OKC - 2011/12 - Thunder Three-peat

[Andrew]

Tough loss indeed, though reminiscent of some your victories last season with Westbrook making a few game saving defensive stops. Iverson certainly turned back the clock there too.

[Phil89]

31/10/10

Oklahoma City Thunder [1-1] vs Orlando Magic [1-0] (Away)

OKC - 10 16 29 37 92
ORL - 36 21 17 16 90

Notes
Trailing 57-26 after a terrible first half, the Thunder started the third with a 12-0 run. They refused to give up.
Thunder tied the game at 90-90 with 15 seconds left. Mullens then got the rebound off a Howard miss with 6 seconds left. Timeout.
Brandon Roy got the ball and made a jump shot to give the Thunder their first lead of the game with 0.6 seconds left, 92-90.
Oklahoma City produced a stunning comeback after trailing by as much as 28. They went on a 16-4 run last 4 minutes.
Brandon Roy lead the comeback for the Thunder with 35 points. Rashard Lewis had 33 points and 7 rebounds for Orlando.

Player of the Game: Rashard Lewis

Top Scorers
Brandon Roy - 35
Rashard Lewis - 33
Kevin Durant - 24
Jameer Nelson - 22
Dwight Howard - 12
Rudy Gay - 12
Brendan Haywood - 11

Assists
Jameer Nelson - 9
Vince Carter - 8

Rebounds
Rudy Gay - 13
Brendan Haywood - 11
Marcus Camby - 11
Dwight Howard - 7
Rashard Lewis - 7

[Murat]

You are defeating great teams man! Good luck.

[Phil89]

2/11/10

Oklahoma City Thunder [2-1] vs Indiana Pacers [0-2] (Away)

OKC - 26 23 32 23 104
IND - 21 38 12 24 95

Notes
Thunder recovered from a poor second quarter to run over the top over the Pacers. Durant and Roy combined for 55 points.
Russell Westbrook played a big role in the win. He finished with 18 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds and 4 steals.

Player of the Game: Russell Westbrook

Top Scorers
Brandon Roy - 28
Danny Granger - 27
Kevin Durant - 27
Rudy Gay - 22
TJ Ford - 21
Russell Westbrook - 18
Roy Hibbert - 16
Mike Dunleavy - 12

Assists
Russell Westbrook - 9
TJ Ford - 7

Rebounds
Roy Hibbert - 10
Mike Dunleavy - 9
Danny Granger - 8
Rudy Gay - 8
Brendan Haywood - 7

[Andrew]

Fantastic comeback against the Magic, quite an impressive effort there.

[Phil89]

Fantastic comeback against the Magic, quite an impressive effort there.

I really couldn't believe how bad my start to that game was. I was close to turning the PS3 off in anger. I'm glad I didn't
-----

You guys think I should have signed a big man instead of Roy. So I offered him on the trade block and these were 3 options I might consider:

Al Jefferson
25 years old - 88 overall - 13.00m x 3 years - 7.0 ppg - 11.8 rpg

Amare Stoudemire
27 years old - 87 overall - 12.66m x 4 years - 14.5 ppg - 8.2 rpg

Chris Bosh
26 years old - 85 overall - 12.27m x 4 years - 11.0 ppg - 10.8 rpg
-----
Brandon Roy
26 years old - 89 overall - 12.12m x 6 years - 31.5 ppg - 2.3 rpg

At the moment I'm leaning towards keeping Roy. Any thoughts on those options?

[Phil89]

4/11/10

Oklahoma City Thunder [3-1] vs Dallas Mavericks [2-0] (Home)

OKC - 34 27 20 31 112
DAL - 28 26 16 15 85

Notes
The lead reached 20 points midway through the 4th quarter, which allowed the Thunder bench players to get a good run out.
Kevin Durant top scored for the Thunder with 27 points, but they shared the scoring a lot better than in previous games.
BJ Mullens came off the bench to score 12 points and grab 8 rebounds.

Player of the Game: Kevin Durant

Top Scorers
Kevin Durant - 27
Caron Butler - 24
Brandon Roy - 22
Dirk Nowitzki - 22
Jason Kidd - 18
Russell Westbrook - 18
Rudy Gay - 16
BJ Mullens - 12
Jason Terry - 11

Assists
Jason Kidd - 12

Rebounds
Dirk Nowitzki - 14
Brendan Haywood - 12
Rudy Gay - 11
BJ Mullens - 8
Kevin Durant - 7
Erick Dampier - 7

[Andrew]

Roy's working out OK so it wouldn't too bad an idea to keep him a little longer. I favour Bosh or Amar'e out of those offers.

Nice win over Dallas, too. You killed them in the second half.

[Axel The Great]

Your victory against the Magic was like the Bulls' loss to the Kings early this season. You're gonna hate me for bringing this up Andrew.

[Phil89]

Thunder and Nets complete big trade



Oklahoma City and New Jersey have a agreed a deal which will see the Thunder acquire Amare Stoudemire and the Nets 2nd round draft pick.
In return the Nets will receive center Brendan Haywood, forward Glen Davis and the Thunder's 2012 1st round draft pick.
This is seen as a move for the future for New Jersey as they continue with their rebuilding phase. They now have 8 expiring contracts.
Which now includes both Haywood's and Davis' contracts. They now also have two 1st round picks in the 2012 NBA draft.
The Thunder now have what is arguably the strongest line-up in the league. Stoudemire, Durant, Gay, Roy and Westbrook.
This is the second time in 2 seasons that the Thunder have traded away their 1st round pick for an established player.
Last season they traded their 1st round pick to Memphis for Rudy Gay, which in hindsight was a great coup.
It seems that they have decided to end their youth policy and are now looking to compete for the Championship.
They have now added Stoudemire, Roy and Gay to a squad of young stars that includes Durant, Green and Westbrook.
After being beaten by Boston in last years NBA Finals, they will be looking to go one step further this season.

[Andrew]

Nice move, that's certainly a lineup built for an uptempo offense. Reminds me a little of Don Nelson's lineups in Golden State, though with a lot more talent.

[Phil89]

7/11/10

Oklahoma City Thunder [4-1] vs Houston Rockets [3-4] (Home)

OKC - 27 27 24 38 116
HOU - 26 22 20 28 96

Notes
Bad news for Houston with Yao Ming braking his finger the day before the game.
Amare Stoudemire had a dream debut with the Thunder. He finished with 33 points, 10 rebounds and 4 blocks.
The game was very tight for the first 3 quarters, then Oklahoma City ran away with it in the fourth.
Turnovers really cost the Rockets. They had 22 for the game. Thunder lead in steals 13-0.

Player of the Game: Amare Stoudemire

Top Scorers
Kevin Martin - 33
Amare Stoudemire - 33
Brandon Roy - 33
Kevin Durant - 30
Aaron Brooks - 21
Luis Scola - 16
Rudy Gay - 11

Assists
Aaron Brooks - 9
Rudy Gay - 7
Russell Westbrook - 5

Rebounds
Louis Amundson - 11
Amare Stoudemire - 10
Kevin Martin - 10
Luis Scola - 9
Kevin Durant - 7

[Andrew]

So far so good with the Stoudemire trade. Looks like you'll have another fine year...just be sure to save two copies of your Dynasty in case anything goes wrong.

[Phil89]

Haha yeah. I still don't know how I managed to save over my old game.

Worst part about it was losing all the Dynasty points I had. Winning MVP, COY and on my way to winning the Finals etc.

[Martti.]

A very lopsided trade in your favor IMO. It might become boring when you have basically 6 All-Stars. Amar'e, Durant, Green, Westbrook, Roy and Gay are all young too, so I see 60+ win seasons for many seasons to come.

[Andrew]

On the bright side, if you do get bored you won't be short of trade assets.

[dare]

WTF you got 6 all stars without giving half of your team, this brings memories back in Live 03

[Phil89]

9/11/10

Oklahoma City Thunder [5-1] vs Memphis Grizzlies [2-4] (Home)

OKC - 32 32 22 35 121
MEM - 27 18 31 29 105

Notes
Memphis tried to comeback in the third, but the Thunder held off their challenge and ran away in the fourth.
4 of Thunder's 5 starters scored over 20 points.
Russell Westbrook didn't, but he did finish with 8 points, 10 assists and 7 steals.

Player of the Game: Kevin Durant

Top Scorers
Kevin Durant - 30
Amare Stoudemire - 28
OJ Mayo - 27
Brandon Roy - 26
Zach Randolph - 25
Rudy Gay - 24
Michael Conley - 17
Ronnie Brewer - 14
Marc Gasol - 10

Assists
Russell Westbrook - 10
Michael Conley - 10

Rebounds
Kevin Durant - 11
Zach Randolph - 10
Amare Stoudemire - 9
OJ Mayo - 6
Hasheem Thabeet - 5

[Phil89]

A very lopsided trade in your favor IMO. It might become boring when you have basically 6 All-Stars. Amar'e, Durant, Green, Westbrook, Roy and Gay are all young too, so I see 60+ win seasons for many seasons to come.

WTF you got 6 all stars without giving half of your team, this brings memories back in Live 03

I don't see the difference between having my team and if I had of started with the Celtics or Lakers.

Westbrook and Green are below 80 overall. None of my players are over 90 overall either. Not like I've got a team of LeBrons

[|)e8*]

Woah.If it was me I'd lose interest very quickly.What a beast lineup you got.

[Phil89]

Yeah winning is so much more boring than losing. I should trade away all my good players for crap ones immediately.

Isn't the aim of Dynasty mode to build a Championship winning team?

[Bucket]

Now you can rewrite NBA history in season wins.

[Andrew]

Woah.If it was me I'd lose interest very quickly.What a beast lineup you got.

I'd agree that stacked lineups can get boring, but this is a team I could actually enjoy playing with. It's not so bad if it's just the starting lineup, it's when you've got multiple All-Stars coming off the bench that it can really get boring when you're basically just trying to divide up the minutes and get numbers.

[Axel The Great]

That's the reason I don't like playing the All-Star games in dynasty mode, it's a challenge trying to get 12 superstars who worked hard to get there, a fair amount of minutes. If it was only 10 players, 2 per position, then that'd be so much easier.

[Andrew]

I actually like the All-Star games as a change of pace. I just dislike having to switch sides to make sure everyone gets in the game, since the CPU doesn't alter its substitution logic to account for All-Star game tactics.