would have felt great, but it might have been a step back rather than a potentially great leap forward to the real goal: winning the NBA championship. Let’s get all those advantageous match ups in the years when we actually SHOULD be vying for the title. When that time comes, an eighth seed and a first round exit will be a big disappointment. For this season, we were there to do our best, to learn, and to find out what we are made of. And that’s exactly what playing the Lakers allowed us to accomplish.

Plus we got a great chant out of the experience. Jazz fans, feel free to call us if you need any help with the rhythm.

What are your thoughts on this season? We’d love to hear from you any time at (405) 428-3865 or hosts@okcthundercast.com. Also leave your comments at our favorite Thunder Blog, Welcome to Loud City. Let the Thunder roll!

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…