[UNCbasketballbumParticipant]

special superstar, special coach, special GM, special fans.  Hard not to root for them.  Great great basketball city.  Puts Miami and LA to shame.

[UNCbasketballbumParticipant]

yeah, that still has to hurt.  Seattle had great fans and Key Arena used to be hoppin with Payton and Kemp.

[TRC1991Participant]

Agreed… but I’m from Seattle so its beyond bittersweet

[laarethekingsParticipant]

 Buddy…. They’ve had b ball there for what 4 years? LA have won it all 17 times and played in the Finals 32 times…. 

[BothTeamsPlayedHardParticipant]

"Puts Miami to shame"

They play the same exact way as Miami. It is isolation offense mixed in with illegal screens. Durant,Westbrook, and Harden are great, but so are LeBron, Wade, and Bosh when he is healthy. ESPN feeds narratives people want to hear not reality. Miami is actually getting a slightly greater share of their baskets off assists than OKC (50.8 to 50.1 percent though neither rate is close what the league has seen from NBA champs) in these playoffs. I don’t know how a person can like one and not the other.

 

[JoeWolf1]

 I think the difference is the team cohesion that OKC seems to have and Miami seems to lack.  They have a lot of the same guys who play the same roles, but OKC’s guys seem to do it better and they seem to fit better.

 

 

[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

They’re similar, but I like OKC a little better than Miami.

I don’t have the numbers, but I like their interior defense better. I also think they shoot better. They’re also a better free-throw shooting team. LeBron and Wade seem to miss the ones that count.

But an OKC vs Miami series would set the record for illegal screens and high screen and roll play…

[BasterdInABasketParticipant]

The OKC organization, coach and especially the fans put Miami to shame. I just cant stand watching Miami home games it looks like such a boring place to play. They have two of the most exciting players we’ve ever seen in the NBA yet the crowd treats these playoff games like a December game vs the Bobcats.

[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

To be fair though… There’s a hell of a lot more going on in Miami than in OKC.

[BothTeamsPlayedHardParticipant]

"I think the difference is the team cohesion that OKC seems to have and Miami seems to lack. They have a lot of the same guys who play the same roles, but OKC’s guys seem to do it better and they seem to fit better."

I think Chris Bosh has a strained abdominal muscle and Mike Miller has a bad back. Even then, I still wouldn’t put it past the Heat to win it all.

[UNCbasketballbumParticipant]

Well, I wasn’t comparing the basketball in OKC to Miami, I was comparing the team support and the fans.

[B-ball fanParticipant]

 Yeah, the Thunder are starting to put to rest the notion that they are nothing more than a boring isolation offense.  They did a great job adjusting to the Spurs defense, running pin downs from varying places and angles, and running creative plays on the pick and roll, with impressive weakside action that you don’t see from Miami.  They aren’t the Spurs, but I like Brooks as a coach better than Spoelstra still. 

The Thunder are already making adjustments and improving.  JoeWolf is right.  The Thunder’s personnel fits together better than the Heat.  

Just because they have a tendency to be too reliant on isos, although that sort of changed in the Spurs series, doesn’t mean they are an identical team to the Heat. 

[akhan786Participant]

[OldSkoolBasketballParticipant]

What do you mean special fans? Its not hard to root for their own team when they were basically contenders the 2nd year they were there. 

[B-ball fanParticipant]

 Yeah, the fans are special because the Thunder are the new attraction in town.  They are having instant success and the fans aren’t used to having a top basketball team to go see.

[Sewok15Participant]

Just look at the Heat arena compared to OKC…there is like 5 times the energy and noise in OKC. It isn’t hard to root for the Thunder and I really hope they win the title.

[OldSkoolBasketballParticipant]

I don’t hate OKC but they will have plenty of chances for a title in the future. If Boston is going against them then I’m rooting for the them to succeed one last time together. 

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