Damn what a clutch shot by Conley.

[Mullenation]

There is no place for Westbrook on the thunder when Durant will always be the best player. Thunder need to use Westbrook's talent and trade him for a talented point guard and another good role player (probably another big man). Westbrook lost them game 3, and as long as Westbrook thinks he is the **** and takes 30+ shots at the point, it will hinder OKC more than help them. Durant MUST take the majority of the shots 90% (if not 100%) of the time.<div>
</div><div>I actually appreciate Durant being a top 3 scorer in the league more than ever having to play with Westbrook's ball hog ***.</div>

 

[Seinfeld]

by saying that he specifically told OJ not to foul. That's great and all, but if that's the case, then why the 17 did he put OJ on the ball handler during the inbound? What was OJ supposed to do? Just stand there and watch Westbrook dribble around, waiting for another Grizzly to rush up and foul him?

It's funny because you can always tell when Hollins knows that he screwed up badly. He always gets very defensive and starts lashing out at the reporters. When I was listening last night, he was actually pretty calm and collected through a few questions, but as soon as someone mentioned the Mayo foul, he got pissed and really defensive.

 

[Incognegro]

I agree that eventually they'll have to split up but i don't see it coming as soon as you're claiming it to be, and I really don't think it will be due to personal issues as well. Here's the thing that a lot of people are missing and it's how Westbrook has grown into the league. This is his 3rd year and the 2nd year with him being the starter. His first year starting he was more of a facilitator but this year his offense has increased immensely which was needed for us to get to the point we're at now. As long as he continues to to progress his game and address his weaknesses, he won't need to be traded, and watching him in the later part of the season I feel as if I can see that he's making strides already which was evident in the game last night hell even in game 3.<div>
</div><div>Which brings me to my next point that saying Westbrook was the reason we lost game 3 is rather incorrect. What lost the game was a lack of scoring from both Durant and Westbrook, and a surge of good defense from the Grizzlies. Durant was getting the ball and he was missing. Westbrook was getting looks he normally makes and he was missing. Besides, I'd give more credit to the defense that Battier and Allen were playing on Durant in the later half of the game. They were playing him to the wire.</div><div>
</div><div>To be honest though, I can't really get too up in arms when people have that notion about Westbrook's play at the point because you don't see it a lot. He and Rose are both that hybrid shooting guard that plays the point. The main reason Rose doesn't get criticized nearly as much for his style of play is because he basically is Chicago's team and also he plays more under control than Westbrook does, but when it's all said and done, they're both the same style of point guard which is vital to the offense of both teams. I'll be the first to admit that Westbrook will kill us at times, but that's just the gamble that Scott Brooks is willing to take with his style. What he's capable of doing on the offensive and defensive ends is just too important to our style to say that we already need to consider trading him. Even though I may be a little bias, because I've been following the team for a while, that reasoning just doesn't make sense to me.</div>

 

[seshomoru]

It was a huge WTF decision, and it wasn't even brought up during the game. He can pass SOME of the blame onto the assistants. That I can see. One of them should have spoken up. Heck, OJ should have spoken up.

I hate to get on Hollins too much, because he has managed to get this team farther than the franchise has ever gone. However, he's cost the Grizz two games already. First was the terrible defensive set when Neal drained the three in the Spurs series. Second was last night when he got his best offensive threat at the time fouled out.

 

[cheat2win]

nm

 

[RebelBruiser]

A few years back we had both Chris Warren and Terrico White. White was clearly the better player. Warren had the more assertive personality though and he took more shots as a scoring point. Warren was a very good player obviously but we needed to run the offense through White. When we did run it through Terrico for stretches he could take over a game but we didn't do it enough.

It is the same thing I see in Westbrook/Durant. Durant isn't selfish enough and Westbrook plays too selfish.

Westbrook had 40 points last night on 33 shots. Those are Iverson like numbers. A lot of players can get 40 on 33 shots. Again I will say that as a Grizzly fan I feel good about our chances as long as Westbrook is trying to be the go to guy. If he starts deferring to Durant we don't have a chance. Westbrook is going to determine whether we win or not. The more shots he takes the better. I mean that as no disrespect because he's a great player. He's just not the best player on his team by any means. The same will go for Gay when he comes back next year. Zach will still need to be the guy with Rudy playing off Zach. Rudy's a great player but the team will be better running through Zach.

 

[Incognegro]

And honestly, even though you're a Bear, i'll admit you bring a lot of good arguments on the board that I tend to agree with a lot of times, but this one I'm just going to have to respectfully disagree on. I didn't really watch you guys that much when yall had White, but I have seen Chris Warren and from what I can see I can't see him being near the caliber of athlete that Westbrook is. I understand you're talking about the situation more so than the athletes, but hear me out on this one.<div>
</div><div>The point that I'm making is that Westbrook is really a 2 guard playing the 1. That's why when you hear Scott Brooks talk about his play at the position, he mentions the fact that Westbrook is better suited in his hybrid role. I do wonder how good our offense could be if we had a true point guard and moved Westbrook to the 2 and have Sefalosha come off the bench, but to be honest I prefer this style at the moment. And to say that he hogs the ball all the time really shows me that most people are really being critical more so from the later part of the season. He had 5 assists last night and that was still below his average which is at around 8. And anyone who watched the past 2 games can't tell me he wasn't dishing the ball. What people are really failing to see is that He and Durant are our main sure points of offense. Ibaka can have a great night when he's on, but that's not often, and Sefalosha and Perkins are not going to be our main options for points.</div><div>
</div><div>So as far as Westbrook taking 33 shots, as far as I can say is let him. If he doesn't shoot the ball, we don't win. He's not a true point guard and he was never meant to be. Where you are right though is that he does have habits of not giving it to Durant when he should. No one will refute that. But I'm not as worried about that as you can tell he's learning when to pass the ball under certain situations. As far as last night, he really didn't have a lot of those bad moments either. As long as he's learning and playing as hard as he has I really can't complain. That's why that talk about using him as trade bait sounded ridiculous to me. That's just not someone we can easily risk replacing.</div>