Brian Spurlock-US PRESSWIRE

For the first time this season the Oklahoma City Thunder have lost three straight games. The Indiana Pacers beat the Thunder 103-98 Friday night as the Thunder now are only a half game ahead of the San Antonio Spurs for the best record in the Western Conference.

The Thunder didn’t really have it tonight and fell behind early. They didn’t give up though because they never do.

Kevin Durant scored 44 points on 15-of-24 shooting and was the lone bright spot for Oklahoma City. Russell Westbrook had 21 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists but was 7-for-23 from the field.

The first half killed the Thunder tonight. They trailed by 15 at halftime and allowed 54 percent shooting from Indiana.

The energy wasn’t there as the game had the feel of a letdown game after the Miami one a few nights ago. Durant and Westbrook still each played 40-plus minutes as the two played the entire second half.

James Harden was quiet again with 10 points and four assists and just one field goal in the game.

Indiana is a solid team and played that way tonight giving the Thunder a defensive effort they aren’t always used to but should have been after their last two losses.

Roy Hibbert and Danny Granger led the way for the Pacers. Hibbert had a big first half and finished with 21 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks. Granger carried the offensive load in the last two quarters and led the team with 26 points.

Paul George may have had the biggest impact for the Pacers despite scoring only eight points he also added a career high 16 rebounds and held Durant to just 44.

The Thunder proved again tonight why they are the most entertaining team in the NBA this season. This was a game where they should have lost by 20. It was decided in the first half. They never gave up and fought for the entire second half even though the destined winner was Indiana.

Oklahoma City is now 40-15 on the year and will play Toronto (20-35) for their next game Sunday night.

Michael Hickey-US PRESSWIRE

Thunder (2-game losing streak)
107.4 Offensive Efficiency (1st)
99.9 Defensive Efficiency (9th)
95.6 Pace (6th)
57.1 True Shooting % (1st)
51.5 Rebound Rate (4th)

Pacers (3-game winning streak)
103.0 Offensive Efficiency (9th)
100.2 Defensive Efficiency (11th)
93.3 Pace (19th)
52.7 True Shooting % (14th)
50.7 Rebound Rate (9th)

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers meet tonight for the first and only time this season.

The Thunder are currently going through a tough little stretch in which they’ve lost their last two games. The Pacers have been one of the most improved teams this season, currently the three-seed in the East and riding a three-game winning streak into tonight’s game.

The Thunder and Pacers play two different brands of ball. Oklahoma City likes to get up and down and beat you one-on-one. It’s a collective effort from the Pacers that usually does the trick and they play tough defense and do well on the boards.

Oklahoma City has been susceptible in defeat to giving up a lot of second-chance opportunities. With All-Star center Roy Hibbert and super-energy guy Tyler Hansbrough off the bench the Pacers can definitely hurt you in that way.

The Thunder are coming off two games in which they faced very tough defense so they should be in gear for that tonight. The talent factor is largely in the Thunder’s favor tonight.

Kevin Durant should have a much easier time getting looks tonight than he did the past two games against Memphis and Miami. Although Paul George is turning into a very good perimeter defender and has the length to contend with Durant’s. It will be an interesting matchup tonight to see if Durant is slowed down by the two-year man.

Another interesting matchup will be the former UCLA teammates, Russell Westbrook and Darren Collison. They played together in college and made it to the Final Four with Collison running point then and Westbrook as the combo two. Expect Westbrook to be motivated to challenge his former teammate and possibly try for a big scoring night.

The bench is an area where the Pacers are solid and the Thunder shouldn’t expect their usual advantage when the starters come out. It will be up to James Harden so get production from the second unit on the road where they often aren’t up to par.

With three weeks left in the season this is the third straight game for the Thunder against one of the better opponents in the NBA, especially on the defensive side of the ball. They dropped their first two tests and have only done that twice all season. A third consecutive loss is unlikely so expect a Thunder victory tonight.

Richard Rowe-US PRESSWIRE

James Harden’s rookie contract will be up after the 2013-14 season. The Oklahoma City Thunder of course plan to re-sign he and Serge Ibaka at this point. This could become tricky considering that in 2015 Harden will be the best shooting guard in the NBA.

This past week we saw Harden play some of the best basketball of his career with games scoring 30 then 33 points, both career-highs at the time. Right now Harden is coming off the bench averaging 17.2 points per game with a 21.4 PER. He won the Sixth Man of the Year award in the first week of the season.

In terms of PER, Harden is only behind Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade and Many Ginobili as far as shooting guards are concerned. I’ve said before that Ginobili is the type of player Harden is turning into.

Three years from now those three are going to decline considerably and Harden will be all of just 25 years old. There aren’t many other shooting guards out there who are going to be challenging Harden as the best at their position in the league.

Let’s go through the contenders assuming to not count anyone who is not yet in the league since they would only have been in the league for two years anyway by 2015.

Eric Gordon, Monta Ellis, Paul George and MarShon Brooks are Harden’s competition. They all have at least an outside shot of passing Harden but it is unlikely especially considering their current playing situations.

Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

The Thunder are going to have a chance to have on their team in 2015 the best small forward in the league (Durant), a top three point guard (Westbrook) and the best shooting guard (Harden) and maybe even the best low-post defender (Ibaka). That is crazy to think about how good this team’s future looks.

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s kind of important to have a good two-guard if you’re interested in winning championships.

In the last 12 years, the best two-guard on the team that won the NBA title scored an average of 22.5 points per game, significantly higher than any other position. Having a shooting guard who can fill it up is an essential ingredient toward winning championships.

People love to salivate over the all-around small forward but having your best player be a “jack of all trades” type doesn’t seem to necessarily result in championships as much.

Since 2000, only Paul Pierce has averaged over 13.3 points per game as the starting small forward of a championship team. Usually teams that win the title have a defensive stopper as their small forward.

Kevin Durant is obviously the small forward of the future for Oklahoma City and will always be their leading scorer. The direction Durant is headed as an offensive player is (hopefully) closer to the player that Dirk Nowitzki became in the playoffs last season (back to basket scorer).

The future makeup of the Thunder is starting to remind me more and more of the Spurs of the last decade. Durant is the Tim Duncan of the team as the reliable post-up scorer. Russell Westbrook is the lightning quick point guard who is score-first like Tony Parker. And James Harden is of course the Ginobili coming off the bench.

Before I sometimes questioned the makeup of the Thunder team in terms of where they got their offense from and if it could work in winning a championship. But the more you watch them grow together and try to project their future makeup it really makes you see just how good they are going to become.

The key to all of it is going to be Harden flying under the radar and becoming the best two-guard on the planet.

The NBA Sprite Slam Dunk Contest hit an all-time low tonight. And to think I actually had any sort of expectations.

Everything about it was horrible beginning with the painfully forced emphasis on creativity. There were about three good dunks out of the 12 and the best ones didn’t even come on the first attempt.

It’s pretty obvious how now we need stars in this competition now. It’s all up to LeBron James really. He has the chance to save the dunk contest by competing in it next year. But just like he decided not to go play in New York and save the Knicks, he probably won’t due this either.

Utah Jazz benchwarmer Jeremy Evans won the contest with 29 percent of the popular vote. Out of four guys 25 percent would have been a tie so at least it was one of the closest dunk contests in history.

The silver lining was the performance by the TNT crew and Charles Barkley in particular. They were great and provided some laugh out loud moments. They knew it was terrible and Barkley didn’t hold back and was honest as usual.

The three-point contest is really the only decent thing left and I’m sure a lot of people are burnt out on that too. It always seems to provide some drama though and basketball junkies have to love seeing great shooters go through that drill.

Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant had a chance in the three-point contest but fell just short losing to Kevin Love in the finals. The greatest possible outcome of the night would have been is Durant just went stupid in the three-point contest and hit like 25.

Excitement was not in the cards tonight though.

Until the best players start competing in the dunk contest and take pride in winning it, the contest will continue to die and rightfully so.

Richard Rowe-US PRESSWIRE

The field for the 2012 Sprite Slam Dunk contest has been announced today. Thunder forward Serge Ibaka will not be competing this year after he did last year.

Paul George, Derrick Williams, Iman Shumpert and Chase Budinger will be the four players competing this year.

None of these players are big names per say but they all have some hops of course. Williams has emerged in some highlights this year with the help of fellow rookie Ricky Rubio and has specialized in two-handed tomahawks.

Each contestant will receive help from a teammate during the contest, an element that has been present in a lot of the recent contests. It is speculated that Jeremy Lin will be the teammate aiding Shumpert of the Knicks.

Blake Griffin won the contest last year but will also not be competing this year. It seems the only thing that will ever continue to keep the Dunk Contest relevant is big named rookie competing in it and this year’s class just doesn’t have enough young, high flyers.