Record: 43-37
"Même la nuit la plus sombre prendra fin et le soleil se lèvera."
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Wow.
The Game 7 between the Durant-less Warriors and LeBron was the best game ever because there was legitimate doubt about who would win throughout the entirety of that game. There was a clear “good side” that you rooted for (Basketball Jesus), but there was undeniable basketball artistry on the other side that you couldn’t stop saying “wow” at (Kyrie Irving). This Spurs-Thunder game was not like that Game 7 ten years ago. This Spurs-Thunder Game 7 was a game where you said “wow”, then “really?”, after halftime you were like “ok, order in the court, the Spurs can’t actually do this in OKC”, before quickly going back to “the Spurs are really that much better?” The end of the game was “wow, the Spurs are actually doing this. I was retarded for ever thinking that this shell of a Thunder team could hold on against this SOMEHOW healthy Spurs team. I was dumb for that. I’ll never stop being dumb. If I was smart or had any semblance of emotional intelligence, maybe the world wouldn’t feel so hopeless right now. I’m the problem. Why didn’t I just pick the Spurs and allow myself to be happy? Why did I get caught up in this bullshit story about sticking to the plan? Ugh.”
Yes, the darkness that this Thunder team represents was never guaranteed to make the rest of the league a permanent underclass. We want to get caught up in the hype. We want to have Sam Presti be a God. We need a singular deity to guide us out of this rampant misinformation and odious brainwashing that pervades our current system. We want a hero. We want the idea of Sam Presti. We want the idea of a regular, working-class person being able to earn a spot on the executive ladder by giving a sales pitch to the acting general manager who is refereeing a basketball game. We want the idea that people can be as genius as Sam Presti and make fools out of the Billionaire Brain NBA Oligarchs.
We want this idea so much that it just takes one year of the Thunder winning the championship to make us believe that they are some kind of unstoppable goliath in an age of league-mandated averageness. There needs to be something to blame for our present dissatisfaction with life. The unaffordability crisis is not our fault. The winnowing of suitable mates is not our fault. These things happened because humans have psychological shortcomings that strategic people can exploit for personal gain at the detriment of the future. Our grandparents saw Reagan’s perfectly coiffed hair and fell for his sponsored destruction of workers. Sex sells. We saw Sam Presti’s clear basketball genius and lazily bought into the Thunder as a league hegemon. The same mental shortcuts and psychological pratfalls that marked our grandparents mark us. We are not better than them. We are just more able-bodied. Nobody belongs anywhere, nobody exists on purpose, everybody's going to die.
In the case of the NBA, it was Sam Presti’s historically unprecedented eye for basketball talent that made us buy the Thunder Bullshit. Ugh. Why do we have to believe in God? We know there’s no meaning to anything. We know that there’s no reasoning behind the random happenings of life. But we need to believe in something. And when we don’t allow the Lord to be in our life, we start doing even worse things like believe in the Church Of Sam Presti and Ladder Day Saints. It’s not “Chutes and Ladders”. In my house, that game is called “Chutes and Presti’s”.
The Wembanyama is a much better God to worship though. We can watch The Wembanyama and not be overwhelmed with the feeling of nothingness. We are happier now that the Thunder have a clear Kryptonite. Goddamnit! This would’ve been so much better if we had the BALLS to pick the Spurs in this game! Goddamnit! Why can’t I be smart!?! Why am I lazy?!? I wish I was special! But I’m just a creep! But I’m just the same lazy piece-of-shit that grandma is! Fuck! Bitch!
What the hell am I doing here?
What I’m doing here is I’m entertaining the one person in this world who allows me to be The Shadow Manager. Alors, éveillons-nous ce matin. Ce matin.
Who the fuck does Julian Champagnie think he is?! Jesus Fucking Christ, we’ve been saying that he refuses to do anything other than completely physically embarrass Chet “Prison Bitch” Holmgren whenever Prison Bitch guards him. And Mark Baguette kept assigning Prison Bitch to guard Julian! It’s really too bad that we had to have Mike Tirico instead of Ian Eagle for the broadcast play-by-play. Mike Tirico is too starched and lacquered to say something like “Champagnie pops the cork from three”. Goddamnit.
(The next morning):
“Dad, how did the Spurs win?”
“The Spurs made their threes. Champagnie! Amazing block by Kornet. Reggie Miller was astute when he said that was the game! And your man Dylan Harper was incredible in the fourth quarter. No one on the Thunder scored besides Shai. Elon Musk was right to just double-team Shai because no one else was scoring for the Thunder. Shai got worn down. Shai is phenomenal.”
So yes, the first person who Dad mentioned was fucking Julian Champagnie. The best basketball player ever from Brooklyn? The undrafted guy whom the 76ers let go of. The guy who actually had incredible numbers throughout his St. John’s tenure. In a few days when I put my scouting hat on, I’m going to keep in mind that Julian Champagnie was scoring a lot of points and getting a lot of rebounds throughout his entire college career. College stats probably correlate to NBA stats. Who’s the guy who didn’t get stats in college and who was a bust in the NBA? James Wiseman?
Julian Champagnie was given the chance to be the starter by Elon Musk even though Black Falcon made exponentially more money than Julian Champagnie. That’s crazy and also a sterling endorsement of Elon’s coaching.
The two most “grown” of Champagnie’s GMR were the offensive rebound he got bulldozing zesty Jared McCain (Julian’s first rebound) and the defensive rebound through Hartenstein. There was a critical corralling that happened in front of Selfish Shai but the previous two were more “grown man” than the rest. 6 rebounds in a game where every rebound makes you audibly say “thank you”. So that’s a phenomenal part of Julian’s game. He cleans up on the glass. You need that! And when those same players make SIX threes?!? Now we’re cooking with gas!
One of Champagnie’s threes was over zesty Jared right in front of the Thunder bench. Leave it to a goddamn soldier like Julian Champagnie to make a three right in front of the Thunder bench during the deciding moments of the third quarter. Most of Julian’s threes came over zesty Jared McCain. The last one came over a fly-by contest from Selfish Shai. Julian knew that make probably set the game out of reach for the Thunder after he made it. Hey, remember how Cam Johnson went to the Nuggets and proceeded to miss every open three even though Cam Johnson played in a Finals before joining Denver? Well, Julian Champagnie has never played in the Conference Finals and he just made 4 threes in the second half of a Bestern Conference Finals Game 7. How did Julian Champagnie go undrafted? His three-point shot looks so automatic. And he attempts a lot of threes! He’s not retardedly obsessed with the “craft” of taking midrange shots like Devin Booker! What happened that made Julian Champagnie go undrafted?!? I must know how this travesty occurred!
What did Julian Champagnie not do well in that game? Stay locked on to Cason Wallace at the three-point line during the fourth quarter. We’ll never understand how Cason Wallace managed to turn into Miami Heat Ray Allen, but he did, and maybe a part of that happened because Julian Champagnie was helping off Cason too much and allowing Cason to cleanly get that corner three up. Whatever led to it, Cason Wallace definitely turned into a firestorm from three during the fourth quarter.
We stayed on the broadcast after the game ended because The Wembanyama was crying like he just accomplished The Mission. Julian Champagnie did one of the interviews and credited his teammates for trusting in each other and swinging the ball around on offense. Julian hit it right there! The Spurs were passing a lot at the start of the game! They were passing from “open” shots into “wide-open” shots. All while the Thunder had a truly bizarre turnover epidemic and an inability to take layups or clean, wide-open threes. Really, the Spurs came out to start this game and immediately started clapping major ass. Selfish Shai did his best to come back in the game with made midrangers, but the “Count The Points” game for the Thunder wasn’t going to work out with Caruso missing shots. And zesty Jared McCain. They damn sure weren’t going to get anything from Prison Bitch!
Prison Bitch couldn’t catch the ball cleanly during any point of that game. Of course Keldon Johnson ripped the ball out of Prison Bitch’s hands like Zion did to Kevin Knox in that Las Vegas Summer League game. Dylan Harper somehow fully recovered from his adductor injury in about 4 days, and Dylan was driving THROUGH Chet at the rim. Really, Dylan is a rookie, but he has been physically pushing around every single Thunder defender in truly incredible ways. Esteemed Editor and I are going to be having Dylan Harper on our fantasy team next year. But back to Prison Bitch. He was being pushed around by Dylan while he was “protecting” the rim and on the other side, Dylan was shutting Prison Bitch down on offense during the few possessions that Prison Bitch managed to actually catch the ball without fumbling it away.
What else was there from Prison Bitch? Well there was an iso possession where Prison Bitch had the ball about twelve feet from the basket with The Wembanyama guarding him without help. What happened? Prison Bitch fell down like a teenage girl who thought that she could play a pickup basketball game with washed forty-five-year-old men because she scored 16 points in a varsity game. Prison Bitch is “playing a different sport”. Really, we just can not look at Sam Presti the same way we did before this series if Sam doesn’t manage to trade Prison Bitch to the Leastern Conference. Prison Bitch to the Hornets for Miles Bridges and Josh Green works on the Spotrac Trade Machine! The Thunder need more “domestic violence” on their team if they’re going to keep going up against Stephon Castle and Keldon Johnson.
Prison Bitch needs to leave so that Jaylin Williams can fly. Tack Jaylin Williams onto the list of players whom Esteemed Editor is going to irresponsibly reach for because I’m going to “neg” him and implement other psychological tactics from books I read on how to win friends and influence people. Lol, I would never read THAT book, but I read others of it’s kind!
Jaylin Williams started the second half because Mark Baguette understood what was happening. Jaylin Williams fittingly made the jump shot from the free-throw line to wrest the lead back for the Thunder. Jaylin Williams has been nothing but a soldier for the Thunder. He was the only Thunder player with a positive plus-minus and you felt it. Maybe if Mark Baguette had the dick that Elon Musk does, Mark Baguette would’ve played Jaylin Williams more during the preseason. As it was, Mark Baguette only allowed Jaylin to get his dick wet whenever Sam mandated that the more highly-paid players be rested. Whenever that happened, Jaylin would get 30-10-10. It’s not a secret that Jaylin Williams is really fucking good. Sam needs to grow a pair and kill Prison Bitch so that Jaylin Williams can live. Hey, Sam, did Jaylin Williams get more than two times as many rebounds as Prison Bitch in that Game 7? He did! Did Jaylin Williams get infinitely more assists than Prison Bitch? He did! Because Prison Bitch had zero assists and two turnovers! One of which was the aforementioned Keldon Johnson Incident (KJI) and the other was Devin Vassell poking the ball out. Jesus Fucking Christ, Devin Vassell has done nothing but crumple Prison Bitch’s league reputation and burned that ish into ashes. Sam, be thankful that you can get Miles Bridges back. Fuck, throw in a bunch of firsts. Prison Bitch can’t be in the building when next season starts. Go fucking listen to whatever godforsaken jazz musicians you listen to and become enlightened with that fact.
But yes, Jaylin Williams had 4 assists and zero turnovers. He also didn’t go 50% from the free-throw line like Prison Bitch did. Prison Bitch isn’t as untrustworthy as King Theoden at the free-throw line, but you don’t trust Prison Bitch at the free-throw line. Parce qu'il est lâche.
Can we be done with Prison Bitch? Fine.
Did KenRich Williams take the three-point attempt to cut the deficit to 3 with 30 seconds left in a Game 7? After being sporadically played throughout the series in an effort by Mark Baguette to preserve the relationship with Prison Bitch? See, NBA coaching is hard. You have to know when to cut the cord on players playing like Prison Bitch for guys like KenRich Williams. Mark Baguette got too chummy with Prison Bitch.
The Thunder were dropping passes and that never happens. The broadcasters were questioning how the Thunder weren’t preventing the Spurs from dribbling the ball without losing it, as the Thunder do to every other team. It really was strange. Stephon Castle tried his darndest, especially late in the game, to allow the Thunder to create turnovers but there were too many Hartenstein drops, Caruso passes to no one, and general Prison Bitch fumbles. Somehow, the Thunder only made one more turnover than the Spurs. As mentioned, Stephon Castle tried to throw the game late. In the meat of the game, the first half. The Thunder made a lot of turnovers that they don’t ever make and let the Spurs get runouts on them.
It’s crazy how the Spurs come out to these games and physically manhandle the Thunder. Geez, Sam, who on your team embodies getting physically manhandled? But yeah, Keldon, Castle, and Dylan all came out and went to the rim looking for blood. Even Devin Vassell gets out on the fast break and knows that he just needs to throw himself at the rim and get the ball on the glass because someone is running behind him and ready to dunk any putback.
But yes, Keldon Johnson really did that. Back-to-back threes at the start of the fourth quarter after doing nothing besides punking every Thunder player that was in front of him when he got the ball. That was a Man’s Game from Keldon Johnson. After one of his missed shots that was called a foul, it looked like he was really barking to the Spurs bench. Of course Keldon was screaming after every one of his made shots. Who hugged Catholic Hammer on the bench after The Wembanyama subbed in for the last time after Catholic Hammer had that insane chasedown block of Hartenstein? Keldon Johnson. He was the one who made it feel like Catholic Hammer was being welcomed back to America after dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and ending World War II. American Hero, Catholic Hammer. Praise be to God.
The bench was screaming when Catholic Hammer returned, and they were also screaming when the Thunder had that 24-second violation. Bismack Biyombo and the Sweeney assistant coach, especially.
Did De’Aaron Fox inject all of the painkillers in San Antonio that the state government prevents working-class people from having because “they can’t get accustomed to help”? It sure looked like it. De’Aaron played this whole game like a good, serviceable version of himself and not the actual version that has some high ankle sprains. Three steals, six assists, and two turnovers from De’Aaron. He couldn’t prevent Stephon Castle from his six turnovers, but De’Aaron was good yesterday. In the first half, you felt like De’Aaron was trepidatious about jumping towards the rim on offense. Rightly so, considering one bad landing could cause him not to be able to walk for eight weeks. But in the third quarter, De’Aaron was blowing by people and jumping towards the rim. Maybe he was saving the injections for halftime when the numbing would be effective for the second half.
No one on the Thunder boxed out Dylan Harper on that putback late in the fourth quarter. No Thunder defender was really in position at all to put a body on him. The Thunder defense was broken. That’s what the Spurs did. They broke the Thunder defense. Dylan Harper played his part. Of course, he’s my man. Over my dead body is Dylan Harper not going to be a part of our fantasy basketball team next year. He gets incredible offensive rebounds in pretty much every game. It really is crazy thinking about what Dylan Harper is doing during these games and then realizing he’s a rookie. It gets even more amazing when you remember that Kon Knueppel was Scared To Death (STD) during a fucking play-in game in the Leastern Conference. Dylan Harper is icing the game with offensive putbacks and stepback threes over the league MVP!
Was The Wembanyama really that amazing? Not really on offense! In the beginning of the game, The Wembanyama nonchalantly posterized Prison Bitch in a truly savage way that prevented Prison Bitch from doing anything for the rest of the game. The Wembanyama made the first points on a bank shot. The Wembanyama only made five shots after that Prison Bitch poster. The Wembanyama was not the guy scoring 40 points like he did in Game 1. Two threes during the second half. The one in the fourth quarter was obviously huge. On offense, it felt like The Wembanyama was MAYBE a little overwhelmed by the moment. Obviously he warps the Thunder offense when he’s merely on the court, but this was not a good game from The Wembanyama. Good Tiger Woods Fist Pumps, not great offense. Missed two free throws, and while that’s not too bad on seven attempts, The Wembanyama is usually automatic from the line. Were his parents in the stands?!? Where was Élodie?
This series really was about De’Aaron and Dylan getting injured and thus preventing the Spurs from winning in an easy 6. The Spurs were always better than this Thunder team. Especially without Ajay Mitchell. That Mitchell calf strain should’ve been the signal that made me abandon the Thunder ship! Putain!
Knicks 👖 (+4.5) over SPURS 🤠
- We take the team that is not coming off a Game 7 in Game 1.
