Record: 39-33
This is really bad. Dylan Harper is going to be out for the playoffs. He’s hurt his hamstring multiple times during the season. Look at what Jalen “Rottweiler” Williams has been doing this year. Refusing to allow the required time needed to adequately recover from a hamstring strain and it has ruined his season while making the Thunder obviously better with Ajay Mitchell playing in Rottweiler’s spot. And we’re supposed to believe that Dylan Harper is going to be able to have “recovery” and then turn around and play in these games that could not be any more demanding? With less than 48 hours between each game? No. It’s over. We had one game to have fun with the optimal version of this Spurs team (more Dylan Harper, less De’Aaron Fox), and now that’s over and the Thunder are going to win because their backup ballhandlers are Ajay Mitchell and zesty Jared McCain. Not Jordan McLaughlin. This sucks. Let’s all go lick Sam Presti’s balls for embarrassing the NBA again because he managed to make a team completely stocked with above-average NBA players. Seriously, that Ajay Mitchell and zesty Jared McCain backcourt would be better than ten other NBA teams’ starting backcourt. It’s sad. Another championship handed to Selfish Shai because he’s on the team that has more bodies than every other franchise.
That was the lesson of this game. The Spurs need Dylan Harper for us to have fun. The Spurs don’t have Dylan Harper anymore and this series might be over because the Thunder lost Rottweiler and the Thunder are better without him while the Spurs desperately need Dylan Harper because Stephon Castle can’t finish a game against the Thunder as the primary ballhandler with less than 9 turnovers. And De’Aaron Fox has a HIGH ankle sprain. Do you think that De’Aaron is going to come back and play well after he’s been wearing protective soft casts on both his ankles and just missed two games of the Bestern Conference Finals? OK. If you think that, I would like to refer you to some professional “coaching”, courses and/or communities. Better yet, can I have your Facebook account? I’m starting to get fed up with working in tech and I suspect that posing as an Englishman looking for love with older boomer women who own homes is a great way to get some quick wire transfers to pay for my accommodations while traveling to the States.
Ugh, we’re going to have to watch the Thunder win more games where they miss open shots and just work the dipshit refs. This really sucks. Yesterday, we had Dylan Harper and now we don’t. Dylan Harper was SO GOOD too! Elon Musk clearly told Dylan Harper that he needed to look for his shot from the second that the game started. Unleashed Dylan Harper is too much for even the Thunder! The Thunder! Dylan Harper did the same thing to Luguenz “Haitian Scarface” Dort that Dylan was doing to old Mike Conley. That is, taking him off the dribble and sending Haitian Scarface five feet behind the basket while Dylan made a calm layup with no one helping off their assignment. That was Haitian Scarface! Dylan Harper is a rookie! This is so insane! The big flaw with all of these “first rookie to score this much in a playoff game” stats that are being peddled around Big Media because of what Dylan Harper is doing right now, is that rookies do not go to teams with The Wembanyama in his third year. Even with that overwhelming flaw, Dylan Harper is just amazing and it kinda ruins the playoffs that he’s going to be either out or severely compromised. He’s getting an MRI on his hamstring. Remember when Lord Luka was getting an MRI on his hamstring injury in March? Remember how Lord Luka was out for the rest of the year? Listen, I know that this is not what we want to hear. We want to believe that The Wembanyama will get Dylan Harper back and have an honest shot at beating this Thunder team (and then easily winning the championship), but it’s over. The Spurs are done. Dylan Harper is gone.
What else did Dylan Harper do besides take Haitian Scarface to the weight room? Oh, you know, Dylan also had a shakedown of Selfish Shai trying to prevent Dylan from getting a relatively easy layup during a postup. Yeah, Dylan Harper put his back to the basket with Selfish Shai guarding him and then just did a shoulder shimmy before reverse-pivoting towards the rim for an easy layin. So that was Selfish Shai. Did Dylan also hesi-dribble Hatian Scarface on a blow-by before finishing through Isaiah Hartenstein and Cason Wallace collapsing in on him? Of course. Jesus Christ, Dylan Harper even put that work on Chet Holmgren which led to a shooting foul and two foul shots. Listen, Dylan Harper is absolutely ridiculous. He is a great player already and we all need to thank Baby Jesus for allowing Dylan Harper to be on The Wembanyama’s team. But Dylan Harper is gone now.
This is so ridiculous. The Thunder have zesty Jared McCain and Ajay Mitchell coming off the bench, but they also have goddamn Alex Caruso and Cason Wallace if they feel like just forcing 4 Stephon Castle turnovers in a quarter. It’s a sad reality of life that there are people like Sam Presti who are so above everyone else in evaluating talent that they can ride one generational heist of the Clippers into making a mockery of THE ENTIRE NBA for a decade. With one of their “max” players injured the whole year and making their team worse when he does actually play. This is so bad.
I mean, what more is there to say besides Dylan Harper is lost and we can’t ever feel happiness again? Nothing, but here’s the stuff we’ll somnambulistically go over.
Tony Brothers had two excellent block calls against the Thunder. One against Haitian Scarface at the beginning of the game, and another against Isaiah Joe. That was good. What was not good was how the Thunder had 2 team fouls with three minutes left in one of the quarters. The Thunder have to be in the bonus in every quarter they play. If they aren’t, that’s because the dipshit refs aren’t seeing what’s going on accurately. Yes, it’s hard to catch the Thunder on all their fouls. It’s even harder in Oklahoma City. The dipshit refs have to find a way. The broadcast actually replayed a bunch of dirty stuff that Hartenstein was doing, like pulling Castle’s hair, that the diphshit refs were missing. We didn’t notice any other dipshit refs besides Tony Brothers making good foul calls against the Thunder. We don’t remember who the other two dipshit refs were. Demerits to those two.
Did Stephon Castle absolutely unload on Hartenstein with that dunk? Of course. Was it better than the Jamal Cain dunk on Jalen Duren? No. Sorry, but it wasn’t. Hartenstein didn’t fall down and slide back ten feet like Jalen Duren did. Guys, Jamal Cain ruined Jalen Duren’s reputation with that savagery. Jamal Cain might’ve cost Jalen Duren 50 million dollars with that dunk. Maybe 100. Castle had a great dunk over Hartenstein. That wasn’t a dunk that made Hartenstein’s teammates noticeably wince on the bench as Ron Holland did after witnessing the demise of Jalen Duren. Plus, you have the factor of Austin Rivers laughing like a ten-year-old on the broadcast. Jamal Cain’s dunk was better.
Did we say that the Thunder have the two best perimeter defenders coming off their bench? We did. What we didn’t say was that Cason Wallace and Alex Caruso were refusing to miss in addition to forcing nine Stephon Castle turnovers that made Dad quit watching the game. Alex had a contested middy jumper that he made over The Wembanyama. So gross. The Wembanyama can’t get Harrison “Black Falcon” Barnes to come off the bench and make wide-open corner threes, but Selfish Shai can have Alex Caruso come off the bench and make contested shots over The Wembanyama while also making it so the Spurs don’t have any proficient dribblers. Gross.
But yeah, Alex Caruso was making everything again. Yes, Sam Presti turned High School Dance Chaperone into Alex Caruso. No, you can not point to Sam Presti showing up billionaires as a reason why you can not tax the wealthy because they’ll always find a Sam Presti to work within the new rules and have them escape. The Thunder is one team. Clay Bennet is one oligarch. Sam Presti got lucky with that trade for Selfish Shai. It’s hard, but we have to show up every day unified with the understanding that wealth, not work, needs to be taxed. Amen.
Did Cason Wallace go four for six from three? Yeah, that’s the kind of mess that makes the Thunder unbeatable because, best believe that Cason was turning around to play defense and just simply take the ball away from Stephon Castle. It’s a miracle that the Spurs kept the score as close as they did. The game was boring because once Dylan went out, there never felt like there was a doubt that the Thunder would win. They should’ve won this game by 20. Devin Vassell, our Esteemed Editor’s least favorite Spur, made 6 threes. That’s how the deficit kept going from ten to seven.
Play “Count The Points” with this Spurs team now that Dylan Harper and De’Aaron Fox are out. Go ahead. We’re looking at NEEDING ten points from Carter Bryant, and Black Falcon. We’re looking at Jordan McLaughlin like he actually needs to play 20 minutes and not have more than two turnovers while not being Selfish Shai’s piñata. We’re looking at Julian Champagnie and Devin Vassell like, “OK guys, you can’t be taking bad shots now. You both have to take and make threes or we’re going to get blown out because Rottweiler is out and the Thunder are who we thought they were.” Ugh. This sucks.
Did Chet Holmgren come in and have a respectable bounce-back game? No. Not even close. He’s really not playing with grit against The Wembanyama. It’s sad. Isaiah Hartenstein was the one who answered the call of the wild. Even with all of his dirty hair pulls and blatant holds during rebounding situations. Chet is just going to not play well for all of this series and you just have to accept that.
Can Selfish Shai stop collapsing like a cheat tent on every single one of his shot attempts? The dipshit refs did a good job of not calling those fouls but that’s another thing that the dipshit refs have to take into account during the game and they already have too much to think about while also talking to players and coaches. Just go ahead and never call a shooting foul for Selfish Shai on an outside shot unless it’s obvious forearm contact.
Selfish Shai was really feasting on Jordan McLaughlin. That’s what we watch playoff basketball for. Seeing Selfish Shai score on other team’s third-stringers.
Is it fun watching Isaiah Hartenstein and Alex Caruso start screaming and flexing like they’re some American settlers tasked with exterminating the Natives? Yes. It’s extremely fun watching those two get obviously insane with murderous intent on the basketball court. Is there a person who you would rather have breaking down a zone defense from the free-throw line that Alex Caruso? Not me! He makes contested shots from that area over The Wembanyama but he also throws dimes for layups. Caruso’s mind is special. He uses that mind to steal the ball from opponents and he also uses it to pass open teammates. Alex Caruso is just simply a delight to behold.
How did zesty Jared McCain do? Did OKC Coach read the write-up from Game 1 and immediately understand that zesty Jared McCain needs to play much more? Did zesty Jared justify us saying that we were picking the Thunder to cover in this game because they had zesty Jared McCain and he was going to make the Thunder win? Kind of. Jared missed too many threes. We still trust zesty Jared to keep shooting but he’s going to have to start hitting again to keep our trust. Zesty Jared seems to be a part of the optimal Thunder lineup. The other four being: Selfish Shai, Alex Caruso, Ajay Mitchell, and Chet Holmgren. Zesty Jared didn’t turn over the basketball. Unlike Stephon Castle who had a backcourt violation that made you want to vomit. Zesty Jared also got a lot of rebounds. He just loves disproving stereotypes about zesty players. His smile though after he makes a shot and runs back on defense? Peak zesty.
Fuck the Thunder.
KNICKS 👖 (-6.5) over Cavaliers 🤺
- No, I am not going to take the Cavs to “bounce back” after a truly historic, never-before-seen playoff meltdown. You do that. No, I am going to take Kovid Towns to have a game where he doesn’t play like a complete retard for more than one quarter. I’m going to take the Knicks because they can just stop playing Jordan Clarkson and be much better. They can reasonably hope for OG Anunoby not to be hopeless with his shot. I’m also kind of on a heater with picks!
