never know until you try, Fox is being impactful on an injury where if he overexerts because of excitement hes fucked. In contrast you see Williams comes out there and he clearly has one gear when he plays and hes fucking himself up really quick. Some dudes just dont have self control, i know because im one of them.

I completely agree. It just shows how desperate they were to have anybody else that could handle the ball besides SGA. Injuries happen and we play with the team that we have, but it really can’t be overstated how much it changes how we handle everything from start to finish without both dub and ajay. Different actions available in the starting lineup, no one can really punish if SGA passes out of a double, and it only exacerbates dort’s weaknesses too (and he’s already borderline useless against the Spurs specifically). And what happens when SGA sits is genuinely a crapshoot. Pretty much just comes down to whether or not some people hit a few threes or not.

But in the end, it was a risk that didn’t pay off at all, and really only threw off the rhythm of the guys that managed to play so well in game five.

I feel like that’s the thing tho. Hes never going to be ready to play really the rest of the postseason. He barely played in the regular season. Really hard to get a rythm, especially with his teammates, and like the dude above said hamstring injuries can take a crazy long time to recover from and if you overextend that injury it can have lifetime repercussions. Dude shouldn’t be playing but they are desperate.

Seems like an exaggeration to say he was likely to be fit to play in game 7.

He’s had issues with hamstring all year long and last time he played remotely close to decent level was game 1 of this series (off of like 2 weeks of rest after straining it in first rounds of playoffs). 2 extra days probably was unlikely to make him revert to game 1 level. Might be done for this postseason as far as major impact goes.

You gotta be a little nervous. You can’t just have no emotion.

Has Dort done anything this series besides spinning like a helicopter off every screen?

*Caruso

Tony Brothers

Honestly wouldn’t be shocked if he gets traded this offseason if the Thunder lose in game 7

Defensive effort wasnt there in game 1, but he had like 27 on 50% shooting.

He played well enough.

In game 1? He was pretty good.

Lu Dort planning to injure someone again?

COMPLETELY ANALYTICALLY HEALED

I’m pretty sure it will. Even if it wanes generally after awhile, it’s gonna be used in every Atkinson-related thread from here on out.

i still dont know how he didn’t realize what he was saying was about to be the most meme-d thing of his career. plenty of coaches (like mazzulla) think it, but none are stupid enough to say it out loud, let alone in the middle of a presser down 0-3.

Whata the original

Yeah, I’m so glad Luka didn’t even try to come back.

It killed Harden’s athleticism completely, even though most people here don’t give a fuck about Harden’s health

It was game 7 of the finals. If there was ever a game to chance it, that was it.

Probably but he himself said it was worth it to try. You’re never guaranteed to make it back. It might’ve been his best shot.

Even last years playoffs aside from 2 of the greatest performances in history, they would win because teams would rather just walk him in a bases loaded situation.

Wreckx-n-Effect

Rekt

That’s what was confusing to me. If they weren’t desperate, then why play JDub? If they were desperate, then why did they sit SGA for the entirety of the 4th quarter?

They were up 3-2 though. If I was them I would have gambled on trying to win one of the last two without him, then give him more time to get ready for the finals hopefully

Which is funny because in the playoff games he did play (Game 1 against Phoenix and Game 1 against San Antonio) he was the best Thunder player on the floor and the second best Thunder player on the floor respectively.

His advanced analytics when he returned to the lineup in the regular season were also #1 on the Thunder.

He’s an extremely impactful player for them. He further enables everything they want to do.

To put it in video game terms, adding him to the lineup is like adding “+10 all stats.”

He gives them scoring, playmaking, defense, you name it.

A big reason why SGA hasn’t looked amazing this series is because he doesn’t have Jalen Williams there to help shoulder the offensive load.

Did he have some kind of health thing last offseason that he might be trying to come back from? I haven’t followed the Thunder closely enough to know that level of detail, but all the chatter I’ve heard has sounded like he’s been off just about all year.

So many Jdub for Giannis posts flood this sub and the thunder sub after every L it’s crazy lol

plenty of poverty teams like the nets to trade for an injury prone player

I think most teams in the league would take that chance to get a 2-way stud like him. He was All-NBa last year and those guys are hardly ever available.

Teams that have to take a big swing to become contenders. Him being injury prone is problematic for the thunder because they are competing every year so they can’t afford that risk. As a lakers fan I’d love to have Jdub on a max post bron but we don’t have the assets for that trade. Teams like the rockets, blazers, Detroit, or really any team without 2 star players could use him.

I mean, this is probably better long term for our number 2 guy.

Reported he wasn’t feeling much pain, gave it a go at game-speed, clearly wasn’t ready, didn’t injure it further, and now gets the next 4-5 months to fully heal/recover/rebuild.

Game 7 will be determined by how good/bad Caruso and McCain are. Thunder are 3-1 when either Caruso or McCain score double digits points, but are 0-2 when both or 1 of them scores less than 10 points.

Because anyone who watched game 6 knows he cant’t actually play right now.

It did. But with him and Mitchell out they have nobody else to handle the ball.

JDub

JWill is the smiley one.

Harden box score ass but he was still needed for the Nets in the game 6 and game 7. He was the only guy there to hit KD in his spots and take ball handling pressure of him.

This needs to start happening… Lol

Foster’s got a gigantic ego that makes it pretty obvious when he’s biased towards certain players and teams and he loves to make himself the main character, but in the actual minute to minute, he’s not bad at the actual “Ref” part of the job.

Tony Brothers is actually inept to an extent that Is almost astonishing. That, or he is actively malicious.

To be clear, this is a low bar, they’re both ass and Zarba should do game 7, but I would take Foster over Brothers 100 out of 100 times.