Good morning. Holy smokes. Good morning. Let’s basketball.
The Warriors went back-to-back (in terms of losing games)
Good morning. We have that and more in Wednesday’s NBA newsletter.
THIS IS HAPPENING: On Monday, the Warriors received salvation from the league office. On Tuesday, the Thunder snatched it away. OKC blitzed Golden State from the start, held on through a few rough patches (including a classic Klay Thompson run) and finished with a 118-94 victory that puts them up 3-1 in the series. Russell Westbrook had 36-11-11. Kevin Durant had 26-11 but also four steals and three blocks. Scary.
Scary.
PRETTY CLOSE: In the postgame, Klay seemed heartened by the Warriors racking up 40 assists. Then he was told they only had 15 assists. Heck, they only had 33 made baskets! Poor Klay.
UGH: Draymond Green and Westbrook kept up their kick war. No footsies!
SERENDIPITY: Before the game, I wrote about how, despite stats indicating the Warriors’ small lineup would destroy the Thunder’s small lineup, OKC’s version worked extraordinarily well in Game 3. It happened again in Game 4, too.
FULCRUM GAME: The critical Game 5 of the East finals is at 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. Toronto tries to build on what they did at home, Cleveland tries to right the ship. This is going to be fun.
THE PROBLEM: Zach Lowe breaks down Cleveland’s atrocious pick-and-roll defense with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
NUMBERS ON THE BOARD: Mike Wilbon wrote about the lack of embrace of advanced analytics among blacks in and around the game, including players. There was some swift pushback because Wilbon has criticized the move toward big data vociferously over the years. But it’s an absolutely valid issue that must be considered. That said, while I was heartened to see the whipsmart Amin Elhassan quoted in the piece, I’m pretty stunned Wilbon didn’t reach out to the Wall Street Journal’s Chris Herring. I daresay no non-ESPN full-time basketball writer uses advanced metrics as regularly or -- more importantly -- as well as Herring. I hope Chris writes on this topic soon. (He had some good thoughts on Twitter.)
SOUND THE ALARMS: Lee Jenkins on Durant.
KEEP THOSE ALARMS GOING: A deep Royce Young dive on Westbrook, who turned down a partial academic scholarship to Stanford.
DIGITAL COPYRIGHT: Dikembe Mutombo announces that he has not given Bismack Biyombo permission to use the finger wag. Essentially, Mutombo just finger-wagged The Biz.
DEEP THOUGHT: How much would Mark Jackson pay to be allowed to join the TNT broadcast for the rest of the Western Conference Finals?
MEET ME AT MT. MIDORIYAMA: We have an American Ninja Warrior blog now! If you like the show you should definitely check it out.
TRUE DETECTIVE SEASON 4: Do you subscribe to Shea Serrano and Arturo Torres’ amazing basketballish weekly newsletter? This week Arturo draws Steph as Mega Man and Detective Shea determines who is Kevin Love’s father in the Meet the Hoopers universe (the Hooperverse). This is important stuff.
Happy Wednesday. (Such a happy Wednesday.) See you next time.
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