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“Daddy, who is number 24?” Mason asked me last night in reference to the sea of purple and yellow Kobe Bryant jerseys roaming around the Ford Center. A few minutes later, Mason, me, and the other eighteen thousand people in attendance were shown, in person, just who number 24 was and what he does. Coming off a decisive win over the Minnesota Timberwolves and last week’s surprise victory over the San Antonio Spurs, there was a buzz in the Ford Center, a little bit of hope that maybe — just maybe — the Thunder had a chance of holding their own against the Lakers.

For the Thunder, it was a Cinderella story come true. Unfortunately it wasn’t the part where Cinderella meets her Fairy Godmother and has her wishes granted, but the part where everybody is mean to her and treats her like the stepchild she is. The Lakers made the first bucket of the game and held on to the lead the entire evening. By the end of the first quarter the team from L.A. had established who was in charge by leading by 17. From there things went downhill, and by half time the Lakers were ahead 62-38.

That’s not to say that the Thunder didn’t have their share of good plays. We had pretty good success with a bounce-pass-to-baseline play multiple times, pulled off several dunks and even handed out a couple of aerial rejections that had the crowd on their feet. Unfortunately, the Lakers had answers to all of those things, and we had none in turn for their starting line up who was able to penetrate our defense with ease, sink free throw after free throw, and, when dared, drop three pointers at will.

Being a school night and with the game well out of hand, Mason and I slipped out in the fourth and beat the parking garage traffic while listening to the final nails being driven into the Thunder’s coffin on the radio. Final score, 89-107, Lakers win.

The highlight of Mason’s night wasn’t the game, but the opportunity to meet all the Thunder Girls and have his game book autographed by them. The highlight of Daddy’s night was taking pictures with his cell phone of this event.

Earlier tonight the 25th-ranked OKC Thunder took on the 18th-ranked Philadelphia 76ers. It was my 12th Thunder game to attend in person this season, and my and Mason’s first since the team adopted their new mascot, Rumble the Bison.

The Thunder came out strong and led by 8 early in the first (13-5) and held the lead for much of the first half, which is pretty amazing considering our two best scorers (Durant and Green) are out due to injuries. After taking the lead the Thunder did the same thing they always do — they blew it while forgetting how to play defense. The 76ers performed dunk after dunk while the Thunder just stood around, picking their noses. On one play I watched one of the 76ers waltz through three Thunder defenders and dunk it hard while our guys just stood around flat-footed, looking at one another.

For almost a solid quarter Loud City screamed at the Thunder to do something right. The 76ers stole the ball practically at will and dunked so many times I lost count. But at the beginning of the second quarter the Thunder went on a 20-2 run, which pretty much sealed the deal early in the game. NBA veteran Malik Rose and Nenad Krstic combined for 34 points, close to half of the Thunder’s total score, 89-74.

Earlier in the season I bet my buddy Tim Dog lunch that the Thunder wouldn’t win 18 games this season (this was back when they were on par to win about 9). Tonight’s win brings the total to 17 wins. I hope Tim Dog likes spit sandwiches …

(Mason wanted me to add that tonight was glow-stick night and the first 5,000 kids got free glow-sticks. He also said that the corn dog he ate was very good.)

The surprising part of tonight’s game against the Utah Jazz wasn’t that the game ended with a twenty-one point difference; the surprise came in the fact that the Thunder were the ones that were twenty-one points ahead!

The Jazz came into tonight’s game with a simple plan — shoot lots of shots from the three-point line (or darn close to it), and occasionally drive to the hoop. It seemed like the Jazz missed almost every shot from the outside, and the Thunder were defenseless against them every time they went inside. Based on that you would have thought the Jazz would have simply continued to run straight to the basket on ever possession. They didn’t; instead they continued to shoot from the outside as if John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek were still on the team.

The Thunder on the other hand actually looked — dare I say — good? Offensive plays were run successfully and there were several successful defense plays (including one that broke up a potential alley-oop). New center Nenad Krstic earned his keep tonight by dropping three buckets in a row and constantly competing for rebounds at both ends of the floor. I didn’t notice this until tonight but the Thunder’s free throws look 10x better than the last time I saw them in person. I suspect the team has been shooting an awful lot of them in practice lately. The Thunder were able to keep the number of turnovers in the fourth (relatively) low, and although we appeared defenseless every single time the Jazz drove to the rim, for some reason they didn’t do it enough. Plus, having three players (Westbrook, Durant and Green) all score 20+ doesn’t hurt your odds of winning either. Thunder wins it, 114-93.

We’ll see if this is the start of something or just a fluke this weekend as the Thunder take on Detroit on Friday and Miami on Sunday.

The last time I went to a Thunder game the team was 1-10 and they had lost all four games I attended. Now ranked dead last with a record of 2 wins and 23 losses, the Oklahoma City Thunder took on the 24th ranked Los Angeles Clippers.

While the Thunder may have been in the Ford Center, there was no lightning to be found. The game started close with a score of 4-4, and five minutes later the Clippers were up by 14. The rest of the night was classic Thunder basketball, with our team getting within striking distance and then blowing any gained ground with boneheaded play after play. The Thunder missed over a dozen opportunities to tie the game or take the lead, but instead opted for taking impossible flailing fade away jumpers, three-point shots from way outside the arc, or drawing fouls and then missing their free throws. Desmond Mason (one of our favorite players) apparently attended the Shaq School of Free Throw Shooting; his technique was terrible, the results were predictable.

The Thunder have to do something extraordinarily idiotic to surprise me these days, which unfortunately they typically manage to do. Tonight’s forehead-smacking event came from Kevin Durant, who fouled Clipper Baron Davis on a three-point attempt with 1.8 seconds left to go in the third quarter. Davis’ shot had no chance of going in; instead, he sunk all three free throws, taking the wind out of the Thunder’s sails and boosting their lead heading into the fourth quarter. Final score: Clippers 98, Thunder 88.

As Luke once said about Darth Vader, “there is good in him, I feel it.” Jeff Green swished his free throw attempts with ease and Westbrook helped rally the team while behind, but with 20 turnovers (8 in the fourth quarter), 10 missed free throws and a shot percentage of less than 50%, no one player could save the sinking ship tonight.

One thing I should note; I don’t know if it was the weather or if the Clippers aren’t a big draw, but the Ford Center was noticeably empty tonight. Our row had 25 seats and only six were occupied. There were six rows of 25 seats above us and during the fourth quarter, they were all empty. My friend Bob at work said people were giving tickets away the last time he was downtown. Another friend confirmed the same thing this evening.

In related news, the worst NBA record of all time is 9-73, earned by the 1972/73 Philadelphia 76ers. With a 2-24 record, we’ve currently won 7.69% of our games. A 9-73 record requires a team to win 12.32% of their games. Maybe we’re on track for a record this year after all.

Actually the Thunder are now 1-10, but in games I’ve seen live in person, we’re 0-4.

I’ve run out of witty headlines and humorous ways to say we stink. To be honest the Thunder hung in there much longer than most people expected against the 9th ranked 6-4 Houston Rockets. With names like Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest, defeating the Rockets proved to be too difficult — even though Ming, McGrady and Artest all left the game at different times due to injuries.

The Thunder kept it close in the first and was down by either six or eight at the half — and that’s when things really got out of hand. In the second half the Rocket’s lead grew to double digits and despite a couple of steals and a couple of dunks, the Thunder was no match for the Rockets. Final score, 89-100.

To put it another way, the highlight of the evening was the halftime entertainment: “Simon Says with Steve Max.”

Mason and I attended another Thunder game last night, where we (the Oklahoma City Thunder) received the butt-kicking most of us were expecting. Last night we played the Orlando Magic. Orlando brought superstar Dwight Howard, who scored the first triple double of his career, while the Thunder’s best player, Kevin Durant, sat out due to a “sore left ankle” (aww).

The Thunder looked like a high school team trying to keep up with the Orlando Magic. The announcers begged the crowd to shout “DE-FENSE,” and each time we did the Orlando Magic would walk down the court, reach up and place the ball in the net. When the Thunder would get the ball the Magic would take it away, walk down the court, and gently place the ball into the hoop. Either the Thunder could not hear our cries of “DE-FENSE” or they simply ignored our advice.

By the end of the first quarter the Thunder was down by 20 (17-37) and some people had already begun leaving. By halftime we were down 29 points. Most people might think it would be safe to pull your star player (Dwight Howard) out of the game, but no, he stayed on the court the entire night, rejecting Thunder baskets at will (sometimes knocking them clear into the stands). The final score (Magic 109, Thunder 92) barely conveys how badly we were over powered.

Mason, with cotton candy in hand and a Desmond Mason jersey on his back, didn’t seem to mind much.

Last night Mason and I attended the OKC Thunder/Atlanta Hawks game. The Hawks went into the game undefeated (four wins, no losses); the Thunder, 1-4. I know I (and probably most others watching the game) was expecting a good old-fashioned ass kicking, and while we did lose, the beating wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

The Hawks jumped out to an early lead, leaving the Thunder in the dust at 0-7. The Thunder scored a couple of baskets but the Hawks stayed out in front, leading 5-16 early on in the first. For all of the first quarter and most of the second, it seemed like the Thunder could not find a play that worked. They missed layups, they missed 15-foot jumpers, they missed free throws, they missed alley-oops, they missed three pointers … and yet somehow the score remained close. At one point I remember being down by five and asking the guy next to me, “doesn’t it seem like we should be losing by more than five points?” He agreed.

Late in the second, the Thunder pulled it together. They made a few steals, sunk a few baskets, and unbelievably went into halftime leading by three points. Nobody thought the lead would last, and ultimately it didn’t, but at early in the fourth quarter the Thunder were actually up by seven. Would it be possible for the Thunder to beat the undefeated, number-one ranked Atlanta Hawks?

No, it would not be possible. The Hawks put all their starters back in and taught the Thunder a little lesson called, “welcome to the NBA.” The Hawks scored 31 in the fourth quarter, taking the ball away from the Thunder at will. A late attempt at that age ol’ classic plan “foul-the-shooter” was too little too late for the Thunder. Mason (Desmond, not my son) hit a 3-pointer with 10 seconds left that brought the Thunder within 4, and that’s where the game ended (89-85, Hawks).

Sometimes a game’s end score doesn’t reflect the feeling of the night. While the Thunder only lost by four, the game never really felt that close. Even when we were winning it didn’t feel like we were the better team. For two years I watched the OKC Hornets blow third quarters and try fourth-quarter rallies. The Thunder have a similar but slightly inverted approach of building up third quarter leads and then blowing them in the fourth. The Thunder are going to have to learn how to close out games (and get some good draft picks over the next two or three years) to become contenders.

NBA.com ranks the Thunder 25th out of 30 teams — not bad considering at the beginning of the season, we were ranked dead last.

Last night was the first pre-season home game of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Susan and I were there to experience it. Before last night’s game against the Thunder our record stood at 1-3, and with Marcus Camby and Baron Davis out on sick leave I thought we might have a chance of pulling out another win.

We didn’t, of course, but it was close — 100-98. Not a bad showing for a team that is ranked 30th out of 30, according to ESPN’s power rankings (the Clippers are current ranked 19th). For much of the game, the Thunder showed why they are ranked dead last — dribbling the ball off their feet, having the ball stolen, missing simple lay ups and missing free throw after free throw. At one point in the first quarter the Thunder led 19-18, and then we trailed until late in the 4th. We went up by one, maybe two points near the end, but a string of missed free throw opportunities ensured our defeat. Down by 5 in the last few seconds, Petro threw up a hail mary three pointer that dropped, making the score closer than the game really was.

One thing I want to mention is that there were at least two fouls, definitely one, that I thought should have been flagrant fouls. One was just hard, the other was flagrant, and neither was called as flagrant. It is obvious the Thunder will need to earn some respect on the court this year.

In one of the greatest half time shows ever, the Thunder pulled twenty people from the crowd and let them attempt to dunk basketballs by running across the court and launching themselves off a trampoline. I am positive whoever came up with this idea did not run it by the organization’s lawyers — what an insurance nightmare! One fellow ran directly into the trampoline, bashing his shins and hobbling away. Another fellow missed the trampoline altogether; one guy jumped straight up and almost missed the landing mat. Of the twenty, five were really good and made it to the next round. Later, those five were on court doing flips and throwing shirts out into the crowd, leading me to believe that 15 of the 20 were real people and those 5 were plants. So many people almost hurt themselves doing this and I can’t imagine they will ever do it again.

In a great big “duh” moment, the Thunder cheerleaders (formerly known as the “Thunder Dance Team”) came out to announce that they have picked a new name which they would to reveal to the crowd after a big countdown. “Five, four, three, two, one … THUNDERGIRLS.” Wow, that’s it? The Thundergirls? It took them a month to come up with that one? When they came out on the court I said to Susan, “Here come the Thundergirls.” It took me less than a second to come up with it.

Thanks to Susan for going and Mom for babysitting.