And both of those game 7s were against teams with key players injured. You can only play who’s in front of you, but it’s crazy how people acted like they were the KD Warriors

They got taken to a game 7 by a Denver squad with MPJ having one shoulder and Westbrook being the only reliable bench option , I still think they’d beaten Denver even with a healthy MPJ

That Indy game 7 is a huge what if , Hali was off to an amazing start before the achilles tear happened

Forget that, people were talking about 75+ win season lol

I think their regular season record is beatable too. The Thunder are lucky Denver and Spurs got fucked by the injuries early on the season or else Denver and Spurs would have a MUCH better record all together, 25-5 or 26-4 something like that.

Lol Denver was a far worse team last year too. AG tried playing through his hammy injury and MPJ with 1 functional shoulder. This is the most confident I’ve ever been about a nuggets team winning it all that I’ve ever been.

I can’t remember the team starting 20-6 in a long ass time. And this team always gets better in the playoffs when Jokic’s minutes go to 42+

Yeah they went to 7 vs a dope ass Hawks team, and Pierce had to play the greatest game of his life to get passed Cleveland

People swear down we win X amount of games even without Shai when he is oftentimes the only halfcourt offence we can manage.

If we can’t get our turnovers rolling and get into a transition game then we become very predictable offensively with little dynamics. When you then have guard defenders like Castle and Harper, with multiple 7 foot rim protectors in behind, yea we definitely can and will struggle.

I still think we can put up a crazy good amount of wins, but 74 was always LaLaland and anyone claiming Shai was not necessary for this team to make the playoffs were equally delusional.

Not sure I see the similarity other than the fact they were pushed to 7 games lol.

Difference is that was an old ass Celtics team and this is a very young Thunder team. Teams with a lack of playoff experience play down to competition in the playoffs. It’s pretty common. The reason the Thunder got taken to 7 by weaker teams has a lot to do with them being the least experienced champion since… maybe ever? I don’t think there is a team that had less experience than last year’s Thunder team that won the title.

That’s a pretty solid comp actually. The Thunder definitely have that “grind it out” style when their offense gets stuck, just like those Celtics did

The championship window is probably shorter than people think too since this defensive core won’t age gracefully

Thunder do not win G7 in the finals without Haliburton going down and I’ll die on that hill. He opened up that game with 9 points in 7 minutes before getting injured. There should be a HUGE asterisk on OKC’s championship.

They remind me nothing of that Celtics team. Nothing of those 2 teams are similar lol

“still a 60 win team” is a far cry from “THIS TEAM COULD DEIFNITELY go 76-6 or 74-8!”

I remember reading somewhere they had the easiest schedule in NBA history through 18 or 19 games. Idk how correct that was though lol

They had an easy start, but they won 68 last year, so the idea that they could win 5-6 more games than last year wasn’t (and still really isn’t) a crazy thought.

Yeah, that wasn’t realistic. I can’t really imagine a team getting much past 70. Between back-to-back schedule losses and the number of threes teams shoot, the variance is bound to get you 8-10 times even if you’re really good.

This is true

I think he was assuming they would continue to be officiated the way they were in the first 20ish games. Seems the league is finally adjusting and officiating them properly 

Repeats are insanely difficult. The Warriors were as dominant as they come and they barely pulled it off once

Yeah even against bad teams that W/L record is tough. Every team will have some kind of slump, I still expect Thunder to be #1 seed. They are one of the best teams.

The 10-15 Bucks team ended the 28 game win streak of the Warriors.

Beating the piss out of mediocre teams is usually a better leading indicator of how good a team is (across all sports) than record against other good teams IIRC. Ideally you’d like to also beat other good teams, but two good teams usually means a close game, and close games have random variance

Then get the 1st and 2nd pick in the draft 😳

That would be especially crazy given that that’s only 72 games total lol

Shai doesn’t get enough credit I don’t think that team would be good at all without him

It’s so horrifically slanted towards defense and relies entirely on him being who he is

Definitely looked like that. He got his shots despite great defense, but looked completely isolated on offense.

Remember this comment when yall campaign for Chet and IHart as DpoY and all-award honors. 

You guys got this mental roadblock that’s developed against us. I swear it started with Chet vs Wemby but these last few games I’ve felt like yall get this sort of mental blockage against the sperms

It’s called defense, spurs can defend

OKC winning a lot hid the problem that Shai was the entire offense

The thread saying that Kon Kneuppel could surpass Curry in all time 3s after 30 whole ass games of his rookie season tells you everything you need to know about how ridiculously reactionary this sub is becoming year after year. It’s comically absurd.

All the comments i’ve been seeing the last month around how “this OKC team could probably beat the KD Warriors because they’re deep af and stomping every team even when J-Dub wasn’t back yet, and oh look at their differential” were borderline insane, and of course tonight now it’s time to prop Shai up so Thunder fans are back to to “nah can’t believe you guys were saying this was a superteam.” Like bruh.

I, for one, recommend a hearty “oh-ho-ho”

Keep things festive

That username is amazing lmao

Look, OKC 100% was getting too much hype and some of the fans let it get to our heads. But a Lakers’ flair talking about any other fanbase’s “condescending fans” is objectively fucking hilarious.

They’re not winning 70 games. The regular season is incredibly long and their schedule gets much harder.

Respectfully, a Lakers fan complaining about ANY fan base being condescending is peak irony.

The lack of self awareness for a Lakers fan to call another fanbase shallow and condescending is incredible.

Its funny how this beef only exists on reddit. As someone who drops in every few weeks, I forget how toxic it is here whereas every other platform is chill.

Dang that’s crazy how different our experiences can be. Most of the Thunder fans I’ve seen in here have been reactionary to the overwhelming hate in /nba after a loss. I mean, at worst, I think many of us turn a blind eye to some of the absolutely valid criticism, but I don’t think it’s out of malice.

Clearly a foul. OKC to shoot 2.

Cause people are sick of a dozen posts every day about this or that OKC stat, lol. 

The Broncos fans of the nba

Edit: kinda stupid but my point stands

Chet is god awful, dub i’m give his bum ass grace for rn, but chet can’t bang with them 4s & 5s who play defense. he get exposed every time

I don’t think anybody thought the spurs would be a good team this, decent yeah but it’s huge turn around from the past few seasons.

Tinkering is annoying but worth it. Last season is a prime example.

We’ve had 2 straight back to backs. Like the last 4 games OKC played have been sets of back to backs.  WTF is this scheduling?

Three of them actually

The nuggets have 4 starters out injured. They were always going to struggle to get consistent wins with only Jamal an Jokic being healthy.. The Nuggets have already proven this season to have a stupid high ceiling..

Whereas OKC fans have been bragging all season about how amazing they are with no evidence to back it up. The way they play has annoyed the rest of the NBA so now that the ref ain’t sucking them off every chance and they’re dropping games like flies people feel obligated to dish it back.