Underdog Bites Back

With the the Wizards road record sucking harder than a Hoover, I was hardly scared as they came into the Oklahoma City Arena. Thabo Sefalosha suffered a injury late in the game against Minnesota allowing James Harden to start. I don't know if this makes me a bad person, but I was hoping another starter could tweak something and let their backup shine. However, we were playing the Wizards so really anyone could start and it wouldn't matter.

With Javale McGee out, Flip Saunders was short a big man. Andray Blatche got into foul trouble extremely early picking up two fouls in the first 1:38 of the game. With Flip looking down the bench, I can only imagine what his thoughts were.

"Should I put in the overhyped Asian or maybe the Frenchman that has trouble getting dressed for games. Decisions, decisions."

At first he went with Yi Jianlian. After picking up two fouls in the first quarter and getting overpowered by the unstoppable physical force that Nenad Krstic brings every night, Saunders was forced to put in Kevin Seraphin. Seraphin had virtually no impact in the game except for being the target of a highlight block by Serge Ibaka.

With the Thunder having trouble making shots in the 1st half the Wizards were able to hang around. By the time the 2nd half started, I figured OKC would turn it on and run Washington out of the everyone-still-calls-it-the-Ford center.

Except there was one little problem. Trevor Booker got to play a significant amount of minutes due to McGee's injury and put up all-star numbers. Now, open another tab or window, find out who the heck Trevor Booker is and then look up his stats for the game. I'll wait here...

O.K. As we have all seen time and time again, Jeff Green has a knack for getting dominated by the opposing power forwards. Rookie Trevor Booker entered the game averaging 4.0 points and 2.6 rebounds. Against the Thunder, however, he looked like a skilled forwards that had been in the league for 7 or 8 years. Completely unacceptable. Then again, our defense as a whole has been sliced and diced all year.

Luckily, our stars were shining with Russell Westbrook notching another triple-double and Kevin Durant dropping 40. If either one of them had an off night, we easily could be staring at the Wizards 1-22 road record knowing we are the ONLY team in the entire league to let them win in our house. Yikes.

But, the Thunder finished strong down the stretch played barely good enough to win. For sake of pride, I'm going to chalk the 2OT win as the Thunder looking ahead to hosting the most hated team in the NBA on Sunday.

Here is the box score for the game.

Next up: Miami Heat, January 30 at Noon.