Oklahoma City Thunder 126, Sacramento Kings 96: 2010-2011 Game 54 Recap; Thunder Basketball Clinic Goes Well

Yahoo! Sports Box Score:

Enemy Blog Perspective: Sactown Royalty

The Oklahoma City Thunder win the tip. The ball goes to Russell Westbrook, who looks to set up the offense. All of a sudden, he drives to the hole for a wide-open slam dunk. Game over.

I was half-tempted to title this game a contest between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals. Yes, it was that bad. There was no point, and I mean no point where it felt the Kings had even the most remote of chances. Okay, in the second quarter they kinda got the deficit to within 11, but they did that mostly by getting to the line, and they didn't establish any sort of scorer or offensive rhythm. So confident were the Thunder at the start of the second that Durant, Green, and Westbrook were all on the bench. In fact, all of the starters were.

Most of this game is useless to try and analyze. The only reasonable time to take in what we did is early in the first quarter. And the story there is a story of sheer and utter domination. The Thunder got points in transition with little resistance, scored however they wanted in the paint. They stalled a bit later on in the quarter, but they went to the line a few times, and it opened things up for the Thunder to get virtually wide open shots in the third.

Below: The Kings Problems, The Thunders Successes, Future Analysis, Awards!

Unfortunately, this game was not won solely due to the brilliant play of the Thunder. The Kings were without Tyreke Evans, and his absence hurt like a mother. Luther Head started at PG, but his play was so incredibly bad in the first 5 minutes (2 missed layups, three missed jumpers, 1 turnover, 1 foul) that he was benched for the rest of the game. In his place came Pooh Jeter, who is a decent enough scorer, but is cursed with being 5'11", leading to him being a defensive liability.

No King had a good game. Sure, some of them had solid games, but every player had a drawback attached. DeMarcus Cousins scored 21 Points and had 13 Rebounds, but he also had a whopping 5 turnovers. Cassipi had 14 Points, but he shot 4-12. Jason Thompson had 10 Points and 6 Rebounds, but he had a -20 +/- ratio.

The opposite is true for the Thunder. Every single player that hit the floor tonight had a good game in one way or another. The closest you can come to a bad performance was Kevin Durant unashamedly practicing for the three point contest against almost no defense and going 1-8, Maynor being a bit inefficient, and Nick Collison failing to score. Other than those three things, I don't have a bad thing to say about how the Thunder played tonight.

Moving forward, these teams have another date on April 11th, for the last game of the season. More than likely, it will be one of those games that the Thunder should win, but might not have to win. And the Kings will either go down fighting or lie down and let us walk all over them, with no in-between option. Will the sweep happen? Anything is possible....

ON TO THE ALL-STAR BREAK!!!!

Awards:

Thunder Wonder: Everyone on the Thunder Roster. I simply cannot single out one performance as the best. Just look at this box score. No, really, LOOK. Everyone did their job. (Yeah, you could say Cook, but we all know he can hit threes, especially in an empty gym.)

Thunder Down Under: Nenad Krstic, because I am a shameless Krstic homer.

Thunder Blunders: Cole Aldrich, B.J. Mullens, and Morris Peterson for not deciding to play in their suits tonight.

Thunder Plunderer: Carl Landry, 8 Points, 4 Rebounds, 3 Assists, -3 +/- Ratio.

Next Game: Versus the Los Angeles Clippers, Tuesday, February 22nd, 7 PM Central Standard Time