The Oklahoma City Thunder make the long travel west to take on, easily, their toughest opponant of the season, the 41-9 Lakers. How good are the Lakers? Well, they are coming home after a long 6 game road trip. Their record on that road trip? 6-0, the last of which was a 10 point win over Lebron and the Cav's on Sunday in Cleveland. It will be a late tipoff (9:30pm Local), but I think a lot of Thunderfans, myself included, are preparing for a late night so we can watch our boys take on what's been argued, by some, as the best the NBA has to offer.
The rest of the sports world isn't going to give half a thought to the Thunder even having a chance to win this game. Maybe that plays right into Oklahoma City's hands, as it'll be easy enough for the Lakers to overlook the Thunder, and maybe feel a bit too relaxed coming back home against a team with one of the league's worst records. The possibilities of this go up when you consider they are coming off the big win in Cleveland. Of course, you generally don't get to 41-9 without being focused for each and every opponent.
For the Thunder, they go into this game with confidence after winning two straight games at home. The first of which was a big win against a (former?) rival opponent, the Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers came into the game with 2-1 win/loss ratio for the year, and the Thunder took it to them for the entire game. The win was probably thier biggest win of the season. They followed that up with a win against the Kings on Sunday, a game in which the Thunder blew a large lead, but held their composure enough to close out the game with a win, despite the Kings persistence.
Should be fun to see how this young team that has finally figured out how to win ballgames reacts to playing one of the leagues best teams in their house.