It was a big weekend in Charlotte for sports fans, particularly myself. Not only did the Carolina Panthers play their final regular season game, but the Oklahoma City Thunder were in town to play the Charlotte Hornets. Below are some live observations from the game.
- Charlotte fans were extremely excited to see Kevin Durant in person as he got strong ovation when introduced. Durant missed last year’s game in Charlotte with the foot injury. Westbrook also received a nice ovation. Overall, a lot of Thunder fans in attendance.
- Andre Roberson and Kyle Singler and D.J. Augustin and Cam Payne had some head-to-head shooting competitions going on during warm-ups. Roberson and Singler were shooting corners threes while Augustin and Payne were shooting coaches boxes threes.
- Payne’s pre-game routines with the starters is worth the price of admission alone. Especially the Harlem Shake with Steven Adams.
- I’m not a big fan of Roberson and think he’s slightly overrated a one-on-one defender, but he works his tail off fighting through screens.
- Adams is becoming a really good roll man on the pick and roll. We’ve all seen him and Westbrook combine for multiple alley-oops this season, but he and Durant had some chemistry going against the Hornets.
More thunder: Hornets Fan Starts Jawing at KD
- Durant makes everything look so easy. I’m sure part of that had to do with who was guarding him (P.J. Hairston for most of the night), but that’s to take nothing away from how good he is.
- Dion Waiters is not a popular player, even among OKC fans. I was sitting next to a few Thunder fans and none of them liked Waiters.
- That said, by the standard that fans should be holding him to, Waiters didn’t play bad. He had 10 points and 5 assists. We’ll ignore the fact that he took 10 shots, still can’t hit a corner three, and was the only players who received significant minutes to finish with a “minus” in the plus/minus category.
- Of course, Dion provided us with another classic moment when he faked a behind the back pass, drove to the rim, went up in the air, and then tumbled as he lost the ball. I don’t know what happened on that play, he may’ve been fouled, but that was the ultimate example of Waiters being Waiters.
- Didn’t feel like Westbrook played great, especially defensively as Kemba Walker had 32. However, even when Westbrook doesn’t play great, you can tell how much he control the game on offense when he has the ball in his hands.
- Payne’s vision is so good. He saw passing lanes that I didn’t see and I had a full view of the court.
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- Morrow is lost a lot of time defensively, but his shooting can’t be replaced. Every look he gets is a good one and you just trust that it’s going in. Even if it doesn’t, a Morrow three attempt is better than just about any other field attempt the team can come up with.
- Gotta give Singler a lot of respect for that dunk attempt. He never stood a chance of actually completing it, but I like the effort. Now if he could just learn how to shoot again.
- Adams’ “who me?” expression after picking up a foul is the best. Also the best, his “threes in the air” dance after the team makes a three.
- Billy Donovan played a five-man unit of Payne, Westbrook, Durant, Ibaka and Kanter in the 4th quarter when OKC already had the game wrapped up. It felt like he was testing out that five-some for down the line. Offensively, they’re going to be extremely tough to deal with as they can score in a variety of ways and have almost no weakness. Defensively is where there could be an issue.
- Donovan and Durant talk a lot during the game. Donovan also had a couple of conversations with Jeremy Lamb, probably wishing he was on the team instead of Waiters.