"There's a knee jerk, hyperventilation, lack of perspective in general when it comes to the instantaneous microwaving of sports these days"
-Dan Le Batard
Remember on Wednesday, after San Antonio beat Oklahoma City 120-111 and everyone was talking about how dominant
the Spurs were, that the Thunder Zombie-Sonics would be lucky to
win a game, and Jostens had already started
designing their 2012 championship rings?
Yea, me neither.
After the Spurs won their 20th consecutive game on Tuesday
night, behind Tony Parker's ridiculously efficient 34 points on 16 of 21
shooting, OKC flat lined — the official time of death was 12:08 AM.
In the same week that there was naked cannibalism in Miami, I guess it
shouldn't come as a surprise that the Zombie-Sonics—true to their name—emerged from their graves and ate
the faces off the Spurs in game 3 Thursday night. (too soon?)
But that was just a fluke, an anomaly, there's no way something
that crazy could happen twice in the same week, right?
Well it did, a Maryland man admitted to having eaten his roommate's brain and heart... I mean, the ZombieS beat the best team in basketball again on Saturday
night.
Saturday's victory might be even more impressive than Thursday's #BEATEMDOWN
because the Spurs actually showed up for game 4. It was the first competitive
4th quarter of this series.
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| The Zombie-Zonics (Michael McGrath Jr) |
We saw in the previous two series that OKC can win
close games—Kevin Durant is one of the best closers in the game, but the Spurs are an entirely different animal. It takes a well executed game plan to beat them and OKC seems to have found one that might be sustainable. Putting Thabo Sefolosha on Parker has put the Spurs offense in quicksand—genius
move by Scottie Brooks to put his best perimeter defender on their best
perimeter player and it only took him 2 games to figure it out—his length has caused problems, neutralized the pick-n-roll and made the Spurs play more iso ball. They took what was available for
the 1st 3 quarters and then, unlike games 1 and 2 where he was a combined 1 for 5, Durant
took over down the stretch — scoring 18 of his game high 36 points in the 4th quarter including 16 straight at one
point. G shit!
While you can't expect Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins to make 18 of 20 shots every
game, San Antonio can't count on holding Russ to 7 points
either. The ZombieS are showing that if you take away Russ or Harden they can find other ways to win. That's the sign of a championship team.
So now everyone is back on the OKC bandwagon. We've already
forgotten that the Spurs won 20 straight games, consecutively, back-to-back, in a
row. The fact that they won 34 of 38 before Thursday is out of sight and out of mind and the Spurs being behind by only 2 points in the 4th quarter of a game where
Perk, Ibaka and Collison were a not-likely-to-duplicate 22 of
25 for 49 points is irrelevant.
Last week the Spurs looked like the multidimensional team
that would always adapt, adjust and find a way to get the W, now OKC
seems to be that team.
What a difference a week makes.
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| Rondo put in 2 of his 44 in game 2 (Getty Images) |
Rajon Rondo
Ever since Kevin Garnet joined Paul Pierce and the Celtics in
2007 there's been a question of who the team's best player and leader was. We
got a definitive answer to that last Wednesday night.
At some point during his 44 point, 10
rebound, 8 assist game it became official, undebatable, the Celtics are Rajon Rondo's
team now.
KG might still be the emotional, locker room leader but Rondo
is the floor general. The guy that runs the offense, tells everyone where and when to move, creates open looks for his teammates and defends the other
team's best perimeter player.
He's been a solid all-around player for a while now but his greatness was always limited by a jump shot so inconsistent
opposing teams didn't even bother guarding him outside of 12 feet.
If his 18/17/20 game against the Knicks earlier this season wasn't impressive enough, he's got 3 triple-doubles so far this postseason and an active double digit assist streak of 20 games that will resume at the beginning of next season.
With Garnet and Ray Allen's contracts expiring this summer, the future of the Celtics is unknown, but Boston fans should take comfort in knowing that their superstar, Rajon Rondo, is under contract until 2015.
Other posts by SRC:
- What a Difference a Week Makes: Miami Heat and Lolo Jones
- LeBron James Haters: Be Careful What You Ask For...
- What's Left For Tiger to Prove?
- Is Russell Westbrook OKC's Best Player?
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